convince me my 24-105L is good or bad

i am getting shots with my 24-70L that i could never get with the 24-105L, and i had my lens calibrated.

i do a lot of people and animal portraits and that was a weak point of the 24-105L.

as a general purpose lens it was great...and I do miss IS and and the extra reach.

that said, my 24-105L was the least sharpest L lens wide open that i have owned, and it was at best an average portrait lens. the 24-70 also has much better bokeh.

i bought the 24-70L and as soon as i discovered that it was sharper @ f2.8 than the 24-105 was @ f4 i knew i would keep the 24-70.

i took hundreds of shots with the 24-70L this weekend and i am pleased.

in all fairness, i think i had an average copy of the 24-105L....and i did get it calibrated which did help. i recommend that you send the lens to canon if you have any doubts.

ed rader

24-70L @ f3.5

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Ed, an Australian Cattle Dog in red. I had a blue one sometimes known as a blue heeler

the owner said she was a queensland heeler but not one like i had ever seen. looked more like a cross between a blue and a red or like a rotund harbor seal .

ed rader

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I remember your experience with 24-105 ed and that is ashame it couldn't be worked out cause I too would not be happy with my copy either if it wasn't sharp wide open at f/4, thank goodness it is. Anyway your 24-70 sure looks nice.

thanx Bluedog -- if i ever move to FF or 1.3 crop i would buy another 24-105L and do whatever i had to do to get a great copy.

70mm on a 1.6 crop is about as short as i can go on a walkaround.....

ed rader

Ed
I did realise at the time that the 24-105L is not as sharp as the 24-70 f/2.8 but i have struggled with lens's less than 105mm. thats the only reason i got rid of my Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8. in fact i would say that was sharper than the 24-105L as well.
like i said as long as you guys think that the IQ of my lens is as it should be then thats fine for me.
Apautre aside i do find that if i sharpen my shots up in PSCS2 i find it very hard to tell what lens i used without looking at the exif data most fo the time. As long as the lens has focused in the first place i know i can improve it a bit afterwards.
lovley shot of the dog (sorry, not a dog person so dont know what bread it is). realy crisp. i do miss faster apatures but i have my 17-50 f/2.8 and am selling my 50mm f/1.8II (and my 350D) so when i get a 400D ill get a 50mm f/1.4 and then thats me finished (card maxed out as well

dave_bass5 wrote:
Ed
I did realise at the time that the 24-105L is not as sharp as the 24-70 f/2.8 but i have struggled with lens's less than 105mm. thats the only reason i got rid of my Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8. in fact i would say that was sharper than the 24-105L as well.
like i said as long as you guys think that the IQ of my lens is as it should be then thats fine for me.
Apautre aside i do find that if i sharpen my shots up in PSCS2 i find it very hard to tell what lens i used without looking at the exif data most fo the time. As long as the lens has focused in the first place i know i can improve it a bit afterwards.
lovley shot of the dog (sorry, not a dog person so dont know what bread it is). realy crisp. i do miss faster apatures but i have my 17-50 f/2.8 and am selling my 50mm f/1.8II (and my 350D) so when i get a 400D ill get a 50mm f/1.4 and then thats me finished (card maxed out as well

hi Dave -- i think my 24-105L was not a great copy, just an average one. and from what i have gathered there are some very good copies out there.

i missed having more depth of field control with my primary lens and this fact became apparent when i recently bought the 85 1.8, which was also a great portrait lens.

my best portrait lens before buying the 85 was my 70-200L f4, which does not do well in low light.

my short zoom is the 17-40 so i didn't get much help there either.

the obvious solution for me was the 24-70...which would give me more depth of field control and is also an excellent portrait lens....if i could get a sharp copy.

i used the 24-105 for most of this year and i really like the extra length, lighter weight and of course the IS but as a portrait lens it was just average...and after owning the the 85 1.8, 50 1.4 and tamron 28-75 i knew i wanted better.

it was a tough decision but i did get an excellent copy of the 24-70 and that sealed the deal for me.

i have finally gotten used to the weight of the 24-70...but i still do miss the extra reach.

ed rader

There was a reason why some of the early copies of the 24 - 105L were not as "sharp " as they should have been, owing to some production problems. I don't know when yours was produced, but this is explained in the following Canon notice for those who have not yet seen it. It's a fairly old post and I'd assumed people were already familiar with it:

http://www.usa.canon.c​om …egoryid=216&mod​elid=11924

If yours falls into this production run, then you have pretty straightforward recourse. Ed, do you think this may have applied to yours?

sapearl wrote:
There was a reason why some of the early copies of the 24 - 105L were not as "sharp " as they should have been, owing to some production problems. I don't know when yours was produced, but this is explained in the following Canon notice for those who have not yet seen it. It's a fairly old post and I'd assumed people were already familiar with it:

http://www.usa.canon.c​om …egoryid=216&mod​elid=11924

If yours falls into this production run, then you have pretty straightforward recourse. Ed, do you think this may have applied to yours?

sapearl -- i bought my 24-105 after the issue was resolved and it was a later model.

ed rader

Glad to hear it - hate to see anyone subjected to the aggravation of a recall after paying so much money . You'd have thought for that amount of money quality control would have been better.

Mine is numbered
UU0867 so i guess that its ok as the canon site say numbers beginig with UTxxxxxx

I work this out as being made in Aug 2006

Am i right?

I've found my 24-105 to be as sharp as anything else I have - it does require some care - moreso than my 70-200 for some reason.

This is one of my daughter (Yes I know the blue thing over her shoulder is bad!). Taken at ISO200, 1/125 & F/4.

Beautiful picture - lovely daughter.

But now you've got me concerned, what sort of care? This is my workhorse lens and I'd hate to have it go finicky on me .

Thanks!

Perhaps I used the wrong phrase - And I'm struggling to descibe what I mean!

With my 70-200 I can focus the once and take the shot and be sure (Most of the time!) that the focus is spot on - this lens seems to just need a little more effort - it may just be that the IS needs to settle down - its not a super fast focusing lens like the 70-200 - its fast don't get me wrong, but it doesn't have the snap!

Its a lens that I love and for portraits in low light its great - I can get very reasonable shots at totally stupid shutter speeds - 1/30 at 105mm is relatively easy - less with lots of care with technique.