Just posted: Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM lens review

Five Piece I choose not to put any photos in my gallery as that would not be fair on my clients or professional. The same goes for web links. So yes I am a professional photographer who also studied lens design. Worked in photographic retail management in the past and directly for two camera manufactures as well. Also worked for a few photographic distribution companies. I own/use camera formats from 10x8 downwards. So maybe not an armchair expert...

Fair enough. The best tool for a particular job is not necessarily suitable for all situations. IF you are shooting a specific detailed across the frame subject and IF you will print poster sized+ for a paying client then yes, the very best prime will perhaps produce an ever so slightly better result.

However, as someone who is shooting for only me, where I often travel extensively, shooting whatever I come upon, the compositional choices available with the zoom far outweigh any barely perceptible difference in corner sharpness under microscopic examination that might be delivered by a possibly even pricier prime lens. Just sayin' the Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8 L II suites my purposes perfectly well.

Going to 4/3 format is likely not going go deliver superior results compared to FF in many scenarios, especially low-light. Not that these are not great cameras for many photographers, would like to acquire one myself at some point. The Olympus 14-35mm f/2.0 Zuiko looks sweet!

Zuiko glasses are good, there is no denying about that but 4/3 or the m4/3 format can’t give you the same IQ as a FF or even an APS-C body. The best m4/3 at the moment is the OMD E-M5 but zuiko lens needs a conv to work with m4/3 body and AF via conv is slow.
Agree with Five Piece, Low light performance is where the major difference is. I have three generations of Oly m4/3 (e-pl1, e-p3 and em-5) - lens 12-50, 45, panasonic 14. I also have a K-5 (APC-S) and a 6D (FF).

One would imagine that Nikon's AF-S Nikkor 24-70mm is any better... in fact the Canon edges ahead in centre & corner sharpness...

@Infared: Would you have the same feeling for a different brand if they had a well-known issue with the mirror falling off from one of their best cameras?

If a company would make such a schlock decision in the "engineering" of the lens and thento put this $1000+ product on retailers shelves for sale...um...it tells me a LOT about the basic mentality of that company. Finito!
...would make one wonder where else they are cutting corners.

That lens rental article is very old. How many threads have there been about this fault? Hardly any IMO, certainly not recently.
Saying that, ive had two copies of the Tamron that had faulty VC systems, the second copy also caused camera lock up so i agree, poor QC on Tamron's part.
Having now got the Canon MKII i can only thank Tamron for pointing me in the right direction lol.

Dave, your Canon lens is a proper pukka lens I give you that, and it should be for that money, but either I am lucky or God knows why, my Tamron 24-70 is faultless and works very accurately.

You are comparing apples and pears, but yeah, there's a point.
@blemont denis, a 1/2,3 P&S sensor is tiny, the 35mm is only 4 times larger, so tiny is an exxaggeration! The 35mmFF is tiny compared to FULL FORMAT!
It's all in they eyes of the beholder.

Lol @ Plastek

i think you are absolutely right, i´ll keep that in mind.thanks

@ Ken Johnes: While this new Canon zoom is the best midrange zoom ever, best primes still beat it handsomely. But of course the absolute best is not always needed, convenience of a zoom might result in better pictures overall, depending on the situation.

Often in fashion shoots the backgrounds are featureless color backdrops, corner sharpness does not matter at all. Same in portraiture.

Also, mathematically speaking, the end result is the product of the combination, not sum... =:-)

A friend of mine and I both have a D800 and 24-70 lens.

When we compared our lenses (on a tripod with MLU) we found that her's slightly back focused differently to mine. After adjusting using the AF Fine Tune, her sample still had a slight problem on one side.

The lens was re-calibrated by Nikon and now both our system are equal.

And in case you don't know the D800 is a very demanding camera but it can give incredible results. Of course, you actually need to know what you are doing.

Good luck comparing lenses in a store with a few flash cards, and presumably, hand held shots.

You would think someone who is experienced enough to be doing presidential family portraits, would not have missed focus. Her eyes are a little soft.

Her eyes are in acceptable focus, but the bigger problem is the pose draws attention to the fact that her eyes are not the same size.

How dare you point out the Emperor is naked ? :-)
It is a compromising zoom lens after all.
Thank you for honestly verifying the report yourself
and helping us make a true assessment.

Can you recommend using 2 cameras with
fast prime lenses for weddings ?

Maybe a large format for the general views
and the OMD-EM5 for good skin tones
and excellent IS in the close-up portraits ?

You are wrong. As a Nikon user how familiar are you with the nature of Canon's OOC jpegs? There is going to be a substantial difference had the pictures been processed with ACR. But to be honest DPReview is incredibly vague in stating - "Unless otherwise noted images taken with no particular settings at full resolution. " Given that you are viewing distant objects through sometimes hazy sky, I think the results look good enough...yes I've seen better with my 50mm stopped down in RAW, but I'd probably be dissapointed if I had to pixel peep OOC jpegs too of no particular settings. You guys need to cite exactly what filenames and soft areas you are referring to because as of now you seem to be comparing test chart sharpness vs actual real-world 3 dimensional scenes.

I don't really care what you jokers who don't own this lens say. I have one. I shoot with it. It is f*ing amazing :D

from a sharpness, CA, and distortion aspect - every review has it better than the nikkor .. which is understandable - it's a 5 year old lens now.

interesting how nikon users have to feel afraid of competitor's lenses.

the Nikkor is a excellent lens, but i have yet to see a review that has it better when compared within a reasonable standpoint of side by side better than the 24-70II.

the published MTF's show the 24-70G falls off alot at 70mm - alot more so than the 24-70II - where you see the published mtf's to be far more consistent for the II versus the G throughout the range, which outside of QA issues - seems to be the case with the 24-70II.

this is really reflected in just about any side by side comparisons.

They all quit photography as a profession because there are endless trolls on DPR.

I think the statement was pretty conclusive.

how exactly would image stabilization have that much effect on concert photography considering ISO is more important, and shutter speeds would for the most part be higher than 1/focal anyway to reduce subject motion blur.

you're nitpicking.

If you keep buying gear and selling gear, you'll just keep losing the money and the gear. Just buy something alright and shoot with it.

Sure, only then it would have been wrong :-)

Thing is, rumors are rumors until Canon actually makes an announcement, and even then, that doesn't mean the lens would actually be available for purchase.

One more cons:
creates jealousy from other brand's users.

or is it Pro...

Howard:aps-c needs better glass due to smaller pixels :p
Mosc: there will be

Did you mean to say:

Con: no EOS mount on Pentax bodies.