Canon 35mm f1.4 L ii vs Canon 24-70 f2.8 L ii vs Canon 16-35mm f4 L Comparison - Just for fun

Andy1970 wrote:

Ok, time to post the answer! It was

A - 24-70 f2.8ii

B - 35 1.4Lii

C - 16-35 F4

I think most of you got it, or you were very close. Seems most agreed that the 35L was the best image. I'm glad about that, as I've only just bought it! My new baby

I did slightly cheat on the 24-70 image, in that I was a bit clumsy in framing the shot and guessing the 35mm point. EXIF showed 33mm and it was a bit wide, so I trimmed off a little.

I found it interesting to compare the lenses in this way, it was actually closer than I thought. They are all very good lenses.

Thanks for playing everyone!

Great. I managed to get them all wrong...

(in my defence, I only gave the thumbnails a quick glance on my phone, but still, ha ha)

J A C S wrote:

They are vignetting corrected, right? The UWA vignettes a lot, even well stopped.

Yes I corrected the vignetting and the lens distortions, but not the chromatic abberations. Wanted to make it more difficult!

Andy1970 wrote:

Ok, time to post the answer! It was

A - 24-70 f2.8ii

B - 35 1.4Lii

C - 16-35 F4

I think most of you got it, or you were very close. Seems most agreed that the 35L was the best image. I'm glad about that, as I've only just bought it! My new baby

I did slightly cheat on the 24-70 image, in that I was a bit clumsy in framing the shot and guessing the 35mm point. EXIF showed 33mm and it was a bit wide, so I trimmed off a little.

I found it interesting to compare the lenses in this way, it was actually closer than I thought. They are all very good lenses.

Thanks for playing everyone!

Andy, thanks for the blind test.
I'd like to add my 2c. The results are very predictable.
35II is the sharpest cuz its aperture is 3 stops closed AND it is back focused compared to others. That's why sharpness across the frame is superb even in far corners (close to infinity range) except the blurred grass on the foreground.
24-70 II has nice sharpness and a bit smeared corners. BTW its aperture is 1 stop closed and FL is in the middle of the zoom range. Well, sweet spot for this zoom but results are just on par with wide open 16-35/4. And keep in mind that tele end of WA zooms are not very good according to Roger Cicala. So comparing zooms at these setting is not fair yet 16-35/4 looks better than I would imagine.

Am looking forward for the next round ... 50mm f1.2L, 85mm f1.2LII

Let the fun continue.

I wish we could see the 35L original thrown into the mix. Yea, it would be a give away wide open compared to the 35LII. But if you stopped them down and the focus point was not at the edge of the frame, i bet the 35L original would trick tons of people into thinking its the new better version. To my eye the 35L original looks better stopped down than the new version especially in the middle of the frame.

I don't own either actually yet. I may own both as I think they are for different purposes. I know many disagree with me on these opinions. But, I think the micro contrast is superior on the 35L original except at the far edge of the frame of course. I think even at 1.4 (especially by f/2) the 35L original has superior micro contrast and rendering excluding the global contrast loss that it suffers wide open which I consider to be 100% fixable, where as micro contrast I don't see as fixable. I think the 35L II has superior resolution however wide open at 1.4 across the frame of course. I don't consider resolution and what I consider to be micro contrast to be the same thing. I don't view sharpness the way most people do i guess since i've learned to see micro contrast. I dont think the 35 IS is in the same category as either. Sorry if you disagree with me though. Respect.

Edit: So no one at all should care about a lens being sharper at f/4? That doesn't include me   I guess haha

Well I can understand your view on micro contrast and believe you do know about it - the evidence being your love of the 85ii - which opened my eyes to micro contrast, but then nobody on this forum understood... so I gave up talking about it.

so I would like to follow up and say as a fellow believer in rendering and not necessarily a sharpness guru, the is a place for that but....

in this case I just love the 35ii and don’t believe canon make a better lens for more beautiful results! And that is compared to all my history of L glass.

before I bought it I thought 35 was a boring fl but thought why not give it a try ...

expro wrote:

Well I can understand your view on micro contrast and believe you do know about it - the evidence being your love of the 85ii - which opened my eyes to micro contrast, but then nobody on this forum understood... so I gave up talking about it.

so I would like to follow up and say as a fellow believer in rendering and not necessarily a sharpness guru, the is a place for that but....

in this case I just love the 35ii and don’t believe canon make a better lens for more beautiful results! And that is compared to all my history of L glass.

before I bought it I thought 35 was a boring fl but thought why not give it a try ...

