P-visie said:

Maybe YOU do not want or need a macro lens, but please do not tell me what I want (or need).

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I suspect "you" is meant as the royal you, as in "a person of the community in general". In which case, the statement probably holds. The EF 300 IS f/4 L plus an extender (some image quality impact) or spacer (no image quality impact) has been used by many for great insect shots in lieu of a dedicated macro -- as an example.

In fact, I still have this combo still and while I prefer it for ducks, cows, and bears the odd dragonfly has been captured with great detail. I also keep dedicated macro lenses laying about.

But your needs and preferences are yours, absolutely!

Snapster said:

I'm surprised more of the reviews didn't catch the focus shift issue. Or it could be a quality control issue because of the cheap price?

If you can't get eyes in perfect focus at f/1.4 - f/2 on an R5 autofocus, the lens is absolutely a no go.

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Depends on the camera and settings used. It can be resolved with exposure and aperture previews turned on in cameras that support this setting combo.

EOS 4 Life said:

Most reviewers tested the lens on the R6 III.
New cameras do not have a focus shift.

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Which Canon bodies stop down during AF?

Snapster said:

I'm surprised more of the reviews didn't catch the focus shift issue. Or it could be a quality control issue because of the cheap price?

If you can't get eyes in perfect focus at f/1.4 - f/2 on an R5 autofocus, the lens is absolutely a no go.

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Most reviewers tested the lens on the R6 III.
New cameras do not have a focus shift.

Maximilian said:

The acronym stands for "Global Positioning System". And there were too many *** discussions here, so Craig seemed to have blacklisted it

Global Positioning System - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

And IMO it is only bad, if you can't switch the battery drain off (when not needed) or when it is jammed by military

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Thanks for the clarification. I Googled "*** slang" and some obvious offenders showed up. I wasn't aware of the previous controversy on this site.

EricN said:

Probably nobody cares...

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Aaaaww

DocInfoSci said:

I'm always fascinated by the hate for the EF 1.2. What do people use it for and on which body that it becomes unfit for purpose? I use the EF 50 1.2 for portraits of people and animals. I have always loved the outcome. On an R6 it's great, and with DLO it's amazing. In my humble opinion and for my purpose, of course.

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I used it for fashion portraiture but, imho, it did not hold a candle to the 85 1.2 II and, especially for the money, I found its performance unacceptable. Never understood the point of a 1.2L lens that was not useable at 1.2
Just to be clear, I absolutely do not mind you liking it, but I reserve my right to loathe it

roby17269 said:

I guess I just don't care

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Probably nobody cares...

***. An integrated *** receiver would create a ‘hump’ along the top surface. I *** tag all my photos. I use the Canon Camera Connect app on my iPhone. This requires setting my iPhone display Auto-Lock to ‘Never’, as Camera Connect stops updating *** when the iPhone screen goes dark. I haven’t had any battery issues on my iPhone as I lock the screen when finished shooting at a location.

Apparently, the acronym for Global Positioning Satellite is a 'bad word' ???

I´ve read the article a second time and I somehow get the feeling that something gets overlooked what a lot of customers want:
- First of all: they want lenses and cameras to fit their budget.
- furthermore, they want good, sometimes great images, that are better than their SP. Otherwise why buy a camera...
- secondly: they want creative control (not all, some just shoot in automode)

A lot of customers don't demand "clinically perfect" images and lenses. But most reviewers don't get that...

Markov said:

For butterflies and dragonflies you don't need/want a macro lens. I have used the R7 with the RF 100-400 mm lens for that and it works great.

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Maybe YOU do not want or need a macro lens, but please do not tell me what I want (or need).

Exploreshootshare said:

Funnily, some of favorite lenses have gotten bad reviews such as the 85mm F2, 100-400mm F5.6-8 and RF 16mm F2.8. The 85mm was recommended to me by a people photographer on a German camera website and it is a bargain. The 100-400mm was recommended to me by AlanF (among others) here at CR and it is great. It even produces great images with the TC attached. The 16mm was praised by photographer who hikes in the alps and so far, almost every time I used it delivered. All recommendations came from photographers who actually used the lenses, know their value despite their caveats. But the caveats don´t really matter if know how to work around them or know how theses lenses were intended to be used.

