# Photozone Review of the 16-35mm f/4L IS



## mackguyver (Jul 4, 2014)

It looks like they just posted their review:
http://www.photozone.de/canon_eos_ff/877-canon_1635_4is


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## candyman (Jul 4, 2014)

mackguyver said:


> It looks like they just posted their review:
> http://www.photozone.de/canon_eos_ff/877-canon_1635_4is


From this review I would say that it leaves enough space for an improved 16-35 f/2.8 - in version III or a 12/14-24 f/2.8


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Jul 4, 2014)

Its just a interesting observation, but I've noticed that a little improvement to a lens not only comes at a big jump in price, but also size and weight. One can see why its not f/2.8. It might be extremely expensive and huge.
I have the f/2.8 version, so size, cost, and weight wise there would be little advantage. 
At f/4, the new lens is definitely better, but at f/5.6 or smaller, where much of the use comes, the main difference is the IS, and, as noted, it appears to affect the resolution when used. And, I can use f/2.8 when needed, and its very good in the center, but soft at the edges and bad in the corners.

I'd say go for the f/4 if you are buying a new one.


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## ajperk (Jul 4, 2014)

Mt Spokane Photography said:


> Its just a interesting observation, but I've noticed that a little improvement to a lens not only comes at a big jump in price, but also size and weight. One can see why its not f/2.8. It might be extremely expensive and huge.
> I have the f/2.8 version, so size, cost, and weight wise there would be little advantage.
> At f/4, the new lens is definitely better, but at f/5.6 or smaller, where much of the use comes, the main difference is the IS, and, as noted, it appears to affect the resolution when used. And, I can use f/2.8 when needed, and its very good in the center, but soft at the edges and bad in the corners.
> 
> I'd say go for the f/4 if you are buying a new one.



I've wondered if IS can impact image quality while it is in operation. If I understand it correctly, it is essentially a controlled decentering of an element within the lense. Has anyone ever tried to detect such differences? Can they be discerned from resolution loss simply due to camera shake? I suppose that in situations where it's most useful, IS is the difference between anything and nothing picture-wise, so perhaps it's more of an academic discussion, but I'm curious nonetheless.


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## 9VIII (Jul 4, 2014)

The most interesting thing for me is that it's basically distortion free at 24mm. I have to wonder why they can manage that in a zoom lens when I have never seen a 24mm (or basically any wide angle lens) with no distortion.

You'd think that would be a higher priority given how much architecture gets shot with these.

(If I didn't already have the Sigma 18-35f1.8 I would probably be getting a 16-35f4 IS.)


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## mackguyver (Jul 4, 2014)

I started my 16-35 f/4 IS vs 24L, 24-70 II, TS-E 17, TS-E 24 II comparison today with a set of infamous brick wall photos. I'm happy to say that all of the lenses are very sharp and control CA well. The 16-35 f/4 IS has tons of contrast and compares very well to the 24-70 II. Distortion at 16mm is a bit worse that I'd hoped, but soon DxO and others will have profiles. Vignetting is also rather bad in the extreme corners wide open, but stopping down helps a lot. 

Tomorrow I'll give them a test with exterior building shots and over the coming weeks, I'll add lots more to my review. More to come...


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## 100 (Jul 4, 2014)

9VIII said:


> The most interesting thing for me is that it's basically distortion free at 24mm. I have to wonder why they can manage that in a zoom lens when I have never seen a 24mm (or basically any wide angle lens) with no distortion.
> 
> You'd think that would be a higher priority given how much architecture gets shot with these.
> 
> (If I didn't already have the Sigma 18-35f1.8 I would probably be getting a 16-35f4 IS.)



If you go from barrel distortion to pincushion distortion there will always be a point in-between the two where there is almost no distortion.

The TS-E 24mm f/3.5 L II doesn't have much distortion so there are good (24mm) wide angle primes.


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## LetTheRightLensIn (Jul 4, 2014)

mackguyver said:


> It looks like they just posted their review:
> http://www.photozone.de/canon_eos_ff/877-canon_1635_4is



hmm looks a bit as I was starting to fear, not quite a sharpness king like 24-70 II and even beaten a few times by the old lenses mid-frame to edge (if not corner). Tokina seems to handily beat it across the board for that 24-70 II type sharpness, although Tokina registers some rather awful CA while this has the best CA of just about anything

still it easily does better at 16mm and 20mm than the 17-40L, although costing more (sharper all around at the extreme wide end, with less distortion and much less CA)

and better at 16-20mm as well than the 16-35 II, to a bit lesser degree, despite having IS and costing less (much less CA, sharper at 16mm, bit at 20mm)

it scored a bit weak compared to 24-70 f/4 IS or 24-70 II though (other than having even better CA performance)


