The Raw Data: The EF 24-70 f/2.8L II is the Sharpest Zoom Canon Has Ever Made

[Zlatko]

Bro... you are not on an island by yourself.

However, there is a valid point here: that you get what you pay for. Lenses are designed from the start with a selling price in mind. The design brief goes something like this: "Design the best lens you can with these characteristics and for this price point." The price point always limits the design. Always. They can't build a lens better than its price point; if they did, they would lose money on every lens. So, whatever price point they set, that's the lens that is produced. A 24-70 lens will be a different lens at $500, $1.3K, $2.3K, $5k, $10K, $15K, and so on. Thankfully, a large manufacturer like Canon can make something for a wide range of price points, such as the much less expensive 24-105L, whereas a small manufacturer like Leica builds fewer products and in a more narrow price range (outside of most photographers' budgets).

The new 24-70 isn't more expensive because it's better than the old 24-70; rather ... the new 24-70 is better than the old 24-70 because it's more expensive. The improvement in quality is a result of the increase in price, which was determined before the lens was designed. Everyone expects better products at lower prices, but that's not realistic for many products.

 

[ScottyP]

Still can't believe it is not Image Stabilized. This walking-around lens will be handheld 90% of the time, and inside in dim light half the time, yet they put no IS on it?

Then you look at some of the recent supertelephotos. There they are weighing 827 pounds at 400, 500, 600mm, mounted on their tripods and monopods a lot, outside in the sunshine shooting sports at 1/2000, and yet they are all sporting IS bling.

Seems off.

 

[K-amps]

Bro... you are not on an island by yourself.

However, there is a valid point here: that you get what you pay for. Lenses are designed from the start with a selling price in mind. The design brief goes something like this: "Design the best lens you can with these characteristics and for this price point." The price point always limits the design. Always. They can't build a lens better than its price point; if they did, they would lose money on every lens. So, whatever price point they set, that's the lens that is produced. A 24-70 lens will be a different lens at $500, $1.3K, $2.3K, $5k, $10K, $15K, and so on. Thankfully, a large manufacturer like Canon can make something for a wide range of price points, such as the much less expensive 24-105L, whereas a small manufacturer like Leica builds fewer products and in a more narrow price range (outside of most photographers' budgets).

The new 24-70 isn't more expensive because it's better than the old 24-70; rather ... the new 24-70 is better than the old 24-70 because it's more expensive. The improvement in quality is a result of the increase in price, which was determined before the lens was designed. Everyone expects better products at lower prices, but that's not realistic for many products.

[rant]

Respectfully disagree on a couple of assumptions you made.

I am willing to bet that the mk.ii costs less than the mk.i to manufacture. (Cost to manufacture, not fully loaded Overheads), since productivity in process manufacturing helps out a lot here. Plastic vs. metal machining etc.

The mk.ii is not pricier, since both were made in Japan, the local price in Yen is almost the same as the mk.1 was 10 years ago, taking inflation into consideration, it is actually cheaper than the mk.1. The price increase in US$ is a result of the devaluation of the dollar more than anything else.. not becuase making mk.ii was more expensive.


Price is determined by what the market can bear also, not only the price to manufacture. If no product comes close to the 24-70 in performance, then a premium will be assigned to it... and the market will pay, if not then you will see a drop in price... yet they will still sell at a profit.

I am willing to bet also that the price to manufacture a 24-105 f4 might be close or even higher than the 24-70 ii on a purely material and assembly cost basis. Is Canon losing money on either? No... it is just loading overheads differently to each product... This fuzzy accounting is what I deal with everyday catering to both Finance and marketing as I provide solutions to both of them to manage profitability.

At the end it depends how R&D costs are spread over products... different companies do it differently..

To surmise, the improvement in quality is due to newer design technologies available, not because they sprinkled magic fairy dust into mk.ii...

[/rant over]

 

[Matthew19]

you NAILED it K-AMPs.



Its the same reason why some kindle books cost more than the physical versions on amazon.

Austrian school economist have always known this.

 

[Zlatko]

Respectfully disagree on a couple of assumptions you made.

I am willing to bet that the mk.ii costs less than the mk.i to manufacture. (Cost to manufacture, not fully loaded Overheads), since productivity in process manufacturing helps out a lot here. Plastic vs. metal machining etc.

The mk.ii is not pricier, since both were made in Japan, the local price in Yen is almost the same as the mk.1 was 10 years ago, taking inflation into consideration, it is actually cheaper than the mk.1. The price increase in US$ is a result of the devaluation of the dollar more than anything else.. not becuase making mk.ii was more expensive.


Price is determined by what the market can bear also, not only the price to manufacture. If no product comes close to the 24-70 in performance, then a premium will be assigned to it... and the market will pay, if not then you will see a drop in price... yet they will still sell at a profit.

