The Old Canon 20-35mm F/3.5 Rediscovered

Back in September I upgraded Capture One to the new Pro 7 and found it was a big improvement over the previous version. I went back years to images I’d taken with my Canon 10D and was impressed with the improved Pro 7 image quality but I also noticed how much better the images taken with my old consumer grade Canon 20-35mm f/3.5 lens looked.

Curious about improvement, I found the lens, blew off the dust and mounted it on my 5D MKII. Since I’ve been covering a big construction project I took it to the site to see what it could do on a FF camera. The results were better than I expected with reduced distortion and good sharpness from center to edge. Contrast was a little flat but that was easily corrected in post processing. Being much lighter and with very good image quality the 20-35mm is now my primary lens for this project.

I guess what I’m trying to say is newer is not necessarily better and there maybe are hidden jewels in your old lens box that just need a little help to shine.