The lens IQ, is it really noticeable?

I read lens reviews, upon lens reviews. It has been established that all L lenses are better than non-L lens. I can see this too, due to the price. But how noticeable is the difference in the field? I've rented a 24-70 2.8 and compared it to a 28-105 usm ll lens, and i have to say, the 24-70 had a lovely aperture, but sharpness wise, its not that noticeable. So how noticeable is it? Thanks =)
--
-Kehoe

For me the big thing about L lenses is that the 70-200mm and 400mm are at their sharpest wide open. Not only, that all my L lenses have that 'wow' factor - great contrast, colour and sharpness!

Jr Kehoe said:

I read lens reviews, upon lens reviews. It has been established
that all L lenses are better than non-L lens. I can see this too,
due to the price. But how noticeable is the difference in the
field? I've rented a 24-70 2.8 and compared it to a 28-105 usm ll
lens, and i have to say, the 24-70 had a lovely aperture, but
sharpness wise, its not that noticeable. So how noticeable is it?
Thanks =)
--
-Kehoe

Click to expand...

--

...that's a question that only you can answer. As for myself, I can often tell (and admire) the difference between an L zoom and an L prime.

The 24-70 is second only to the 70-200 f2.8; these are the best zooms Canon has. The 24-70 is awesome. It's build quality and durability are also what make it different. Both these zooms give a lot for the money and were made for a FF. The 24-70 is razor sharp at f/5.6 through most it's range. Both these zooms have prime contrast and color. These are also fast lenses and are usable wide open. I normally stop the 24-70 down.

http://www.slrgear.com/reviews/showproduct.php/product/145/cat/11
http://www.slrgear.com/reviews/showproduct.php/product/143/cat/11
--
-the old man down the road-

confidence that you can shoot at the max. aperture and still get good sharpness. Also L or expensive lenses have larger max aperture and fixed in case of zooms. Cheaper zoom lenses usually have variable aperture which means you are shooting at even smaller aperture as you zoom.
--
Sajal Sthapit
'A photograph is worth a thousand misleading words.'

Jr Kehoe said:

I read lens reviews, upon lens reviews. It has been established
that all L lenses are better than non-L lens. I can see this too,
due to the price. But how noticeable is the difference in the
field?

Click to expand...

it depends..it can be barely noticeable on 1.6x camera and for wide angle..or very very noticeable for long telephoto on any camera.

especialy if the subject is at distance and has fine detail like a bird with fine feather detail, a good L prime will get you detail and will capture the fine feather detail whereas the non L lens won,t or at least you have better chance of capturing it with the L and you will usualy have better detail in there.

often people post animals with fur to show this but fur is easy..birds are not. a lot of birds have very tight feather and to get detail in there, we need a very sharp lens with good resolution resolving power.

I started with consumer lenses, went to top of the line third party lenses, and ended up with L. the L lenses were worth every penny and I was not satisfied with anything less..I could very easily see the difference.

on the other end, for my landscapes I still use the kit lens and also the excellent 10-2mm which is almost L quality.

I've rented a 24-70 2.8 and compared it to a 28-105 usm ll

Jr Kehoe said:

lens, and i have to say, the 24-70 had a lovely aperture, but
sharpness wise, its not that noticeable. So how noticeable is it?
Thanks =)
--
-Kehoe

Click to expand...

--



http://www.pbase.com/zylen

Hi Kehoe,

I suspect to a great extent the IQ difference may be more dependent on your shooting style than any other factor. If you put almost any lens on a good tripod, head, and plates, with it stopped down to say f8 with a reasonable shutter speed in quality light you will get good IQ. On the other hand an L lens like a 400 5.6 will simply produce better IQ BIF than almost all other lens due to its weight, ballance, great AF speed, and good contrast and color rendition.

There is also the concept of photographer disipline, for the want of a better term. There are photographers who always seem to capture images with great IQ no matter which lens they use. And there are other guys (like me) who always seem to have problems no matter which lens you use.

IMHO what L glass does is increase the chance you will capture images with better IQ, but there is no assurance this will happen.

Jr Kehoe said:

I read lens reviews, upon lens reviews. It has been established
that all L lenses are better than non-L lens. I can see this too,
due to the price. But how noticeable is the difference in the
field? I've rented a 24-70 2.8 and compared it to a 28-105 usm ll
lens, and i have to say, the 24-70 had a lovely aperture, but
sharpness wise, its not that noticeable. So how noticeable is it?
Thanks =)
--
-Kehoe

Click to expand...

Personally, I think it's virtually impossible to distinguish between images from a $400 lens and a $1200 lens, at least for small prints and screen size photos. That's because you end up downsizing the original photos anyway, so sharpness at the pixel level doesn't matter much. Color and contrast are also adjusted in post processing, especially when handling RAW files. So... that's another advantage of expensive lenses that's negated.

Once you start printing bigger photos (ie A4 or bigger), then the advantages of an expensive, sharp lens will start to become apparent. Especially if you find yourself cropping a lot.

Distortion, especially the dreaded purple fringing, can be a killer in cheap lenses. Some lens distortions are not easily fixed by software.

What I don't get is why all those newspaper photographers are running around with their 24-70L lenses and 70-200 f2.8L lenses on the big bulky professional cameras. Honestly, do they really need that much firepower to print those bland little 4" x 6" photos for the New York Times? An EOS 20D with a Sigma 18-50 and 50-150 lens could probably do as good a job as the 1DsMkII with 24-70L and 70-200L. Much lighter on the photographer's neck too!

I never really compared shots taken with different lenses until Thanksgiving, when I shot a family gathering with a 24-105L and a Sigma 12-24 on my 5D. When I started looking at the photos for PP, my jaw dropped. One would think that a lens that cost over $600 would at least rival an L lens. Nope. Not even close. The L lens was sharper and colors were much more vibrant.

I was so impressed that St. Nicholas of Amazon.com is bringing me a 24-70L on Tuesday.

lukewarm said:

What I don't get is why all those newspaper photographers are
running around with their 24-70L lenses and 70-200 f2.8L lenses on
the big bulky professional cameras. Honestly, do they really need
that much firepower to print those bland little 4" x 6" photos for
the New York Times? An EOS 20D with a Sigma 18-50 and 50-150 lens
could probably do as good a job as the 1DsMkII with 24-70L and
70-200L. Much lighter on the photographer's neck too!

Click to expand...

The "running around" may be a factor. I'd rather have a 1DsMkII
(how does anyone remember ridiculous names like this ? with
a 24-70L around my neck if it's likely to get wet, banged into, etc.

At my newspaper, some of the photographers went to Canon out of desperation. The bosses were always griping about image quality, but gave them outdated Nikons and cheap glass to work with. With Canons and L glass, there's a lot less noise and you can get better available-light photos (i.e, courtroom shots, night sports games). Not to mention the post-processing time is greatly reduced.

... and then there is this:

http://www.photozone.de/8Reviews/lenses/canon_2470_28/index.htm

"The Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8 USM L proved to be a worthy representative of the pro grade lens league ... if you can get a good sample. During the last half year three lenses has seen the lab and all exhibited some kind of optical flaws which is disappointing especially for a lens of this price class. Assuming you get a good sample there're really few things to complain about - the relatively high chromatic aberrations at 24mm maybe. Other than that the quality is very high. The build quality is superb with only the reverse zoom extension as a minor downside."

All L lenses better than all non-L lenses ???

L lenses are the sum of quality and marketing, and it's
almost impossible to determine where one ends and
the other starts.

Greg Pavlov said:

... and then there is this:

http://www.photozone.de/8Reviews/lenses/canon_2470_28/index.htm

"The Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8 USM L proved to be a worthy
representative of the pro grade lens league ... if you can get a
good sample. During the last half year three lenses has seen the
lab and all exhibited some kind of optical flaws which is
disappointing especially for a lens of this price class. Assuming
you get a good sample there're really few things to complain about

• the relatively high chromatic aberrations at 24mm maybe. Other

than that the quality is very high. The build quality is superb
with only the reverse zoom extension as a minor downside."

Click to expand...

Yeah the reverse zoom does take a little getting use to. As for Q, there's always Canon, never seen them shrink from fixing a manufacturing oversight, except for the 5D rear pentaprism seal. The 24-70 is weak below about 28mm. The 16-35 overlaps nicely though with the 24-70 so between the two your well covered.
--
-the old man down the road-

I'm curious: why is the reverse zoom difficult to get used to ?

The true measure of image quality is in a print and L lenses shine when it comes to large prints.
You can very much tell the difference of good lenses in large prints.

--
---
****************************************

'Giving a camera to Diane Arbus is like putting a live grenade in the hands of a child.'
Norman Mailer (b. 1923), U.S. author. Newsweek (New York, 22 Oct. 1984)

Jr Kehoe said:

But how noticeable is the difference in the
field? I've rented a 24-70 2.8 and compared it to a 28-105 usm ll
lens, and i have to say, the 24-70 had a lovely aperture, but
sharpness wise, its not that noticeable. So how noticeable is it?

Click to expand...

Personally, I'm not convinced that I need to spend $1,000+ on a lens (plus, I just can't afford it). Granted, the 70-200 f/4 consistently produces some of the most amazing images I have ever seen, but it is only $550.

I think it depends on a number of factors including which L lens is being compared to which non-L lens, the quality of light when the picture was taken, the aperture used, and the zoom length.

Also, I think the 28-105 is just a particularly good inexpensive lens. Your results may not have been the same if you used a different non-L lens. I just posted a thread comparing it to the 17-40 f/4L. Here's one of the samples. Can you tell which is the 17-40 and which is the 28-105?



--
Mark-B
http://www.flickr.com/photos/msteve1/

lukewarm said:

What I don't get is why all those newspaper photographers are
running around with their 24-70L lenses and 70-200 f2.8L lenses on
the big bulky professional cameras. Honestly, do they really need
that much firepower to print those bland little 4" x 6" photos for
the New York Times? An EOS 20D with a Sigma 18-50 and 50-150 lens
could probably do as good a job as the 1DsMkII with 24-70L and
70-200L. Much lighter on the photographer's neck too!

Click to expand...

I don't think the 20D would survive what news shooters put their cameras through. (I've known many news shooters - their cameras tend to look like they used them to drive nails). The 20D body isn't weatherproof, for starters. Improved AF system in the 1D cameras also makes a difference. Also, news guys typically have to shoot in whatever light is available, so fast glass that is clean wide-open is a necessity, not a luxury. In low light especially, I'm betting that you would miss many shots with the 20D that the 1D series cameras would nail every time.

--
Cheers,

bg

'I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my telephone.'

• Bjarne Stroustrup, inventor of the C++ programming language

Check out my gallery at http://beerguy.smugmug.com

(See profile for the gear collection)

Sajal Sthapit said:

I think you pay for the ...
confidence that you can shoot at the max. aperture and still get
good sharpness. Also L or expensive lenses have larger max
aperture and fixed in case of zooms. Cheaper zoom lenses usually
have variable aperture which means you are shooting at even smaller
aperture as you zoom.

Click to expand...

My cheap Tamron 28-75 is VERY sharp wide open. And it's f/2.8 throughout its range.

especially from tamron. I have 17-35mm 2.8-4.0, but now they have released 17-50 f2.8 at the same price, making the resale value of my lens plummet.

Then there is Tokina 12-24mm f4.0

These are exceptions in that they are good zooms of fixed aperture in the $500 price range. Still $500, though much cheaper than L, is still quite a sum of money more than the cheapest zooms.
--
Sajal Sthapit
'A photograph is worth a thousand misleading words.'
http://www.sthapit.com