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I have all three of those! OL actually gives the RF 85mm/2 a highly recommended and 8.5/10 for optical quality. Even though they pan the 16mm, they have to admit "A 16mmm f/2.8 for this kind of money is an insane bargain even with the mentioned limitations." The RF 100-400mm gives best telephoto bang for the bucks of any telephoto and very decent quality.

Richard CR said:

I, of course, weighed in with the MTF inspection of this lens, and left the conclusion that it really depends on your use case for the lens. I personally wasn't a fan. […]

See full article...

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Did you honestly base your opinion on solely on the MTF chart? I´m asking because it kinda sounds (reads) like it.
To me, that would be like judging a car for an article for a magazine by only looking at a picture of it. Take it out for a spin, would you please?!

Basing an opinion about a camera lens solely on an MTF is fundamentally flawed imo because an MTF chart measures only one narrow aspect of performance under artificial conditions or sometimes - afaik are just simple calculations. (not sure about the calculations part, I've read some contradicting information). Real-world image quality depends on many factors it can’t show—such as color rendering, contrast, bokeh, distortion, autofocus behavior, and practical usability.

Basing a lens purchase on chart testing alone is misguided imo because test charts evaluate lenses in controlled, artificial conditions that rarely reflect how they are actually used. Charts emphasize measurable sharpness and contrast at specific distances, but they ignore critical real-world factors such as rendering style, color and micro-contrast, flare behavior, bokeh, autofocus reliability, handling, and how the lens performs across varied lighting and subject matter. A lens that excels on a chart can still produce uninspiring images in practice, while one that tests “worse” may deliver more pleasing and usable results in real photography.

I’ve owned many Canon PowerShots over the years - S50, G5, G9, G1X, G15, G7XIII. These complemented my Canon DSLRs – 10D, 1DII, 1DXII.

The PowerShot G allure for me is ‘almost’ DSLR image quality, numerous menu control settings in a very compact, pocketable size. I use them for street and travel photography where a DSLR is impractical.

My G7XIII is, for me, the best ever. I can’t think of too many things that would be possible to improve on.

Size. This is most important for me. I can put my G7XIII in a coat pocket, ‘cargo pant’ pocket or in a small waist pack. This requires some compromises:

Lens/Sensor. The lens needs to retract for pocket ability. The larger sensor and lens of the G1X precluded retraction of its lens. 70mm on the long end is a no go for me. 24-100mm equivalent is perfect. I shoot mostly JPEGs and in-camera optical aberration correction works fine.

EVF and Flash. I’ve never used the ‘optical’ viewfinder on any of my PowerShots and an EVF ‘hump’ increases the size for pocket ability. I’ve also never used the ‘pop up’ flash, but keeping it is OK. A hot shoe is sort of ridiculous as just about any external flash would be larger than the camera.

***. An integrated *** receiver would create a ‘hump’ along the top surface. I *** tag all my photos. I use the Canon Camera Connect app on my iPhone. This requires setting my iPhone display Auto-Lock to ‘Never’, as Camera Connect stops updating *** when the iPhone screen goes dark. I haven’t had any battery issues on my iPhone as I lock the screen when finished shooting at a location.

Display. The rear display must articulate similar to the G7XIII. I can place the camera on the ground and point the screen up. I can hold the camera over my head and point the screen down. I can even flip the screen over and take a selfie (never done.)

Video. For a photo-centric camera, just the ‘basics’. The V1 covers the video creators.

Pricing. I’m OK with ~$1k USD. I was recently willing to pay twice what I paid for my G7XIII to get another for replacement.

EricN said:

The 45mm is a little closer to 35 by 5mm. It's not much, but at least it wasn't 55mm, right?

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I guess I just don't care

David_B said:

But the ability to pull apart some of the individual beams is lost.

