My take on the 24-70II & 24-105II

CheshireCat wrote in post #18408534
Never spoke about brick walls.
I have a few architectural shots spoiled by the 24-105 v1 at the wide end, but I am now on vacation with no access to my library.

Reviews did say the II was better, but still seemed to knock it. Maybe they over-exaggerated. Either way, it is easily corrected, but I usually don't bother...with any of my lenses for that matter.

You must not live near a body of water. The 24-105 distortion appears in every shot with a horizon. It isn't the end of the world, but you lose some FOV when correcting it.

But really, I find the heavy vignette of this lens to pose a problem more often than the distortion. I like the 24-105, very handy and useful travel lens. It does have a few flaws though, which you would expect in a 4X zoom.

Ascenta wrote in post #18408467
I did a little more testing. Tripod, no adjustments (out of Faststone preview only).

I don't agree with the distortion. Here is a shot at 24mm with both lenses both wide open. 24-105 II on left...24-70 II on right. They look the same to me. Well, the chair legs me be a little wider on the 105, but not as big of a deal as most make it out to be on this lens.

https://c1.staticflick​r.com …97705570_2d79a1​93ef_h.jpg


But here is a shot at 50mm indoors. Towards the upper left corner of the image, but not the very corner. Both on a tripod and wide open. I take back my opinion of these being the same IQ. The 24-70 is clearly better. The titles on the books are clearly sharper, and of course you have the benefit of less noise with lower ISO, all other setting being the same.

https://c1.staticflick​r.com …18744392_703c95​5158_h.jpg

If you're doing lens testing I'd really advise plenty of light - and light you can control (it gives a consistency that's critical). I usually set up a speedlight, which I adjust if I'm doing a test with different apertures (basically, halve the flash power for each time I open up the lens by one stop). Usually that means I can shoot my test subject at ISO 100, and between 1/160-1/200s, with mirror lock up and a timer (to avoid any possible camera shake). It's not that "real world", but it eliminates all sorts of variables that could affect comparisons between lenses.

It seems odd to me that nobody bashes the 11-24 or 16-35 for distortion or vignette.
These are basically only X2 zooms but perform worse than the 24-105 at their respective short focus lengths.

fordmondeo wrote in post #18408990
It seems odd to me that nobody bashes the 11-24 or 16-35 for distortion or vignette.
These are basically only X2 zooms but perform worse than the 24-105 at their respective short focus lengths.

Ultrawides are apparently very difficult to make distortion free, so I guess they tend to get a bit more slack in that regard.

sploo wrote in post #18409003
Ultrawides are apparently very difficult to make distortion free, so I guess they tend to get a bit more slack in that regard.

Exactly. Let alone the fact that they have lower distortion at the wide end than the 24-105 (v1), and they are almost distortion-free at 24mm.

CheshireCat wrote in post #18409018
Exactly. Let alone the fact that they have lower distortion at the wide end than the 24-105 (v1), and they are almost distortion-free at 24mm.

That's not true.
At 11mm or 16mm respectively, they both have worse barrel distortion than the 24-105 at 24mm.

It's also worth a mention that the vignette on both the ulrawides is almost double that of the 24-105 at the wide end of life.

What comparison are you making there?

The 24-105L vignette reaches a maximum of -3.5 stops at the extreme corner at 24mm and f/4

If I grab the 16-35 II (a contemporary design I've owned)

16mm and f/2.8 = -4.5 stops (so yes, worse. But we are comparing a one stop faster lens at dramatically different focal lengths)
24mm and f/2.8 = -2.0 stops (much better at 24mm despite being faster)
24mm and f/4 = -1.0 stops (much better)

So the point is, if you owned both lenses and needed to take a picture at 24mm and f/4, the 16-35 would be a better choice. I used to own the 16-35 II as well as the 24-105L. And while I loved the 24-105 for portability, if I had all lenses with me and needed to take pictures at 24mm I would use the UWA because it was better in the range from 24mm to 28mm.

Nevertheless, I still take a lot of pictures with the 24-105L at 24mm because it is my one-lens walkabout.

fordmondeo wrote in post #18408990
It seems odd to me that nobody bashes the 11-24 or 16-35 for distortion or vignette.
These are basically only X2 zooms but perform worse than the 24-105 at their respective short focus lengths.

I notice a lot with my 35mm 2.0 IS and 24-70 II wide open. I don't mind. Half the time is adds to the overall appeal. The other half I just correct it, usually turning the correcting back down about 50% anyway.

fordmondeo wrote in post #18409055
That's not true.
At 11mm or 16mm respectively, they both have worse barrel distortion than the 24-105 at 24mm.

http://www.the-digital-picture.com …&CameraComp=453​&Lens=1073

Notice that once you have corrected the distortion, you are basically left with a 25mm FOV (at least vertically).

CheshireCat wrote in post #18409102
http://www.the-digital-picture.com …&CameraComp=453​&Lens=1073

Notice that once you have corrected the distortion, you are basically left with a 25mm FOV (at least vertically).

I don't really understand that but I'll take your word for it.
Why does the comparator use two different cameras?

fordmondeo wrote in post #18411509
I don't really understand that but I'll take your word for it.

You can see what I mean using Lightroom's lens distortion correction tool. Once the corrected image is cropped to avoid displaying missing pixels, it will be roughly equivalent to a 25mm prime.

He switched to a 5DS (higher resolution) as soon as it became available, and didn't re-do the tests for old lenses.