24-70 MKI vs MKII

Kronie wrote in post #15046662
I dont think there has been one bad review. I think there are a lot of very high expectations to get over. Every review appears to gush about the IQ and the build. I like mine so far. The price? Not so much. I am still trying to justify that and if I cant then I wont keep it.....

The biggest problem is copy variation. It's not very promising to see big reviewers mention that they had X number of copies that had to be sent back. When someone pays $2,300 for a lens, they expect it to be perfect. Not everyone has the tools and knowledge to test a lens inside out like they do, so they will always have a "what if" worry in their head. I honestly will never buy this lens unless these issues are fully ironed out.

I'd like to remind again that 70-200 IS II was a similar lens in terms of the price point, but it has had none of these issues and every single review of it (and everyone else in every forum) praised it from day one. I think people were expecting to see that which didn't happen. Since it happened with another lens (and another Canon lens), it's not unreasonable to expect the same outcome.

Honestly, this is what I expected from people. Most the people that are **** are people that don't own the lens. People seem to feel better about not being able to afford one by trying to find flaws and hold the lens to unrealistic standards.

Meanwhile, the people that do have this lens are enjoying it just fine.

Watch...praise will be directly proportional to price drops.

I think we all want the praises.... It it just that some of us wonder why they haven't already started. It certainly isn't like the 70-200. Don't know why. Just wish it wasn't so.

Before you ask I have had a 24-70 for almost 4 years now. It has been to Canon twice now for focus issues. When it works I keep it on my camera all the time. When it drifts it is a pain in the butt. More time than not I use my 85 1.8. or my 70-200 f4 when dof is not a big deal because I just doubt how my 24-70 is behaving. I have a handful of pictures I really like that i have gotten with it but usually i have picked another lens. I would like something I could trust all the time.

IS was never expected and the reverse zoom actually wasn't bad. The hood was no problem either. I just wanted the MkII to be dependable and well built. Waiting for the praises.... And the pictures.

John

JLai81 wrote in post #15047427
Honestly, this is what I expected from people. Most the people that are **** are people that don't own the lens. People seem to feel better about not being able to afford one by trying to find flaws and hold the lens to unrealistic standards.

Meanwhile, the people that do have this lens are enjoying it just fine.

Watch...praise will be directly proportional to price drops.

I have spent $14,000 in the last 6 months for Canon photography gear, and I don't make money out of this, so your argument of "people who cannot afford the lens ****" is pure bull****, so spare me your outrage.

TheLensGuy wrote in post #15047694
I have spent $14,000 in the last 6 months for Canon photography gear, and I don't make money out of this, so your argument of "people who cannot afford the lens ****" is pure bull****, so spare me your outrage.

You might try to read the posts you're attacking. You quoted someone who isn't making an argument that people cannot afford this lens or expressing any outrage.

jwp721 wrote in post #15047606
I think we all want the praises.... It it just that some of us wonder why they haven't already started. It certainly isn't like the 70-200. Don't know why. Just wish it wasn't so.

I think a lot of it has to do with limited supply. It's also a catch 22. With a lens with this price tag, many want to wait and read reviews. But people also need to buy the lens first in order to do a review.

TheLensGuy wrote in post #15047694
I have spent $14,000 in the last 6 months for Canon photography gear, and I don't make money out of this, so your argument of "people who cannot afford the lens ****" is pure bull****, so spare me your outrage.

FYI, I don't make any money out of this either and I spent $11K this year on camera gear...so do you want a cookie? I fail to follow your logic...for all I know, what you posted means you blew all your money away already, lol.

In any event, the person above was correct...I'm not outraged. Instead of posting in every single 24-70 II thread and starting several others like you are, I'm actually just enjoying the lens.

From reading your posts, anyone can come to the conclusion that you're conflicted. In one thread you're busting on people who bought the 24-70 II...then you ask how you can get this lens without a wait...then you go back to busting on it again. Not to mention every damn post you have is extremely opinionated. But keep at it...you're comical.

Hey, here's an idea...rich guy like you already "spent $14,000 in the last 6 months for Canon photography gear"...so what's another $2.3K?

you guys spend too much on your camera gears... I'de like to see how you get away it it. I only spent 2400 on lenses this year, and if my wife knew, she'd blow her head.... she's pretty flexible too.

I finally got around to checking out my new Mk II this past weekend. Having the Mark I in my other hand my first impression was like comparing a chunk of heavy metal to a piece of plastic. The Mark II is definitely lighter. The Mark I appears to be more durable because of the metal housing but looking at the plastic material of the Mk II it appears to be durable and I bet it will hold up well.

I started out shooting my comparison shots at f2.8. I found the Mk II needed microjustment to put it on the same playing field as my Mk I. Overall the Mk II was very sharp. My first impression is that my Mark II is obviously much sharper than my Mk I. The separation between the two lenses at the 70mm end is a lot less than at the 24mm end. At 24mm the Mark II absolutely destroys the Mark I in image quality. Just for fun I tested my 70-200mm IS Mk II against the 24-70mm Mk II at f2.8/70mm and the 24-70mm Mk II appears to be slightly sharper.

I found the Mk II focuses much faster and has an easier time picking up my target when in servo mode vs. the Mk I. I was very impressed with the focusing speed. I also found the Mk II was sharper than my 85mm 1.2 Mk II on a tripod shooting test targets. The 24-70mm Mk II definitely can’t match the bokeh of the 85mm Mk II at f2.8 but the shots were much sharper overall. Bottom line is the Mk II is the sharpest lens in my bag. If you don’t have a Mk I, the Mk II is a must buy in my book if you have the cash. If you currently have a sharp Mk I it’s a much tougher choice. I’m not a professional but seek shots that are as sharp and clean as I can get. Because I want this perfection I don’t have regret making the Mk II purchase. If I was on a limited budget I would have to swallow hard before slapping $2,300 on the table for this purchase. In the end I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Here is a link to my test pictures below if you want to look at them. They are full size jpegs that you are welcome to download and examine for yourself. When you look at these (if you do) please keep this in mind:

1. The test target pic’s were done on a tripod and shot at f2.8. You can get the exif info for each pic at the upper right corner of the pic when you mouse over it. If you look at this information the file name of each pic will identify the lens and f-stop.

2. All “pic’s with names beginning with “A”, “B” or “C” were shot on a tripod using a wireless remote. The remaining pic’s were taken off the tripod (handheld).

3. None of the pics were “processed”. They were taken in RAW format then using Lightroom 4 converted to JPEGS. I didn’t use any of the slider adjustments that are available in Lightroom so this is what you get straight out of my 5D III. Naturally the target shots have been cropped.

In closing I don’t care what has been posted prior or what comes after this post because I have now have my own opinion on the new Mk II. The debate will go on but in my book I’m very happy with my copy of the Mk II and have to say it put a smile on my face just like the 70-200 Mk II did when it arrived. To all, good luck with what you decide if you are debating this lens. Hope this helps you one way or another.


Link: http://albums.phanfare​.com/isolated/pOXIeOUp​/1/5761802

If you pick on the center of the first photo in this series it will take you to "full screen " mode so you can see the pics better if you don't want to download.....

JLai81 wrote in post #15047427
Honestly, this is what I expected from people. Most the people that are **** are people that don't own the lens. People seem to feel better about not being able to afford one by trying to find flaws and hold the lens to unrealistic standards.

Meanwhile, the people that do have this lens are enjoying it just fine.

Watch...praise will be directly proportional to price drops.

Plus 1 here.The $1000.00 price difference between the MKI and MKII may not be worth it but still,I'm happy that I made the upgrade.For me, definitely,there is a very noticable improvement with the MKII as compared to the MKI.In fact,for a 1/6 cropped sensor camera,the EFS 17-55 F2.8 IS is even better than the 24-70 F2.8L MKI lens.For me,I think that the 24-70 F2.8L MKII is at least $400.00 to $600.00 better than the MKI version.If only,it had IS,maybe,the $1000.00 price difference between the MKII and MKI might even be worth it.

snowblower wrote in post #15048613
I finally got around to checking out my new Mk II this past weekend. Having the Mark I in my other hand my first impression was like comparing a chunk of heavy metal to a piece of plastic. The Mark II is definitely lighter. The Mark I appears to be more durable because of the metal housing but looking at the plastic material of the Mk II it appears to be durable and I bet it will hold up well.

I started out shooting my comparison shots at f2.8. I found the Mk II needed microjustment to put it on the same playing field as my Mk I. Overall the Mk II was very sharp. My first impression is that my Mark II is obviously much sharper than my Mk I. The separation between the two lenses at the 70mm end is a lot less than at the 24mm end. At 24mm the Mark II absolutely destroys the Mark I in image quality. Just for fun I tested my 70-200mm IS Mk II against the 24-70mm Mk II at f2.8/70mm and the 24-70mm Mk II appears to be slightly sharper.

I found the Mk II focuses much faster and has an easier time picking up my target when in servo mode vs. the Mk I. I was very impressed with the focusing speed. I also found the Mk II was sharper than my 85mm 1.2 Mk II on a tripod shooting test targets. The 24-70mm Mk II definitely can’t match the bokeh of the 85mm Mk II at f2.8 but the shots were much sharper overall. Bottom line is the Mk II is the sharpest lens in my bag. If you don’t have a Mk I, the Mk II is a must buy in my book if you have the cash. If you currently have a sharp Mk I it’s a much tougher choice. I’m not a professional but seek shots that are as sharp and clean as I can get. Because I want this perfection I don’t have regret making the Mk II purchase. If I was on a limited budget I would have to swallow hard before slapping $2,300 on the table for this purchase. In the end I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Here is a link to my test pictures below if you want to look at them. They are full size jpegs that you are welcome to download and examine for yourself. When you look at these (if you do) please keep this in mind:

1. The test target pic’s were done on a tripod and shot at f2.8. You can get the exif info for each pic at the upper right corner of the pic when you mouse over it. If you look at this information the file name of each pic will identify the lens and f-stop.