Damn, cheers man. I appreciate you sharing your thoughts.

I actually got deep in a post about the 35L and 35LII a week or so ago and I have a lot of good things to say about the 35L II.

I actually do think it has good micro contrast and especially resolution. I do value resolution also and I will gladly take a lens that trades some micro contrast for resolution if that is the case.

I actually am leaning towards the 35L II first because of the weather sealing, and also because I will be shooting it at wide apertures where the version II is better,since I can cover 35mm with my zooms

I do think the micro contrast on it is very solid and potentially awesome while resolution wise it is certainly better, which is valuable in itself.  I am a fan of it. I'm interested in seeing more samples of the 35L II so I can get an even better idea of how it performs. From the ones i've seen so far I did prefer the Original version however as long as it wasn't focused too far from the center of the frame.

Also, yes I love my 85L II and my 50L. I think they both are close to perfection to me. My 50L and 600 are probably my most used and favorite lenses I own currently. It's not that I like the 85L II less, but I just tend to use it less compared to the others I mentioned.

Agree that’s why eventually I sold the 85... just not enough use.

havent tried the 50L yet but love my 500ii though I believe the 600ii would be even better but was just too heavy for me.

I wish I was a little more patient in retrospect choosing between the 400 2.8 500 f/4 and 600 f/4 because my use for the 600 is hand held 99 percent of the time. I feel terrible for not using my nice tripod and gimbal enough.  Due to that I wonder if the 500 would have been more fun to use. I never had handled any of the lenses before ordering the 600.

I just looked at my metadata and have about  6000 photos with my 85 and 7000 with the 50 despite it being on my camera much more often.  The 85 catches up because I tend to take more photos the times it is on my camera.

If if you ever consider getting the 50L it has the focus shift that changes at 1.2 - 1.4 then stays the same, what I do is I have af micro adjust set to -10 on both my bodies, so I can shoot at any aperture at any distance unless it’s 1.2 close distance. If I want to use 1.2 super close I’ll use live view or ignore it if it’s not someone’s eye or something as critical as this. It’s not as often as you’d think, for me anyways.

The milky ness at 1.2 ish seems to be totally fixed by just adding contrast overall. It’s not really unsharp as in blurry, it’s just low global contrast to my eye. Everything still looks sharp and pops.

Thanks good and useful advice!

Yes I handhold predominately too. I learnt on my 300 before I bought the 500. With 500 I can only seriously hold to shoot for less than a minute but dont mind carrying it for a day.

I'm about the same with my 600. I can hold it up to my eye for about a minute or a little less, semi comfortably. Carrying it around by the handle or with a strap is easy though.

Andy1970 wrote:

I know this isn't a scientific test, but I thought it might be interesting to compare three of my lenses at their common focal length of 35mm and their widest common aperture of F4. Just a bit of fun - Can anyone guess which lens took which photo?

The lenses were attached to a Canon 5D MkiV - the light changed very slightly during the time it took to do the test (or the light transmisson of the lenses are slightly different) I took them all at what the camera deemed to be the correct exposure using evaluative metering. For one of the lenses the shutter speed was 1/320th, for the other two 1/250th. All three shots were at F4 ISO100

The camera was mounted on a tripod. Focusing was done manually using live view at 10x magnification. I focused on the small black light sticking out of the grass in the very centre of the shot. This light was approx 15m away from the camera, which according to my DOF calculator should put everything from 6m to infinity in focus.

IS was switched off on the 16-35mm lens. A remote release cable was used.

Quite a contrasty image - my front garden taken around 1pm today. No blown highlights or clipped shadows though.

Just to make it a little more difficult, I've applied lens corrections in lightroom, so the photos can't be identified by known distortion characteristics of each lens. No other adjustments have been applied to the RAW images.

No prizes for the correct answer I'm afraid! have fun!

Photo A

A

Photo B

B

Photo C

C

Hello DPReviewers, can anyone share some pics where the 35mm F/1.4 Mk ii does actually show it superior IQ vs a zoom

Am tempted by a good 2nd hand of this prime but have yet to see a nice pice shot wide open taken with the 35mm F/1.4 Mk ii.. a shot that would have been impossible to shoot or with a lower IQ if shot with a zoom

Thx