I am willing to bet also that the price to manufacture a 24-105 f4 might be close or even higher than the 24-70 ii on a purely material and assembly cost basis. Is Canon losing money on either? No... it is just loading overheads differently to each product... This fuzzy accounting is what I deal with everyday catering to both Finance and marketing as I provide solutions to both of them to manage profitability.

At the end it depends how R&D costs are spread over products... different companies do it differently..

To surmise, the improvement in quality is due to newer design technologies available, not because they sprinkled magic fairy dust into mk.ii..

I respectfully disagree with almost all of your assumptions. I'm willing to bet the opposite of all of the things you mentioned you're willing to bet. Specifically, I'd bet the new 24-70 is significantly costlier to manufacture than the old one, and that it's significantly costlier to manufacture than the 24-105. You really think they would make this product significantly better in almost every way, but with lower production costs? That would require some magic fairy dust indeed — magic fairy dust that boosts worker productivity, lowers material costs, improves quality control, provides outstanding engineering, etc., ... all for less money. No doubt newer design technologies help, but newer design technologies don't suddenly appear for free. A manufacturer typically has to make a significant investment in order to make newer design technologies pay off. Building or re-equiping a factory isn't exactly cheap.

You may deal with fuzzy accounting everyday, but I don't think you're in the camera & lens business (and neither am I). You're probably correct that they load overheads [somewhat] differently to each product, but I suspect the differences are not very dramatic and that the ultimate selling price has a fairly predictable relationship with the manufacturing cost.

Canon's new 24-70 is 18% or so more expensive than Nikon's 24-70, and that may be partly due to it being new (and thus having premium for early users) but the price will likely drop 10% or so in the next year and then it will be closer in price to Nikon's — and then it will not seem so extreme. Nikon users have long been able to say (correctly) that their 24-70 offers better in sharpness and reliability than Canon's, but that never surprised me as Nikon's was about $500 more expensive. Of course, that extra $500 bought something. Now, it is evident that the extra $1,000 in the new 24-70 (vs. the old one) also buys something ... namely, quality and durability. I really don't understand how people believe that a lens manufacturer will deliver a significantly better lens but at the same or lower cost to manufacture, and with a massive jackup in selling price just because they can. I suppose it can happen, but it's not very likely.

 

[dirtcastle]

Much like Canon L lenses, crack cocaine is also considered too expensive by many of its users.

 

[dadgummit]

Much like Canon L lenses, crack cocaine is also considered too expensive by many of its users.

Ironic thing is, L lenses are almost as addictive.

If I never heard of this lens I would be perfectly happy with the 24-105L but knowing there is something out there that is as sharp as the 24-70 II makes me think silly things like I need to sell my 24-105L and 35L so I can be ready for this.

 

[Axilrod]

f/2.8 ofcourse!
and if you have time f4, f8, f11 and f22
Thanks Axil!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rsinghatl/

I did 24mm from f/2.8-f/6.3 just on part of the brick of my house (only thing I could think of that was completely flat and big enough to fill 24mm). In the 100% crops the edges are a little soft, but not abnormally soft by any means, I feel like the center sharpness more than makes up for it. The distortion is a little more apparent on this lens and vignetting is pretty noticeable wide open.

All of these were taken on a 5D3 with faithful picture profile (Sharpness 1, Contrast -2, Saturation -2), which are actually video settings, but oh well. I fixed the white balance on the stork images just a tad, but no other adjustments aside from that, just RAW to JPEG from Aperture. Then I also have pics from 24mm, 28mm, 35mm, 50mm, and 70mm at f/2.8 and f/4. I have to say I think this lens really shines at 70mm, very very sharp.

Like I said I do video mainly so I don't really know what I'm doing with stills. I noticed after shooting for a bit that it seemed like it was back focusing just a hair in certain situations, so it's possible some of these might be a touch out of focus. Also the shots of the car wash were taken shooting upwards at an angle vs head on with the bottle, so parts of it may be out of focus.

 

[K-amps]

All Hail, Sir Axilrod!

:-*

Pretty good sharpness at 24mm f2.8. Amazing at 70mm f2.8. Very nice Bokeh @ 70mm too.

Thanks for taking the time man!

 

[Axilrod]

All Hail, Sir Axilrod!

:-*

Lol I just know that I really wanted someone to do this before I got my hands on it. Plus I only have it for 3 days so I'm trying to take as many samples as I can. But I'm definitely leaning towards picking one up. As a prime guy having a zoom in this range with this performance is just too damn convenient.

I just added a few more of all focal lengths at f/2.8 and f/5.6, but they have text so it's a bit easier to judge sharpness.

PS, I just realized that the shots of the bottle of carwash were taken kind of upwards at an angle, which means at f/2.8 there are probably going to be some spots that look out of focus, so just look for the sharpest part and judge based on that.

 

[well_dunno]

Thanks Axilrod!

 

[K-amps]

Yes the barcode portion of the carwash was a bit off focus... first I thought mushy corner sharpness but this looks good!

