A very mixed experience with the RF 70-200 f2.8

As to all the discussion of special optical attributes, those hard-to-define magical charcteristics that some people treasure, I certainly can't say, because I don't have the RF 70-200 and have not even tried it out.

I also, for the same reason, can't say anything about the focusing speed or accuracy.

I am very attracted to two things about the RF lens that are superior to my EF 70-200 II: the much more compact size plus light weight, and the closer focusing distance.

However, as to reproduceable optical differences, I have looked at a direct comparison of the two at Bryan Carnathan's The-Digital-Picture.com. This usually reliable source showed the image quality test results of two lenses, the EF on a 5DsR and the RF on the EOS R. This is a somehwat unequal comparison, because of the higher resolution of the DSLR and its missing AA filter. However, this advantage of the 5DsR is actually something which should increase the likelihood that one could see the lens flaws in the EF lens. Amazingly, there doesn't seem to be much of any flaw in the lens, according to the test images, although there are other ways to test lens image quality that wouldn't show up here. I can say, that in this test's results between the two lenses, the EF lens does look a little bit sharper, especially in the corners. So, perhaps what some people may be noticing is this, that the EF lens has just a tiny bit more sharpness along the edges and in the corners. It's a very small difference, but it looks like it's there.