Canon 24-105L v prime lenses test review shootout

I have decided to create a series of blog posts comparing the Canon 24-105L zoom against various Canon primes and the first entry with the 28mm F2.8 is available to see at the link below. Hopefully I should have the second test results ready tomorrow with the 35mm F2 and I'll add a link here when it's done.

http://www.nudephotopr​o.com …-review-shootout-at-28mm/

As the owner of the 24-105, I am of course happy with your test results but others will no doubt claim that there is quite a copy variation on the 28mm and that yours is soft. 100% crop tests at the Digital Picture show the 28 to be a bit sharper at your aperatures than the 24-105. I'm very happy with my 24-105, you sem to be with yours, so who cares?

I haven't yet prepared the post for the test against 35mm F2.0 but I suspect that lens will do somewhat better. My gut feeling is that the 28mm F2.8 just doesn't cut it on the 1DsII and that the sensor is showing up its weakness, but I am very glad the 24-105L seems to handle it well at the same focal length. For many years I was very much devoted to only using primes, but this at least proves not all primes are automatically better than a good zoom.

Never tried the 28/2.8, but I doubt that lens is so bad in the center at f/4 !

Testing lenses with one-shot AF could actually reveal AF problems instead of glass problems.

I say give the 28/2.8 one more chance and try MF with live view...

A few years of experience with that lens tells me it's unlikely to improve that much no matter how I do the test. In practice I would only ever use it if I really needed something that wide, which is rare.

That 28mm looks pretty good on the 20D but falls apart on the 1DsII. I did actually shoot two frames on each aperture at every focal length just in case there was a focus question but in all cases they always locked on immediately.

Uhm..
Center crop at f/16 look sharper than at f/8.
This should not happen, due to diffraction.. unless focus is off.
???

Nice review. If you check photodo, 28mm prime gets 3.8, it is not bad at all, MTF data seems to be similar to 28-70L at 28mm. Sample variation maybe?
http://www.photodo.com​/product_36_p4.html

I am pretty sure the focus is not off. If there were 3 closely separated objects going from front to back and I focused on the middle one I am sure that would be the one most in focus and in any case on a 28mm lens at F8 from that distance the depth of field is significant.

rivet wrote in post #9070568
Nice review. If you check photodo, 28mm prime gets 3.8, it is not bad at all, MTF data seems to be similar to 28-70L at 28mm. Sample variation maybe?
http://www.photodo.com​/product_36_p4.html

Sample variation is more than possible. I may have a stunning 24-105L and a worse than average 28mm. I shall work on the second blog post today comparing the 35mm F2.0 to see how that fares, since it has always struck me as being a better lens optically that the 28mm. In theory as a prime it should be significantly better than the zoom.

I have the 35f2 and it is very sharp on a crop camera. Most reviews say it doesn't work as well on full-frame. I am curious to see the outcome.

I'm just finishing up now, so not long to wait!

OK, the updated review with a test against the 35mm F2.0 is now online at:

http://www.nudephotopr​o.com …-review-shootout-at-35mm/