How bad is the 24-105?

[Zv]

It's prob not my best lens, but then again I've spoiled myself with the 135L which is just a different class of lens. However, the 24-105L isn't a bad lens at all. I avoid 24-28mm f/4 as I know that is a weakness. For those focal lengths the 17-40L seems to perform better. That's cool because that's why I have a wide angle zoom. I needed something that was decent around 35mm and above to use as a standard lens and for that it does alright especially considering how much I paid for it!

I haven't noticed any fringing (not noticeable amounts anyway) with my copy. Vignetting is not an issue thanks to LR. In fact I like vignetting so I usually add some in later anyway.

The lens could be sharper though.

Overall it gets the job done in a very standard and unspectacular fashion!

 

[Sporgon]

@ f11, my RX100 II will deliver same result in the sunny day :-\

And so it should ... I don't see what Pi is trying to prove in this post. Two photos taken at same FL at same apertures* with different (pretty good) lenses, subsequently downsized, will be next to impossible to tell apart.

Edit: stopped down apertures

+ 1, my thought exactly. At f11 all lenses begin to average out and even at optimum resolution apertures I wouldn't expect to see any difference with reduced size samples apart from warmer colour of the zoom.

Apart from bad distortion at 24 mil the area where the 24-105 is weak is when resolving very small detail mid ( and of course extreme ) frame when compared with 'better' lenses. So if your subject is relatively large within the frame you are playing to the 24-105 strenghs, but if it's far away and small it's the reverse.

At Building Panoramics we are stitching vertical frames with substantial overlap, so just using the best part of the frame and always at f8. Also the stitching results in a much larger format. In this situation the 24-105 produces results that are as good as any other lens. There is simply no difference in the pictures shot on the 24-105 and the 35L for instance. In fact our 35L has gone the way of e bay.

 

[Magnardo]

Lenses are stronger and weaker in an evident fashion, when they are shot in less then perfect conditions.
Give me examples of people in the shots,... not just ants.
And also give me examples with difficult lighting,....and if you sold the 35 L in order to keep 24-105, I will light a candle for you because you are indeed a good person with a good heart.
You gave the best away to your brothers on e-bay, only out of the goodness of your heart and that is a great and rare thing.

 

[Sporgon]

Lenses are stronger and weaker in an evident fashion, when they are shot in less then perfect conditions.
Give me examples of people in the shots,... not just ants.
And also give me examples with difficult lighting,....and if you sold the 35 L in order to keep 24-105, I will light a candle for you because you are indeed a good person with a good heart.
You gave the best away to your brothers on e-bay, only out of the goodness of your heart and that is a great and rare thing.

;D ;D

Horses for courses.

We have the new 24-70 f4 IS which is really good, and have replaced the 35L with ........wait for it........the 40mm pancake. No distortion, sharp across the frame - wonderful.

You are welcome to your ultra fast wide angles, there is too much penalty to pay in both cash and corner sharpness stopped down.

 

[J.R.]

Lenses are stronger and weaker in an evident fashion, when they are shot in less then perfect conditions.
Give me examples of people in the shots,... not just ants.

Absolutely. More often than not, the differences between lenses can be seen only when you shoot in less than ideal conditions. That's why I don't usually bother with "which lens was this shot taken with" challenges.

Horses for courses.

Yes sir ... Always!

BTW, upon reading your posts regarding the 40mm, I recently tried some panoramas using the pancake and was pleasantly surprised with the results

 

[Tyroop]

Those photos brought back some wonderful memories of visiting the Biltmore estate around 21 years ago. Who cares which lens?

 

[Rienzphotoz]

@ f11, my RX100 II will deliver same result in the sunny day :-\

And so it should ... I don't see what Pi is trying to prove in this post. Two photos taken at same FL at same apertures* with different (pretty good) lenses, subsequently downsized, will be next to impossible to tell apart.

Edit: stopped down apertures

+1 ... I always find it amusing when people want to prove that a certain lens is good because it performs similarly with another lens at a smaller aperture ... but the fact of the matter is that different lenses are made for different purposes ... people buy a 85 f/1.2 for a specific reason and the same goes for a 24-105, it is a fantastic all round lens worth every single penny spent on it ... but it has its limitations, just like every single lens out there.

 

[Loswr]

I always find it amusing when people want to prove that a certain lens is good because it performs similarly with another lens at a smaller aperture ...

Indeed. Amusing...and rather pointless, as well, in this case.

 

[jdramirez]

I was correcting my daughter's 18-55 is lady night... so count me in on those who say, not bad at all, in comparison.

 

[Pi]

Tough crowd.

Sorry to sound like KR but I limited the size to 1024 on purpose. I was not testing sharpness, including in the corners, where sharpness is not for given, even at f/11 but see also (2) below. There is much more to a lens than sharpness.

The 24-105 is sometimes bashed as a lens having low contrast, blah colors; somebody was claiming "too much clarity in dull light" (I will test that, too), and all that sort of nonsense. It is NOT true that all lenses perform similarly at f/11. Here are a dew differences:

1. Color: for example, the 100L is much more colorful (not always in a good way) than the 135L. Lenses like the 50/1.8 and the 50/1.4 are really dull in terms of color rendition compared to modern and not so modern L lenses. Even in the samples I posted, you can see that the 35L is slightly cooler than the zoom. L lenses can render reds very differently; the newer ones are much warmer, in my experience.

