Buy Canon Ef 24 105mm F 4l Is Usm

The Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM ($999.99) is a pricey lens in the company's premium line of L-series glass. Its design is appealing on paper: a 4.4x zoom with a maximum f/4 aperture throughout its range, a tough, dust- and splash-resistant design, and a close focus range that projects images onto the sensor at about one quarter life-size. At wider angles it's quite sharp, albeit with dimmed corners, and if it maintained that level throughout its range we'd recommend it highly. But image quality falls off as you move beyond 50mm. If you're in the market for a 24-105mm, you're better off with our Editors' Choice, the Sigma 24-105mm F4 DG OS HSM.

buy canon ef 24 105mm f 4l is usm

DesignThe 24-105mm measures 4.2 by 3.3 inches (HD), weighs about 1.5 pounds, and supports 77mm front filters. Like other L lenses it has a rubber gasket around the lens mount and, when coupled with a front filter, is protected from dust and splashes. A lens hood and carrying pouch is included, along with standard front and rear caps.

The zoom is at its shortest length at the 24mm position. The barrel extends in a telescoping fashion as you twist the rubberized zoom control ring, positioned at the base, toward 105mm. It's joined by a manual focus ring, which is also covered in rubber and located toward the front of the polycarbonate barrel.

ConclusionsThere's no way around it, the Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM underperforms, especially when you consider its price tag and its place in Canon's illustrious L lineup. It promises a longer zoom range than the EF 24-70mm f/4L IS USM, but doesn't match it in optical quality. It does live up to L standards in terms of build quality. The less expensive Canon EF 24-105mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM doesn't feel as sturdy, and it doesn't capture as much light when zoomed, but it delivers crisper results throughout its zoom range. For the same price, the Sigma 24-105mm F4 DG OS HSM delivers better image quality all around, while maintaining the same macro magnification, zoom range, and maximum aperture. It's our Editors' Choice for this type of lens.

Mounted on a cropped-frame EOS body, the EF 24-105mm will deliver a focal length equivalent to 38-168mm. While missing out on the true wide angle coverage of the general-purpose Canon EF-S lenses, an equivalent of 38mm is still sufficiently wide for many photographers to consider using the EF 24-105mm as a general-purpose lens. Meanwhile, the equivalent of 168mm at the telephoto end gives a longer reach than the EF-S walkaround options.

Note: Some early versions of the EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM suffered from an internal flare problem. This has been identified and Canon is offering repairs free of charge for affected models. Canon UK and Canon USA have published details on identifying models where the problem may occur.

When Canon announced the EOS 5D Mark IV in August 2016, it arrived on the scene at the same time as two full-frame optics: the EF 16-35mm f/2.8L III USM, and the revamped EF 24-105mm f/4L IS II USM ($1,299/1,389).

Favoured by those wanting to carry a single lens on location, the EF 24-105mm f/4L IS II USM falls into the standard zoom camp of premium lenses and differs from the original EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM in a number of ways.

I take a lot of street photographs and this lens offers me the convenience of shooting at different locations with a single lens. Hearing about the upoming update to the lens, I could not wait to see what its successor had to offer. After taking photos with it paired with the 30.4-megapixel EOS 5D Mark IV, I was pleased to note that the EF24-105mm f/4L IS II USM is capable of bringing out the depictive power of high-resolution DSLR cameras.

EOS 5D Mark IV/ EF24-105mm f/4L IS II USM/ FL: 24mm/ Aperture-priority AE (f/8, 1/320 sec, EV+0.3)/ ISO 100/ WB: AutoOne of the strengths of this lens is that it offers satisfactory results at both the wide-angle end of 24mm as well as the telephoto end of 105mm. As illustrated in the example above, both the boat and the blue sky are captured with the huge building as the primary subject at the focal length of 24mm, while resolution is also clear throughout the image.

EOS 5D Mark IV/ EF24-105mm f/4L IS II USM/ FL: 24mm/ Aperture-priority AE (f/4, 1/2,500 sec, EV+0.3)/ ISO 100/ WB: AutoThe shooting conditions were harsh with the bright sun on a clear day included in the composition. Nonetheless, the lens was able to prevent significant ghosting while producing a smooth gradation of the sky from white to blue. Flare was minimised, and the colours of the cosmos blossoms were also beautifully reproduced.

EOS 5D Mark IV/ EF24-105mm f/4L IS II USM/ FL: 105mm/ Aperture-priority AE (f/4, 1/256 sec, EV+0.7)/ ISO 100/ WB: AutoIn this shot, I set the focus on the flowers close to the camera, and blurred both the foreground and background with the aperture wide open. The outline of the bokeh effect in the background turns out natural and smooth, while the bokeh in the foreground at the bottom left corner of the image is soft and helps to accentuate the primary subject.