 

[Axilrod]

Yes the barcode portion of the carwash was a bit off focus... first I thought mushy corner sharpness but this looks good!

Yeah that was definitely it, I was short on time when I shot those and didn't feel like raising the tripod, didn't think about the effect it would have. Also, I think the camera was tilted left slightly on the f/2.8 pic of the brick wall, I think I straightened it up after that. So f/2.8 may look a bit worse on the edges than it actually is.

 

[K-amps]

Yes the barcode portion of the carwash was a bit off focus... first I thought mushy corner sharpness but this looks good!

Yeah that was definitely it, I was short on time when I shot those and didn't feel like raising the tripod, didn't think about the effect it would have. Also, I think the camera was tilted left slightly on the f/2.8 pic of the brick wall, I think I straightened it up after that. So f/2.8 may look a bit worse on the edges than it actually is.

I was trying to look for the name of the cable manufacturer on the Black Coax on the wall.. but there was not name, but it is so sharp, I bet we could have seen one

 

[Axilrod]

I was trying to look for the name of the cable manufacturer on the Black Coax on the wall.. but there was not name, but it is so sharp, I bet we could have seen one

Haha I'm sure. I take it you're feeling pretty good about your purchase?

 

[K-amps]

I was trying to look for the name of the cable manufacturer on the Black Coax on the wall.. but there was not name, but it is so sharp, I bet we could have seen one

Haha I'm sure. I take it you're feeling pretty good about your purchase?

Yes... I am probably one of the few "idiots" that paid in advance for my pre-order, hoping I will be bumped up at my local camera store But I pre=ordered 2 weeks ago, so i am not expecting one anytime soon...

by the way do you live in the Atlanta region? My bro lives in Lawrenceville and sis in Duluth... I come there once a year. We always goto Helen, GA

 

[Axilrod]

Yes... I am probably one of the few "idiots" that paid in advance for my pre-order, hoping I will be bumped up at my local camera store But I pre=ordered 2 weeks ago, so i am not expecting one anytime soon...

by the way do you live in the Atlanta region? My bro lives in Lawrenceville and sis in Duluth... I come there once a year. We always goto Helen, GA

Lol yeah but the charts looked very promising and were apparently very accurate. Yes I'm very familiar with the areas you mentioned, Helen is a beautiful place. You go for Oktoberfest? Man an idiot like you sure could get some great pics there with that 24-70 II

 

[AdamJ]

What Canon lists their price and and what actually gets charged is completely different.

Example. Speedlite 600EX-RT - List price RRP is what? £629?
But I can buy it in the UK, with a VAT receipt for £429.99

The list price of the 70-200 mkII on launch was £2499, I paid £1349 - UK purchase, VAT receipt given.

The estimated price in the UK from my supplier is £1800 for the 24-70 MKII, which is a £500 increase over the Mk1 but it's only just came out.

Digital Rev are price scalping by charging £2499 which is £200 more than the RRP.

I wish everyone would stop bitching about pricing. Like the RRP means a damn thing.

It's the same as how a lot of guys in the UK complain about Ipads being cheaper in the states. The fools look at the prices less sales Tax. Account for that and the prices are almost the same as the UK.

Not bitching, just saying that the cheapest advertised UK (not grey) prices I can find today are:
24-70mm II - £2,299 (Wex) = $3,706, or $3,089 ex VAT
70-200mm II - £1,824 (MBP)

I tend to wait until product prices reach their market level and I'm sure the 24-70 II will eventually fall below £1,800 but if you have a dealer offering £1,800 on day one (or a 70-200mm II for £1,349), please could you let me know who they are - they could interest me in a few other lenses.

 

[Razor2012]

Much like Canon L lenses, crack cocaine is also considered too expensive by many of its users.

Ironic thing is, L lenses are almost as addictive.

If I never heard of this lens I would be perfectly happy with the 24-105L but knowing there is something out there that is as sharp as the 24-70 II makes me think silly things like I need to sell my 24-105L and 35L so I can be ready for this.

Not silly at all, go for it. I've been selling other gear getting ready for this.

 

[xthebillx]

I can fully agree to Rogers test. Thank you very much for testing.

If you are a professional photographer get the lens.

In my opinion it´s not to expensive. If you have only to work a day or less as a professional photographers to buy the lens, the price is not a big problem.

Couldn't agree more.
Only those who are hobbyist gear hounds would gripe about price. The rest of us will bump fees or line items a bit to accommodate the capital investment (or just draw from the capital investment fund ). If the tool does its job and the results equal a perceived (to the client) improvement in the technical quality of your work (read: sharpness), then it's a no-brainer.
The formula I was taught was: COST/avg # of working days in a year/36 (three years) +10% markup.
This way, over three years, the lens will pay for itself and furnish you with a 10% return for your trouble. $2300 winds up being a nominal increase in fees, and better results equal happier clients who won't question the marginal increase.
Not to mention it's 100% DEDUCTIBLE!