I am not satisfied with my 24 -70 Mark I lense

Hi,

I don't like much the 24-70 L lens. I shoot mostly models in my studio and this lens has the tendency to distort the images. or they are too soft. I use my 85 mm 1.8 and 135 2.0 and the pictures are great, I even use my 70-200 F4.0 non IS and it is a beauty.

Is there anyone experience the same thing? I am planning to sell it and buy primes 24 and 35 L lenses.

I don't want messages like " I'll take it from you" , etc.

I am serious, trying to find somebody with the same problem and if there is a solution.

What body are you using it on? Have you tried MFA if your body is capable of doing so?

whmeltonjr wrote in post #14642408
What body are you using it on? Have you tried MFA if your body is capable of doing so?

Or maybe send it to Canon for calibration?

Unless you're shooting full lengths with it, IMO the 24-70 is too short a focal length for portrait work.
As for soft, I cant help you there. Mine is very acceptably sharp....a bit soft at the edges wide open but that's almost to be expected. The suggestion to at least have Canon take a look at it might be a wise one.

I had 24-70. It's very sharp.
Perhaps yours is a bad copy.

send it in to Canon for a checkup, or sell it.

Interesting? my is tack sharp and my wife hates it.

Distort? How? Could you post some examples?

you don't say what body you're shooting on...but shooting at 24mm for portraits could have some sort of perspective distortion regardless of what the lens is...

What body are you using...

Start with a front back focus test
post the results on the forum (with exif info)
http://photo.net/learn​/focustest/

That depends... on an APS-C camrea it's a particularly nice range. Near the 70mm end of the range is fine on FF too. It's only slightly less than the "ideal" portrait lengths on FF: 85mm to 135mm. (50mm to 85mm on APS-C.)

Andre is right, though, there will be some wide angle distortion using the lens at the wide end... but in general the 24-70 is one of the best corrected, least distorting of all zooms.

Regarding softness... Did you buy it used? If so, they do get wear in the mechanisms over time, that make for some erratic focusing. Or, if it's new, it would be unusual but perhaps it's not be properly callibrated.

An article at Lensrentals.com discusses their tests of 100+ copies of the 24-70 in their rental stock, well used I'm sure... and explores what seems to go wrong with the lens. Note in particular the chart showing test results before and after a tune up by Canon techs (nine copies of the lens).

This isn't a damnation of the 24-70. This sort of variation isn't all that unusual, though it's rarely seen in brand new lenses of high quality (such as Canon L's). It just so happens that Lensrentals has a lot of copies of the 24-70 to compare and test, and that it illustrates their points in that article well.

Get a II.

Originally mine was bad, OOF, very poor quality at f2.8, etc, sent it to Canon Irvine with the camera body and now it's very sharp. The $$$ you pay for that lens it better be clean & sharp. My vote is to send it in for repair.

An example might help... The lensrental article does bring up a good point regarding this lens and how much a "tune up" can help from canon