2. All “pic’s with names beginning with “A”, “B” or “C” were shot on a tripod using a wireless remote. The remaining pic’s were taken off the tripod (handheld).

3. None of the pics were “processed”. They were taken in RAW format then using Lightroom 4 converted to JPEGS. I didn’t use any of the slider adjustments that are available in Lightroom so this is what you get straight out of my 5D III. Naturally the target shots have been cropped.

In closing I don’t care what has been posted prior or what comes after this post because I have now have my own opinion on the new Mk II. The debate will go on but in my book I’m very happy with my copy of the Mk II and have to say it put a smile on my face just like the 70-200 Mk II did when it arrived. To all, good luck with what you decide if you are debating this lens. Hope this helps you one way or another.


Link: http://albums.phanfare​.com/isolated/pOXIeOUp​/1/5761802

If you pick on the center of the first photo in this series it will take you to "full screen " mode so you can see the pics better if you don't want to download.....

Your chart pictures for MKI are all out of focus, there is a good chance your MKI was backfocusing/frontfocu​sing, no doubt that MKII is an improvement, but you are comparing apples to oranges probably.

Regardless of that, what most people complain about this lens isn't how much better it is over MKI, it is the copy variation issues. After spending $2,300 for a lens, nobody wants a bad copy. And since its a zoom lens, it is extremely hard to spot issues with it unless you sit and spend several hours with every FL available with different focus distances. Everyone saw what happened with photozone and digitalpicture reviews, they ended up trying several copies with extremely inconsistent results and are still waiting for more copies to arrive (Brian at least is).

What it comes down to is that youre happy with your purchase. Adorama has mine backed up on the list but im all paid and extremely excited for this. Im sad they dropped the macro feature but based on the testing, they say this lens will be among one of the best of the L line up. It did cost a lot, but all good glass usually does anyway, no surprise there

TheLensGuy wrote in post #15049229
Your chart pictures for MKI are all out of focus, there is a good chance your MKI was backfocusing/frontfocu​sing, no doubt that MKII is an improvement, but you are comparing apples to oranges probably.

Regardless of that, what most people complain about this lens isn't how much better it is over MKI, it is the copy variation issues. After spending $2,300 for a lens, nobody wants a bad copy. And since its a zoom lens, it is extremely hard to spot issues with it unless you sit and spend several hours with every FL available with different focus distances. Everyone saw what happened with photozone and digitalpicture reviews, they ended up trying several copies with extremely inconsistent results and are still waiting for more copies to arrive (Brian at least is).

You are not correct with the front focus/back focus issue in this case. This Mk I copy is not 100% sharp "out of the box". If it was a front/back focus issue the right hand chart would either be sharper at the bottom or top and not equal across the board. FYI, I use a computer and connect to the camera to calibrate all my lenses and this is the best this one gets. This Mk I copy has been back to Canon Irvine twice in an attempt to improve the sharpness with little success. The party line response has been to say it's "within" operating tolerances/specificati​ons. If I use Lightroom and sharpen the RAW file to "~+85" it will clean up to a sharp image. My point here is that any lens out of the box will be only so sharp and so clear. I have four other friends that have Canon bodies ranging from a 60D to 5D Mk III and we calibrate together. It's amazing the focus quality of the RAW shot using the same lens with the different bodies. Many times we have found that our initial RAW shots and the focus quality are all over the board. There have been times where we haven't seen the relationship you would expect with having the most expensive bodies producing the sharpest quality images. In the case of these two lenses, if I adjusted the comparison photos in either Lightroom or Photoshop I could get them pretty close in sharpness but the Mk II would still have better detail and crispness. The only reason for this test and post was to see what I can get "right out of the box". Most people here requested unprocessed photos so that's what was provided.

I'm kinda surprised thedigitalpicture rated the lens so highly considering their copy variation issue and the price... it's almost as if they have a family to raise....

Charlie wrote in post #15049857
I'm kinda surprised thedigitalpicture rated the lens so highly considering their copy variation issue and the price... it's almost as if they have a family to raise....

I saw that The Digital Picture had some copy variation but LensRentals and others haven't duplicated that experience.

From the broad pantheon of reviews it certainly seems like that issue, as with most others, has been vastly improved from the original.