I know this must have been done to death, and is probably down to my own ignorance....but what is the point in the 16-35 F4 IS?
Is it to replace the 17-40 F4? If so and assuming this is for landscape then it will need to be very good quality as the 17-40 is fairly cheap these days. And again assuming this is aimed at landscape/building photography...do you need IS?
If it is to replace the 16-35 F2.8.....with an F4 lens? Sure the IS is welcome for handholding shots...but that will never replace faster glass when shooting low light (thinking weddings and events etc).
Seems like it is stuck in between two lens (16-35 F2.8 & 17-40 F4) to me??
It absolutely is in-between two lenses. That's fine, as neither are sharp in the corners. If it's a real product (and it's sizing up to be so) I would liken this lens to the Canon 24-70 F/4 IS -- a lens in-between two current ones that will be hated at first glance for 'why did they make this?' reasons, and then (by some) loved for the IQ it delivers. This lens will be sharper than the current wide zooms Canon sells and that's a good thing.
Also, not everyone is shooting landscapes at F/11 with wide zooms -- a modern autofocusing wide lens that is center sharp wide open and possibly corner sharp by F/5.6 or so would be terrific in my book.
So I'm not looking at a 16-35 F/4 IS as being on- or off-target; I'm looking at it as an
improvement. We should welcome that, even if it's not the lens we think we need right now.
- A