The EF24-105mm f/4L IS II USM comes with a new Air Sphere Coating (ASC) that is capable of reducing flare and ghosting considerably. While the predecessor, EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM, often produced unwanted coloured ghosting when shooting a bright light source, this is reduced by a large extent on the new lens. Flare resistance has also been enhanced, which prevents the contrast around the light source from deteriorating compared to its predecessor. Besides backlit shots with the sun in the background, you can also enjoy clear shots of nightscapes. The lens hood now comes with a new lock lever.

While ghosting is observed around the sun in the shot taken with the EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM, the same problem does not occur when the EF24-105mm f/4L IS II USM is used. Other than ghosting, flare is also seen near the centre of the image by the EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM, which reduces the contrast of the cosmos blossoms as a result.

Compared to its predecessor, the EF24-105mm f/4L IS II USM boasts a higher level of depictive power throughout the entire zoom range. In particular, astigmatism at the peripheral areas of the image as well as chromatic aberration (colour fringing) have been significantly reduced. In the current round of test shots, the depictive power of the lens has been found to improve dramatically from the standard to telephoto focal lengths with the details clearly resolved even at the maximum aperture. Also, while fine lines tend to be reproduced as thicker lines by the EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM, they are faithfully and clearly depicted with the EF24-105mm f/4L IS II USM, thus allowing you to obtain a clear image when it is used with a high-resolution camera. This enhancement is attributable to the four aspherical lens elements, which help to eliminate aberrations effectively.

EF24-105mm f/4L IS II USM is one of the rare lenses that produce 10-rayed starbursts. The main trend in recent years is for lenses to adopt an odd number of aperture blades, which produce a number of light rays that is double the number of the blades. For example, a nine-blade aperture would produce 18 light rays, and this may sometimes cause the resulting image to turn out too cluttered in night photography. With the EF24-105mm f/4L IS II USM, which has an even number of aperture blades (10), the number light rays produced is the same as the number of blades. At the same time, the starburst effect created is also cleaner and more beautiful compared to that by the EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM.

Compared to the starburst effect created by the EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM, the 10 light rays produced by each of the light source appear cleaner and more refined in the shot captured using the EF24-105mm f/4L IS II USM. The starburst effect becomes clearer as you narrow the aperture further, but the range between f/13 and f/16 is recommended to avoid any deterioration in the image quality resulting from diffraction.

Although vignetting is a problem that occurs on all zoom lenses when maximum aperture is used at the wide-angle end, considerable improvements have been made on the EF24-105mm f/4L IS II USM compared to the EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM. It is usually hard to notice vignetting as corrections are automatically applied inside the camera. However, if we photograph at a high ISO speed and compensate the exposure to the brighter side, the image quality at the four corners may lower as a result. This issue of vignetting is addressed optically on the EF24-105mm f/4L IS II USM with the effective placement of lens elements to minimise deterioration in the image quality.

EOS 5D Mark IV/ EF24-105mm f/4L IS II USM/ FL: 105mm/ Aperture-priority AE (f/4, 1/200 sec, EV+0.3)/ ISO 200/ WB: AutoI took a close-up shot of the tiny blossoms on an October sakura tree. The maximum magnification has improved slightly, and there would be very few occasions where you may find difficulty in closing up on the subject as desired at the telephoto end with the EF24-105mm f/4L IS II USM. Areas where the bokeh effect has a high contrast, such as the tree branches, also do not stand out excessively.

EOS 5D Mark IV/ EF24-105mm f/4L IS II USM/ FL: 105mm/ Aperture-priority AE (f/5.6, 1/320 sec, EV+0.3)/ ISO 100/ WB: AutoI set the lens at 105mm to create a perspective effect that compresses the distances between the guardrail in the foreground, the pedestrians and the buildings in the background. It would be difficult to achieve the desired effect with a 24-70mm lens, and I would have missed out on this photo opportunity if I had to change my lens. In this way, a lens that offers a telephoto focal length of up to 105mm offers many significant advantages.

EOS 5D Mark IV/ EF24-105mm f/4L IS II USM/ FL: 24mm/ Aperture-priority AE (f/8, 1/400 sec, EV+0.3)/ ISO 100/ WB: AutoIn this example, I tried to bring out the height of the skyscrapers with the lens set to the wide-angle end. It is also fun to play with the strong perspective exaggeration effect created by the wide angle of 24mm. The key here is to make good use of the perspective effect by moving as close to the subject as possible and capturing it at an angle. 041b061a72