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Lol. If you believe that's what is happening, your understanding of the technical aspects of optics is more flawed that I thought.

David_B said:

To go to an extreme point, why even bother with a full frame lens if all we need to do is put an APS-C lens on the front of a full frame model and then stretch that image such that it "fill the picture".. Afterall, what's a few dark corners/boundary between friends if digital corection is ok? Where's the cutoff point between too much stretching vs acceptable stretching?

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I suppose the only reasonable cutoff point is, are you happy with the resulting images. Since you don't use distortion correction and most lenses have at least some, I suspect you have a low bar for image quality by my standards. I know that straight lines are just that, and I want them to appear that way in my images. Eschewing distortion correction means straight lines in your images are curved, to me that is highly undesirable (and I only tolerate when it's necessary for correction of volume anamorphosis, because I prioritize the appearance of faces at the edge of the frame over lines being straight).

David_B said:

The detail that gets lost in the squashed iamge (it doesn't fill the srnsor, so I'm using "squash" as the term to refer to it being made small) can't be made to reappear with some magic process. Even if you take into account the blur from the AA, there must be less refined data to work from in an image that's only 19.96mm "high".

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Only 19.96 mm 'high', as opposed to 21.64 mm. 8% shorter on the half-diagonal. With the 24-105/2.8 at 24mm, the black corners are less than 0.05% of the image that need to be 'filled in' by 'stretching'. On my R1, that's 11,400 pixels out of the 24,000,000. If you want to lose sleep over that, be my guest.

It's gotten to a point where I really despise all these online reviews. Pixel peeping and looking at 300% views... nobody ever does that in the real world... so why the heck base a lens purchase on that review? Not the mention the "so, the lens has two switches, an aperture ring..." bullshit nobody needs. Optical limits only tells me if a lens is "clinical sharp" or not, it doesn't tell me anything about how usable the images actually are.

Given that most images are viewed on smaller screens and most prints are smaller as well, the lenses should be evaluated in that regard. I recently made Christmas pics of my students (4th grade) in challenging lighting conditions with the 85mm F2. In Lightroom, some images looked "slightly blurry" or not perfectly sharp at 100-300%. The prints (20cm x 30cm which is 8x12 inches) turned out perfectly. One couldn't tell if anything wasn't sharp or "the edges fell apart". Good lenses don´t necessarily have to be super sharp and great at 300% crop.

I just wished lenses reviewers would acknowledge that fact. But I'm ultimately guessing, not clinging to test-charts and actually reviewing the lenses for the purposes they are made for and forming a judgment without intensive chart-testing would require a skill most reviewers don't have: knowing how to shoot and what to shoot.

Funnily, some of favorite lenses have gotten bad reviews such as the 85mm F2, 100-400mm F5.6-8 and RF 16mm F2.8. The 85mm was recommended to me by a people photographer on a German camera website and it is a bargain. The 100-400mm was recommended to me by AlanF (among others) here at CR and it is great. It even produces great images with the TC attached. The 16mm was praised by photographer who hikes in the alps and so far, almost every time I used it delivered. All recommendations came from photographers who actually used the lenses, know their value despite their caveats. But the caveats don´t really matter if know how to work around them or know how theses lenses were intended to be used.

David_B said:

If I was to believe that digital correction was the equivalent to or better than optical correction then that too would be akin to faith because I have no evidence to support it.

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I have shown evidence to support that they can give equivalent results. I have seen no evidence to the contrary, nor have I seen evidence that digital correction provides superior results.

I'm always fascinated by the hate for the EF 1.2. What do people use it for and on which body that it becomes unfit for purpose? I use the EF 50 1.2 for portraits of people and animals. I have always loved the outcome. On an R6 it's great, and with DLO it's amazing. In my humble opinion and for my purpose, of course.

To the article's point, I love the fact that both types of reviews are available. I feel strongly that hardware should first be evaluated on the merit of the hardware, and then next on the merit of the purpose with the vendor's pipeline considered.

