Canon EF 16-35mm f/4 IS L Review
http://www.DarrenMiles.com Southwest Florida Photographer based in Naples, FL.
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CONCLUSIONTime to draw some conclusions about the 16-35mm f/4 IS L lens from canon, so here goes;THE BUILD QUALITY: It’s pretty nice, made out of a tightly assembled combination of metal and plastic, though the housing is mostly plastic, it’s nice quality plastic, but it’s still plastic. The focus and zoom rings are rubberized, well dampened, they offer an ideal amount of resistance, and they live up to the L quality expectations. It’s not weather sealed out of the box, but a simple UV filter does in fact make the lens weather and dust resistant. It’s pretty weighty, coming in at 1 lb 4 ozs, but it’s much lighter than the f/2.8 offerings in the marketplace. Overall, it’s pretty solid and we gave it a 9/10
AF SPEED AND ACCURACY: There aren’t too many situations that require ultra fast focus when you’re shooting with an ultra wide angle lens, but the USM motor that’s included with the 16-35 is very brisk, and perfectly accurate when and if you need it. I really don’t for the majority of what I do, but just the same, there’s nothing to fault here, for AF speed and accuracy, the 16-35 gets a 10/10
OPTICAL QUALITY AND THE QUALITY OF THE RESULTS: In my line of work with ultra-wide angle lenses in real estate photography specifically, the 16-35 shines, as it delivers excellent edge to edge sharpness and does a really excellent job managing many of the pitfalls that usually accompany an ultra wide angle lens, specifically, chromatic aberrations are almost non-existent, which to me, is really impressive, there’s also not a ton of haze in those same transition areas and flair is extremely well controlled, just for the record, I read one review - I believe it was from lenstip.com - who claimed that the lens’s performance against bright light was poor, I’m not experiencing the kind of flair patterns that they’ve displayed on their website at all - which may indicate some production variance with this lens, but I’m basing my rating on the lens I have - for optical quality and the quality of the results, we gave the 16-35 a 10/10 for both!VALUE: It’s about the only sticking point with the 16-35 f/4, don’t get me wrong, the 16-35 f/4 is a great lens, really, it’s a great lens with some groundbreaking improvements in some very critical areas in optical quality in a wide angle lens. It’s just that there’s so much competent competition out there for considerably less money that you just have to look at the alternatives. Now, that said, if you’re like me and you shoot a lot of real estate, then things like flair and CAs matter, and the Canon is definitely better in that area than the lower value priced and excellent Tokina 16-28mm f/2.8 - CA’s can ruin a shot, even when they’re corrected in photoshop, the other disadvantage for the 16-35 is that you’re giving up a stop of light for a higher price. On the plus side, you do gain IS, but at $1,199, as nice as the 16-35 f/4 IS is, you better really need the difference in image quality to justify it. So for value, we gave the 16-35 f/4 an 8.5 out of 10.OVERALL 47.5/50 and HIGHLY Recommended rating
THE FINAL WORD: The 16-35 f/4 IS is just the latest in a string of really excellent, high quality professional lenses put out by Canon. It’s a highly competent lens, that does a marvelous job of managing problem areas where other ultra wide angle lenses tend to struggle. However, to get that incremental improvement in performance, it comes at a nearly 2x the cost over the really excellent and arguably better built Tokina 16-28mm f/2.8. In the end, it’s up to you to decide if the improvement in optical performance is worth it. For me, I really like the 16-35 f/4, I just wish it were priced a little bit lower, but I’d probably be willing to bite the bullet and pay it to get that noticeable improvement in high contrast areas around windows in my interior shots, my clients will appreciate the difference - well, at least I’ll think they’ll appreciate the difference :-) This is Darren Miles with Darren Miles Photography based here in beautiful sunny Naples, FL, if you like these reviews, please don’t forget to “SUBSCRIBE!”Thank you so much for watching, and until the next time, happy shooting!!