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## Hjalmarg1 (Jul 4, 2014)

mackguyver said:


> I started my 16-35 f/4 IS vs 24L, 24-70 II, TS-E 17, TS-E 24 II comparison today with a set of infamous brick wall photos. I'm happy to say that all of the lenses are very sharp and control CA well. The 16-35 f/4 IS has tons of contrast and compares very well to the 24-70 II. Distortion at 16mm is a bit worse that I'd hoped, but soon DxO and others will have profiles. Vignetting is also rather bad in the extreme corners wide open, but stopping down helps a lot.
> 
> Tomorrow I'll give them a test with exterior building shots and over the coming weeks, I'll add lots more to my review. More to come...



I also received mine and I compared against my old 24-70mm f2.8L at 24mm, 30mm and 35mm. I can tell that giving one stop advantage to the 24-70mm the new 16-35mm outperforms it in terms of contrast and sharpness. 
I had all three other UWA lenses from canon 10-22, 17-40 and 16-35 f2.8L II and always I struggled to get subjects in the border of the frame sharp so I had to stop down too much so loosing the benefits of wide aperture. Now I can apply the rule of thirds with this lens and no cropping needed. 
Distortion is similar to the 2.8L, vignetting is a little more but it can easily corrected in software and CA is well controlled. 
For wedding, action and sports the f2.8L II still rules but for everything else this is way better. I got sharp pictures at 1/3 second on the widest angle.


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## 9VIII (Jul 4, 2014)

100 said:


> 9VIII said:
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> > The most interesting thing for me is that it's basically distortion free at 24mm. I have to wonder why they can manage that in a zoom lens when I have never seen a 24mm (or basically any wide angle lens) with no distortion.
> ...



That is a spectacular lens, but a $2,000 manual focus small aperture non-IS non-weather sealed lens isn't quite what I was thinking of.

They could take this exact lens formula at 24mm, remove the zoom capability, and you'd have one of the best 24mm prime lenses on the market. That just sounds wrong to me.


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## LetTheRightLensIn (Jul 4, 2014)

9VIII said:


> 100 said:
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24 1.4 II and 24 2.8 IS also have low distortion at 24mm

the 24-whatever zooms all have a lot more than this 16-35 at 24mm, but that is to be expected since you are comparing an extreme end there to middle range here, but it is nice that this does deliver way less distortion at 24mm, as my own tests already made instantly obvious


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## 9VIII (Jul 4, 2014)

LetTheRightLensIn said:


> 9VIII said:
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Maybe sort of? The 16-35f4IS is achieving nearly zero distortion, nothing else comes close except the 24mm TS-E.

It just looks like one of those things that can be done but no-one bothers.


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## neuroanatomist (Jul 4, 2014)

9VIII said:


> They could take this exact lens formula at 24mm, remove the zoom capability, and you'd have one of the best 24mm prime lenses on the market. That just sounds wrong to me.





9VIII said:


> Maybe sort of? The 16-35f4IS is achieving nearly zero distortion, nothing else comes close except the 24mm TS-E.
> 
> It just looks like one of those things that can be done but no-one bothers.



I'm sure it could be done. Would you pay $1199 for a 24mm f/4 IS prime lens with nearly no distortion? Maybe you would, but you'd be in a fiscally irrelevant minoroty as far as Canon is concerned.


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## 100 (Jul 5, 2014)

9VIII said:


> 100 said:
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Why would you want a weather sealed wide aperture IS autofocus lens for architecture?
The TS-E 24 and TS-E 17 are the best 135 format wide angle (prime) lenses for architecture. 



9VIII said:


> They could take this exact lens formula at 24mm, remove the zoom capability, and you'd have one of the best 24mm prime lenses on the market. That just sounds wrong to me.



At 24mm the EF 16-35mm might be nearly distortion free but it also has the worst border and corner resolution wide open at 24mm and it has the worst chromatic aberrations throughout the aperture range. 
Image distortion is not the only factor in image quality. With good lens profiles minor image distortion is not a big deal.


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## LetTheRightLensIn (Jul 5, 2014)

100 said:


> At 24mm the EF 16-35mm might be nearly distortion free but it also has the worst border and corner resolution wide open at 24mm and it has the worst chromatic aberrations throughout the aperture range.
> Image distortion is not the only factor in image quality. With good lens profiles minor image distortion is not a big deal.