Why? Because it's nice to know a) what the software is doing for me, so that I can plan for it; and b) so that I know what I can expect in a nominal situation with all of the pipeline included. The fact that Canon's software portion of the pipeline might need to correct for a) 5 (!) stops of darkness on the edge (noise bump?) and potentially multiple planes of sharp focus (wavy field) is really important to know. But, just like the EF 1.2, at the end of the day a killer shot is a killer shot. If the 45mm gets me there...

roby17269 said:

I have had the EF 50 1.2 and I would agree it was legendary... in a bad way.
I did not like it at all.
If this lens is similar, then it is a no-go, regardless of the price. If I wanted something soft and quirky I'd buy a lens baby...
The RF 50 1.2 (which I have) may be much more expensive and heavier, but it delivers with almost no compromises.

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The 45mm is a little closer to 35 by 5mm. It's not much, but at least it wasn't 55mm, right?

I wanted to buy 3 Cfexpress cards. I decided to wait for Black Friday and no reduction. Then I decided to wait for the January sales
…… a bad idea !
These are screen saves from Amazon in France

"If you are looking to purchase a lens and you know you will demand the most out of its optical performance, OpticalLimits is really the place to go to see how it performs."(Quote)
OK, then, according to O.L, the RF 28-70 is absolutely miserable at 70mm (corners). TDP's "Optical Quality" results being also underwhelming at 28mm.
What or who shall I believe now? Meanwhile, many forum members or moderators seem to really like it...
Reliability of reviews, no matter by whom, is very relative.
I'll never base a buying decision on reviews, good or bad, but on my own testing of a rented lens with the option to buy it if satisfied.

An 80mm f/1.2 STM will be released within 2027.

Tom R5R7 said:

I think 2 versions, with 2 different lens options are in order. The "24-70 f/2" equivalent would be well liked by many, but for me, I'd want a larger zoom range, say, 24-240 or something of that nature. Which would necessitate a variable aperture, say f/2 to f/4.5 or something like that. Of course, that would be a different market, but a reasonably fast 10X zoom with a decent aperture would really be nice for a vacation camera.

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Yes, I'm with you on the 10x option... my G3X is limping on, but desperately in need of retiring and replacing.

roby17269 said:

I have had the EF 50 1.2 and I would agree it was legendary... in a bad way.
I did not like it at all.
If this lens is similar, then it is a no-go, regardless of the price. If I wanted something soft and quirky I'd buy a lens baby...
The RF 50 1.2 (which I have) may be much more expensive and heavier, but it delivers with almost no compromises.

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I wasn't too impressed by the EF 50mm F1.2 either. I got it just a bit before the RF 45mm F1.2 came out.

Tom R5R7 said:

I happen to have both this new 45/1.2 STM and the old EF 50/1.2L. I haven't run a full battery of tests, but what I can say from my limited comparisons is that the RF 45 is the sharper of the two, especially at wider apertures. Just a sharper lens.

On the other hand, the old 50/1.2L produces a creamier, smoother bokeh regardless of the harshness of the background. It is essentially a portrait lens. So 2 different animals with a similar purpose, perhaps, but one is considerably less expensive than the other is (or rather, was).

If I wanted ultimate sharpness, I'd get either the RF 50/1.4 or RF 50/1.2L lens - both appear to be spectacularly sharp and very well designed. But for my purposes, what I have now (along with the inexpensive 50/1.8 RF) will do the trick. I lean in favor of the RF 45 because of its size and weight, but I can't really say that I don't like what the EF 50/1.2L does for me either.

On focus shift, I hadn't paid a lot of attention to this issue, but I will be. Since I have the older R5, I don't have the ability to use "Display simulation" or whatever setting it is that people use to force the lens to autofocus with a smaller aperture than f/1.2. Whether this is a problem or not will be the subject of future testing and comparison to manual focusing.

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I ended up with both lenses as well. I did a quick comparison (not very scientific) using an R5 II with a link to the CRAW files for those interested: