Canon lenses: How much better is the "L" series

brief answer? yes.

To be more precise... Lots & Yes

N

Kirik wrote:
"Lots"

Is that what the L stands for?

No, no... it stands for "Loan" and your bank manager will be more than happy to give you one...

For me the *L* stands for Lucky to have a couple LOL!

L = Luxury = $$$

Like many areas of life, the law of diminishing returns sets in where twice the price does not mean twice the quality. To me paying double for a 10% improvement is worth it, for others it may not be.

Hi Kirik,

yep they are worth the money if you are trying to get as close to ultimate quality as you can. However you need to be using the camera to the best of your ability to get the best out of them. Obey the rules, 1/lens length, shoot with a tripod/monopod where possible, use mirror lockup if you can etc etc. they are still lots better than the consumer glass. If you aren't doing the right things to begin with then the improvement from L's isnt going to be as great as it could be.

Well I like them :>

Best regards

BearSummer

Well said. If you don't know how to use the L's to its abilities, then its a big waste.

How does this relate to the ISO rule 1/ISO ?

For example:

Lens at 200 mm = 1/200 shutter
ISO 100 = 1/100 shutter

which to use?

or

Lens at 200 mm = 1/200 shutter
ISO 400 = 1/400 shutter

which to use?

Hi Kirik

I do find that L's are worth the extra money. If you are starting to look for good value L's you should look at the 17-40 f4L or the 70-200 f4L. Both of these lenses are amazing value. L lenses are usually faster aperture, faster focusing, and sharper ( most noticeable when used wide open)

Rob

Hi TommyKjensen,

The rule I was refering to was.. when hand holding a lens dont shoot with a shutter speed that is less than 1/lens length not the sunny 16 rule. The only reason to use the sunny 16 rule is if you dont have a hand held meter or your in camera meter has packed up. Sunny 16 says that if you set the shutter speed to be 1/iso then you should be shooting af f16 on a sunny day (or anything that is directly lit by sunlight eg the moon). Hopefully you wont need to use this rule as if you do then your cameras broken (as we are talking about eos's) and needs to go in for fixing. I was guessing that as we were talking about L glass you would know that i meant hand holding rather than sunny 16. You can push it with hand holding but its best not to, better to use a tripod/monopod/chainpo​d if possible.

Hope that helps

BearSummer

What exactly does the "L" stand for?

Thanks, I had forgotten that this was the sunny 16 rule.