2. Contrast: Some lenses (the worst I have seen is the 18-55 IS) have noticeably low contrast like a haze over the whole image – gray blacks but not only that. The 135L has lower contrast in the highlights than the 100L but deep blacks. There are also micro-contrast differences among lenses, visible even at this resolution.

3. "DOF" and brightness (T-stop as opposed to F-stop). You cannot see that at 1024 pixels but the landscape shots show something very interesting, which I will investigate further. The 35L is 0.4 stops brighter (in both cases) and has more "DOF" (measured with very small CoC) than the zoom. I will post crops later. They are both focused where the yellow flowers end and the trees start but the background in the corners is (a) very sharp with the prime and (b) starts to get fuzzy with the zoom, still within the accepted DOF range though, after all, I focused past the hyperfocal distance. Now, (b) is expected but I am surprised by (a). In contrast, the lower (close) corners do not differ too much by sharpness.

4. (EDIT) And, of course, flare (and this is connected to (2)), in which the 24-105 is an average performer bit often good enough. Flare can and does affect contrast in some situations however.

Yes, those shots are in good light, and I did say so.

 

[Pi]

Answers:

CORRECTION!

The zoom is used in A1, B1 and C2.

 

[Pi]

A new set: comparisons with the 85L and the 50L

Two more comparisons: against the 85LII (f/5) and against the 50L (f/5.6), good light, handheld, distortion corrections and partial vignetting corrections in LR on, some exposure compensation. If you think that all lenses are the same at f/5 - f/5.6, please move on, nothing to see here.

85mm (this is easy), f/5:

D1
http://www.flickr.com/photos/105206784@N04/10247672574/#


D2

--------
50mm, f/5.6 (not too hard, there are obvious clues)


E1


E2

 

[drmikeinpdx]

I see no reason ever to sacrifice quality for laziness.
Moments cannot be resurrected in post.

Interesting comment, but I find the opposite to be true more often. I love my primes and will shoot with them when I can control the flow of a photoshoot. However, there are situations where a zoom allows me to get more usable shots. If you miss a shot because you were changing lenses, or did not bring the right prime with you, that lost moment cannot be resurrected in post.

I haven't had my 24-105 very long. I bought a white box copy for around $700 last spring and I've been very impressed. I always shoot it wide open. I don't use a tripod too often, so the stabilization actually makes it sharper than my L lenses in actual use. I have noticed no chromatic aberration and I haven't used it for shooting buildings so I haven't noticed any distortion.

I'm taking it out today for a waterfall/fall foliage hike. Maybe I'll leave the tripod at home.

 

[distant.star]

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Will someone please wake me when it's over?

Thanks.

 

[Rienzphotoz]

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Will someone please wake me when it's over?

Thanks.

OK ... go back to sleep now ;D

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

A few shots, all in good light, all well stopped (f/11), same SS. One is taken with the 24-105, the other with either the 35L, or the 100L. Same parameters in LR, including WB, except for some exposure compensation to equate the brightness. Can you tell which is which? Of course, not a sharpness test, the size is limited to width=1024. One of the "A" images was slightly cropped, and one of the "B" images was slightly cropped as well, for the same AOV. Shot off hand. Camera: 5D2.

Click for "full" size.

You can't judge much from such tiny images (I didn't bother to click them since that doesn't go to Original size anyway), but well hard to say for the first image, on the second set the 24-105 might be the second one since the colors look a like flatter, for the third one it looks like the zoom must be the first one since the crispness and color look duller (but at such a small size.... it might just be the re-sizing algorithm happening to not interact well with the particular scale of those details? first one of the last pair does look worse even at that small scale, for whatever reason though, even if just for how this website happened to rescale them).

 

[Pi]

You can't judge much from such tiny images (I didn't bother to click them since that doesn't go to Original size anyway), but well hard to say for the first image, on the second set the 24-105 might be the second one since the colors look a like flatter, for the third one it looks like the zoom must be the first one since the crispness and color look duller (but at such a small size.... it might just be the re-sizing algorithm happening to not interact well with the particular scale of those details? first one of the last pair does look worse even at that small scale, for whatever reason though, even if just for how this website happened to rescale them).

I posted the answers above this morning but they were wrong, and I corrected them now. Anyway, the zoom is A1, B1, C2.

To me, the 100L (C1) looks a bit warmer. Surprisingly, the zoom is slightly warmer and more colorful than the 35L but not by much.

Again, the EXIF and full size are enabled now.

 

[Dylan777]

The 24-105 is sometimes bashed as a lens having low contrast, blah colors; somebody was claiming "too much clarity in dull light" (I will test that, too), and all that sort of nonsense. It is NOT true that all lenses perform similarly at f/11. Here are a dew differences:

It's. The only benefit I see from this is 24mm to 105. IQ sucks.

 

[Rienzphotoz]

The 24-105 is sometimes bashed as a lens having low contrast, blah colors; somebody was claiming "too much clarity in dull light" (I will test that, too), and all that sort of nonsense. It is NOT true that all lenses perform similarly at f/11. Here are a dew differences:

It's. The only benefit I see from this is 24mm to 105. IQ sucks.

???

 

[Janbo Makimbo]

Its a fine lens...... In the right hands!!