A 21mm and a 24mm gives a different look to an image. It's easy to see this focal range as just a number, and yet thet create different looking images. Another example is the difference between a 28mm and a 24mm view. They seem to create a slightly different look and feel to an image.
I agree, it's the general build that I was commenting on. My Old EF 135L has been dropped several times, it's a very front heavy lens that likes to topple out of my camera bag (these days i use a camera bag where I can aly this lens down on it's side). My copy has dropped out of my hands and bounced onto a cobbled pavement more times that I would care to mention. It has a polycarb body shell and the part the needed replaceing the most was the metal lens mount ring, three times I've had that part replaced on my copy. I dropped my 70-200/2.8 II LIS once on a hard floor and that was far more catestrophic. It's got a lot of metal in it's construction, but as another has commented, it's also a lot bigger and heavier. So it hit the floor with a lot more mass. I'm sure dropping 700g lens is less of an engineering problem than at 1.5Kg lens. I also think that the extra engineering that is required to make silent AF systems for Videographers and the inclusion of IS units and elements makes a lens slightly more fragile than the older and simpler designs. I wonder if the new (and rather spectacular) RF 135 L IS is as resistant to cobbled pavements as the old EF model, not that I would like to intentionally bounce a RF 135 L IS! Subjective, I know.
From my experiances of using EF glass professionally over the last 20 years it is apparent to me that the newer coatings are slightly more suspeptable to scratches than the older coatings, but way easier to clean. I far prefer the newer coatings, especially with the newer BR and SWC. The newer lenses flare way less.
One of the things I didn't mention in my observation of the test's photographs that were presented was the amazing lack of ghosting and flare when shot directly into the sun, really clean and spectacular Sunstars....possibly the best I've seen so far.
I also think that the newer EF and now RF lenses are generally a lot shaper wide open than the older lenses, so they can take the very slight Sharpness hit from a clear filter. The older lenses...less so. Squeezing every last drop of sharpness from the older EF lenses was a priority. I used to advise my collegues to just use the hood for protection....these days a clear filter is the better and safer option.
Yes I sold that rig about 6 months after investing in it (just after launch of the range, I was one of the early adopters of the system).
I had a 3 & 6 stop ND filters, plus a CPL. Some of the worse colour casts I've seen on a ND filter. The CPL was crazy sized.
The problem with the system was
a) dealing with the sheer size of the filters (it was like carrying a set of small dinner plates). It would take me so long to assemble the rig that often my moment had passed.
b) dealing with bizarre reflections and chronic additional flare that seemed to appear.
For me, both be 10-20 and the 11-24 are niche lenses offering an ultra ultra wide angle. The use case is different from, for example, the 14-35/4 which can serve as both a UWA and walk around lens.
A fair comment.
Let me explan my point of view in more detail and please feel free to dissargree and comment yours. It's an awesome forum and we all have different perspectives. Debating and sharing our views helps with our education and I'm more than happy to be proved wrong...it's a way of learning. I may be a bit of a luddite, but I'm not intransient. I'm always up for a re-learn.
If a lens needs heavy correction and several stops of vignette exposure correction, there where does that data come from? Obviously the image file's DR. If a lens needs 2 stops of edge brightening, then that's 3 stops of extra noise and three stops of less DR I have as a photographer to use in post processing. If the image is being stretched and pulled significantly, then again that can affect the post production. Sure, I grant you that Ai is getting better all the time, but at the moment...it's a simple negative vignette mask and a geometric distortion propfile that is being applied.
Sure this available technology isn't there to literally cut corners on their lens design but to help photographers get the best results possible in their photographs.
It's just occurred to me how crazy it is that we are dicussing the particular merits of 10-20mm and 14-35mm lenses....it's amazing how these focal lengths are so much easier to access these days. This new lens is a lot smaller and lighter than the older EF 11-24mm As you stated earlier, a RF 14-35mm offers the average photographer a massive range of ultra to wide angle options, far greater than the older EF 16-35mm f4 ever did. With my EF 11-24mm lens, I'm regularly seeing compositional requirements that are specifically 12mm, 14mm, 16mm, 19mm, 21mm, 24mm.