16-35 f/4 IS at 24mm has less CA of all types (including longitudinal purple fringing) than the 24 1.4 II or 24 2.8 non-IS (I don't know about the 24 IS CA; I know the 24 T&S II has low CA)


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## raptor3x (Jul 5, 2014)

I thought I had a good copy of the Tokina 16-28 but Photozone's results show their copy as being significantly superior to both the 17 TS-E and 16-35 IS at the wide end in terms of corner resolution. This was definitely not my experience.


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## 9VIII (Jul 5, 2014)

neuroanatomist said:


> 9VIII said:
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> 
> > They could take this exact lens formula at 24mm, remove the zoom capability, and you'd have one of the best 24mm prime lenses on the market. That just sounds wrong to me.
> ...



How much of that cost is tied up in the zoom mechanism itself? How much is the optical formula limited by the requirement that it has to look good across the entire zoom range?
I have to wonder if this isn't another case like the Otus and Sigma 50A, where a counter-intuitive design decision could achieve superior results.

(As I type this I'm probably thinking of the Sigma 24A rumors in the back of my mind)


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## e17paul (Jul 5, 2014)

neuroanatomist said:


> 9VIII said:
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> > They could take this exact lens formula at 24mm, remove the zoom capability, and you'd have one of the best 24mm prime lenses on the market. That just sounds wrong to me.
> ...



+1, but I would love one. Meanwhile the TS-E 24 sits patiently on my wish list.


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## Woody (Jul 5, 2014)

raptor3x said:


> I thought I had a good copy of the Tokina 16-28 but Photozone's results show their copy as being significantly superior to both the 17 TS-E and 16-35 IS at the wide end in terms of corner resolution. This was definitely not my experience.



According to Photozone, @ 16 to 17 mm and f/4, Tokina 16-28, 17 TSE and 16-35 IS all have similar corner sharpness. By f/8, the 16-35 IS lags slightly behind Tokina 16-28 and 17 TSE in corner sharpness.

I do not know if you are looking at the correct numbers.


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## 100 (Jul 5, 2014)

LetTheRightLensIn said:


> 100 said:
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> > At 24mm the EF 16-35mm might be nearly distortion free but it also has the worst border and corner resolution wide open at 24mm and it has the worst chromatic aberrations throughout the aperture range.
> ...



I meant the EF 16-35mm has the worst chromatic aberrations at 24mm compared to the other focal lengths of the lens.







Compared to other Canon lenses the border CA of the EF 16-35mm at 24 mm is good (the TS-E 24 II is better though), but the EF 16-35mm is outperformed on Border CA by something like the Sigma AF 12-24mm at 24mm. 







9VIII wrote: _They could take this exact lens formula at 24mm, remove the zoom capability, and you'd have one of the best 24mm prime lenses on the market._

If you look at image distortion that might be true but there is a lot more to a lens. The point I tried to make is that you might get one aspect nearly perfect but that usually means you have to compromise on other aspects.


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## Sporgon (Jul 5, 2014)

Petty that a site with photozone's reputation gives a throw away comment about IQ being slightly lower with IS activated, but doesn't give any factual evidence for this comment. 

I've long felt that on the 24-105 the IS can reduce resolution compared to when it's off , given appropriate shutter speeds, yet when I have tried to proof it the results are inconclusive, as if it's a random event.


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## neuroanatomist (Jul 5, 2014)

9VIII said:


> neuroanatomist said:
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Even at half the price, I sincerely doubt any manufacturer would think it a good idea to develop a 24mm *f/4* prime lens. Sorry, it's a non-starter.


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## raptor3x (Jul 5, 2014)

Woody said:


> raptor3x said:
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> > I thought I had a good copy of the Tokina 16-28 but Photozone's results show their copy as being significantly superior to both the 17 TS-E and 16-35 IS at the wide end in terms of corner resolution. This was definitely not my experience.
> ...



I had meant mid-frame rather than corner resolution. But still, even looking at the corners I see my 16-35 being significantly better than the shots from my Tokina. This might suggest that even though I tried 4 copies of the Tokina and picked the best one, maybe all of them were decentered.


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## ajfotofilmagem (Jul 5, 2014)

I understand that projects with high resolution zoom lens has a disadvantage in chromatic aberration. Those projects that have zero distortion, vignetting is a disadvantage. For these reasons, no zoom lens that is able to overcome prime lenses in ALL aspects of quality, in the same lens. It is a matter of choice: What amount of vignetting, chromatic aberration, geometric distortion, I'm willing to accept in exchange for sharpness, contrast and colors.
However, Canon 16-35 F4 is a great option against your competitors.


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## LetTheRightLensIn (Jul 6, 2014)

100 said:


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But as you say it still has among the lowest lateral CA at 24mm of any lens AND it has almost zero longitudinal CA at 24mm (not many places mention that nasty type of CA)


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