Photozone's review of the EF 24-70 f/2.8L II is up

[risc32]

Just had to look it up myself. the position of the zoom/focus rings are swapped from the normal orientation, but they operate in the same direction. it's the direction that would drive me nuts, i bet i can get over their positions being swapped. Reminds me how i swapped my gear shifting direction lever on my bike. 1 down 5 up, or 1 up 5 down. no big deal, but one time when i got in a bit too hot i did go the wrong way. i guess i was overloaded, but i worked it out. anyhow, continue the 24-70 doubting.... ;D

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

My point, I suppose, is that if there is so much sample variation between lenses, it kind of makes lens reviews completely pointless. They are reviewing that particular copy ( or batch ) or a lens, rather than the product as a whole. Maybe, we expect everything we buy to be perfect, or maybe those of us who prowl these forums are just perfectionists ( count me in )

I struggle to believe there is that much sample variation. My hunch tells me that maybe one of the reviewers may be off the mark with their testing. I think I will reserve judgement until the next set of reviews come through.

And not only that, they mount it to a camera, so you are seeing a combination of camera and lens. If the camera mount tolerance and the lens mount tolerance are additive, the result will be visible.
A lens testers life is tough, but Klauss is one of the best, so I'm confident that the results are good for the lens he tested. Some of Roger's tests on his Lens rentals site clearly show the large amount of sample variation that he often finds.
http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2011/10/notes-on-lens-and-camera-variation
As you can see, even Zeiss has huge variations. Some lens models tend to have more than others. I'd expect IS lenses to fall into that category.
Also note that Cameras do show a variation, so the same lenses on different bodies give different results, eving using live view focus.
There are tolerance buildups everywhere.

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

I think there may be some slight variation in the first batch, based on my experience, which isn't conclusive - (could be a one off).
First lens I received #(000061) was soft at 70mm f/2.8, had a hazy appearance on focus area. even once calibrated with lens align2 I wasn't blown away
(I had the Tamron 24-70 vc and returned it because of back focusing and poor AF quality & speed).

Even though I wasn't wowed by the first copy it, it was better than the tamron, in every way. I still returned the canon the following day, considering the price, I wanted AMAZING.
I was lucky that my store had a second copy of the lens yet to be sold (000063) which they kindly exchanged.

Now I am super impressed, amazingly SHARP @ F2.8 at every zoom length across the entire frame, which is inline with what Roger at Lens rentals reports. no micro adjustment required. (after doing the usual lens align procedure).
DID all sorts of exhaustive tests, and real life shots, I am wrapped with the build quality, operation, and images which come from the lens....I don't know if there is slight variation between copies, but this is my experience (first copy compared to second) and could reflect the photo zone findings.

The onion bokeh is there under certain circumstances, but its allot cleaner than that of the Tamrons, and isn't noticeable unless pixel peeping. doesn't concern me in the slightest. I think the bokeh is wonderful, very similar characteristics to the 50L1.2.
lack of fringing and CA is great. colour and contrast is wonderful.

that is a little disturbing to here, even after the long delay to fix production....

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

Check out these two images, you are going to tell me that one isn't a lot better than the other near the edges?:
http://photozone.smugmug.com/photos/1874375857_cC7dStc-O.jpg
http://photozone.smugmug.com/photos/2099376767_rBhGTrX-O.jpg

download the full images, save, flip between them in a viewer, the edges look noticeably better to me from one of them (hint: the canon )

(to be fair, we don't know exactly how he focused these and that can affect things, but still in a quick real world pop snap one certainly did better)

My observations:

I'd say that the Canon has the resolution advantage in the centre, the Tamron in the extreme corners (who cares?), but Canon has much better contrast. The colour balance of the lenses is very different -the Canon is more natural than the Tamron, which is quite yellow. It's difficult to tell in these photos as they are shot at different times of the day with varying cloud cover. The Tamron has noticably less distortion than the Canon.

These shots were taken at f/9; lets compare them at f/2.8: if you want to shoot at f/9, buy a 24-105 F/4L. Sadly, Photozone doesn't have any f/2.8 shots at the same focal length. [This is something that I always find strange considering the purpose of the site, surely they'd be better to have some standard outdoor test setups for various focal length/aperture combinations?] Until some more real world samples appear, we're left with The Digital Picture's ISO 12233 chart tests:

http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/ISO-12233-Sample-Crops.aspx?Lens=787&Camera=453&Sample=0&FLI=0&API=0&LensComp=786&CameraComp=453&SampleComp=0&FLIComp=0&APIComp=0

Fine, but I always find it difficult to relate this sort of test shot to the real world and they are taken at quite close distance, which some lenses don't perform well at [see Bryan's comments about the EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8, which every user raves about (including Bryan) but underwhelms on these charts].

Hah I tried the 24-105, three copies, at f/9 and f/11 and f/8 and it sucks on FF at 24mm for finely detailed edge to edge landscapes. The samples aren't even close to the ones posted at 24mm and stopped down from the 24-70 II (or my 24 1.4 II).

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

...well look at the actual numbers...

Where do you get detailed specs on all the lenses?

Thanks,

A

on the photozone charts

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

What? The 70-300L has a reversed focus/zoom direction? Really?

It does not.

It does have the ring placement swapped compared to many Canon zooms. I can't say it's bothered me in the slightest.

 

[Marsu42]

What? The 70-300L has a reversed focus/zoom direction? Really?

It does have the ring placement swapped compared to many Canon zooms. I can't say it's bothered me in the slightest.

Sorry, I mixed up "focus direction" with "focus placement" - thanks for correcting me!

 

[M.ST]

It seems to be, that Canon has the same problems with the production as in April 2012.

I recommend this lens, because my two lenses are sharp from edge to edge in all possible focal ranges.

Some photographers that I know are not happy with their lenses, because they are not sharp from edge to edge or not so sharp as my lenses.

I test their lenses and totally agree with their opinion.

My advice:
If you hold the new EF 24-70 II in your hand test it in the complete focal range and with different apertures. If you notice any problems return it to Canon and demand a perfect one.

I don´t accept drawbacks in this price class or above.

 

[jpjeff]

Guys any advice on best way to test the lens?

http://www.canonrumors.com/tech-articles/how-to-test-a-lens/

Or would Reikan FoCal or SpyderLENSCAL be enough?

I have both and they take alot of time and it is quite tricky to do

 

[DarkKnightNine]

I struggle to believe there is that much sample variation. My hunch tells me that maybe one of the reviewers may be off the mark with their testing. I think I will reserve judgement until the next set of reviews come through.

Here is a video from a few years back about Canon manufacturing a 500mm f/4 lens. You get a idea about whats involved. THere are three parts, this links to part 1. You can easily find the others.

Canon Lens Production 1

Looking at this video, there seems to be a lot of instances where impurities can creep into the manufacturing process. I don't know if you posted this video in support of Canon or against them. My take is that I wasn't very impressed. The factory doesn't look very purified or dust free.

 

[Marsu42]

My take is that I wasn't very impressed.

While these lenses might seem very expensive to the average Joe like me, it has to be said that a consumer dlsr lens is not the Hubble space telescope (and even that was flawed). And shiny brochures and detailed specs might cloud the fact that it's just a normal industrial mass production - produce cheap, sell expensive.

 

[DB]

Those videos of how the 500mm f/4L lenses are made are quite interesting because they show that there are almost two dozen unique steps in the manufacturing process:

1. Material blending
2. Pre-fusing
3. Melted glass allows to cool naturally
4. Cut the glass into pieces
5. Fusing
6. Mixing
7. Churning
8. Clarification
9. Homogenization
10. Shape the glass into sheets
11. Shaping and pressing process
12. Grinning processes
13. Heating the glass and form its shape by pressing (by hands or by automatic machines)
14. Annealing
15. Further polishing
16. Rough grinding that produces that curved surface of the lens
17. Fine grinding
18. Polishing and surface curvuture adjustment
19. Optical inspection
20. Clean with ultrasonic washing machines
21. Alignment
22. Coating
23. The Lens assembly process itself (done by hand for Canon L lenses)

From a QC perspective, the steps outlined in Red above indicate that there is scope for variation due to human involvement. I always think of buying an 'L' lens as a bespoke product and not a commodity-type consumer one. After all, when you're expected to pay a lot of money for an object that is essentially hand-built and uses the best possible components, you have to expect some degree of variation (all manufacturing processes have tolerances - usually picked-up in the variance or standard deviations of the final goods).

Ultimately, both Nikon and Canon employ highly skilled technicians to build and assemble Professional grade lenses, and there has to be variation between these humans. I would bet a lot of money that if you were to test a large sample of say 2,000 L lenses produced over a 90-day period and created an index of the optical performance of each lens, then plotted the frequency distribution of those L lenses, that the results might look pretty normal (bell-shaped distribution curve), but then take the same data and plot their scores (or their deviations from the mean) chronologically (as a times series plot) or by Technician you would be very surprised indeed. You may find that Technician B on average produces L Lenses with less variation than Technician D or E, or you might find with shift-work that day-shift batches are better/worse than night-shift workers etc. Or even that Assembly line 2 is better than Assembly line 1 or that for Technician A there was a 2-week spike up in August in the variance of his output - that mysteriously dropped when he returned from vacation!

Bloggers on CR often use automobile analogies, well I did quite a bit of research on BMW Motorsport before I ever bought an M-badge car and one feature of their QC process stood out - every M car produced is test-driven on the world famous Nurburgring Racing Circuit, and it is said that the test drivers can tell which Technician hand-built the engine in every car. Furthermore, they had a Chief Technician in the 1990s, who it was said could simply switch on the engine whilst the car was stationary, walk around it and listen to the sound it produced as well as press his ear up to the bodywork (and feel the vibration) of the vehicle and he could then say: "Claus assembled this one!" Urban myth? Perhaps, but it does speak volumes for the fact that even the most expensive items in the world have considerable product-to-product variation.

 

[Marsu42]

If you notice any problems return it to Canon and demand a perfect one.

But I don't buy lenses from Canon, it's a the most cheap shop I can find ... and this gets tricky is there was a price discount if the lens is bought together with a body. Really, @ €2300 there mustn't be this discussion and the awkwardness to look for a good sample, that's why people usually say "Don't buy Tamron".

 

[AJ]

http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/ISO-12233-Sample-Crops.aspx?Lens=787&Camera=453&Sample=0&FLI=0&API=0&LensComp=786&CameraComp=453&SampleComp=0&FLIComp=0&APIComp=0

Thanks for the link. The Tamron looks good, but the Canon looks really REALLY good. Pretty darn close to perfect, actually. I wonder if Klaus got a subpar sample.