F/2L 28-70 expensive, but you get what you pay for

maiaibing wrote:

Time is preventing me from making a real review with proper samples. But here goes something:

Excellent lens. I am a heavy prime shooter and have not used a standard 2x-70 mm zoom for more than 20 years. But its winning me over as a go-to lens when I'm just bringing a camera along should something show up.

Flare is a little more obvious than I'd expect at this price level. And there is of course vignetting and distortion too. Color spectrum seems very neutral to me.

Still you can confidently shot it @f/2 most of the time (which really is the only reason to get this lens). As for lacking IS I expect Canon will "fix" this by offering IBIS on their next R-series body.

If you are not used to large and heavy lenses I suggest you try it out first. To me its size has not been a problem at all. However, I would really like it to have an attachable foot mount for carrying on a strap.

Love the R ring on the lens even if its sitting a little awkward at the end of the glass. I set it to control exposure compensation. But there are many other options you can set on your camera body.

I personally dislike that it extends (the lens length changes as you zoom in/out). but not everyone else will care.

Build quality is as good as any of other L-glass out there.

I do not do much video and cannot comment on the noise levels while zooming, but the lack of IS already makes it less interesting for the video crowd.

Final thoughts: some standard zoom users will be unhappy that it "only" goes to 28mm at the wide end. And yes - it does make a difference from being able to go to 24mm. If you want to use this lens as your only wide angle lens its worth considering this limitation. If not you gain more than you lose by having an amazing f/2 zoom lens in your hands allowing for very low light photography at a very high quality. So five stars from me.

You have to take the flare in consideration with the fact that it is an f/2 zoom. It has a lot of glass. It's actually pretty good when you take that into account. Compare to say the 35L f/1.4 II, even stopped down to f/1.8 the 35L has worse veiling flare than the 28-70 f/2. So, I would say the 28-70 is pretty darn good. But it is more than a thousand dollars more expensive than the 35L... so maybe you have a point. But in absolute terms it's actually really good.

I use it wide open all the time and I have no complaints!