Canon Quality Lenses - what would you buy?

[davidedric]

Prompted by Tony's recent post on upgrading his 40D.

As I think most of us know, Canon's premier L series lenses are, by definition, made to fit all current bodies. Therefore, they have to work with Full Frame cameras.

However, it seems to me that Canon could quite easily offer lenses built to the same optical and mechanical quality as their L series (including weather sealing, and so on). Such lenses would be lighter, perhaps easier to design, and cheaper (since their elements would be smaller if they only had to cover a crop sensor).

Presumably, Canon don't see a market there. However, with the quality now being delivered through crop frame cameras, like the 70D, being a fair bit "better" them full frames of only a few years ago, I'm not sure.

I would certainly be interested in a "EF-S" lens built to L series quality.

Would anyone else out there be interested?

Dave

[HaseebM]

Some non "L" lenses from Canon are quite comparable to their "L" lenses, for eg., 80mm EF and 100mm Macro. Their 40mm pancake isn't bad either. I have three L lenses and except for the 100mm Macro IS, the other two are non IS but perform well for what I do. I can only assume if they offer weather sealed lenses to L series quality, pricing may not be that attractive enough to warrant picking up the non L series. This perhaps may be an individual assumption but for me a difference of less than $150 between L and non L isn't much to compare.

[rpcrowe]

I use my 70-200mm f/4L IS and 17-55mm f/2.8 IS lenses on a pair of 7D bodies and I consider each of these lenses as excellent. Although the 17-55mm is an EFS lens, its image quality stands toe to toe with my 70-200mm f/4L IS lens at equivalent apertures. I am talking about real-life day-to-day shooting, not some camera test...

BTW, this is a wonderful combination for general purpose and travel photography.

[CBImages]

I agree with Richard, I too used the 70-200mm f4 L IS lens and the EF-S 17-55 mm f2.8 on a crop factor body - the 50D and found them a superb combination producing excellent images. I also used the 100mm f2.8L Macro on the 50D and the quality was outstanding.
I have since upgraded my camera to the 5D MkIII and although I still use the 70-200mm and the 100mm macro I have bought the 24-105mm f4 as the EF-S fitting isn't compatible. One thing I did notice is the the resolution of the 24-105mm is far better than the 17-55mm, images show greater detail towards the edges of the frame on both the 5D MkIII and the 50D.
One thing I wasn't expecting is that images made using the 100mm Macro appear to have more resolution of detail when paired with the 50D body than the 5D MkIII.

Anyway the question was "what lenses would you buy"?
It's a good question - Canon produce some very good lenses in their L range but also some that require compromises. The 24-105mm has a great zoom range, good resolution and IS but it suffers badly from distortion.
The image quality of their wide angle zooms - 16-35mm f2.8 L and their 17-40mm f4 L is quite poor in relation to Nikon's 14-24mm f2.8 - in fact a few Canon users, use this lens with an adapter. They loose auto focus and have to adjust the aperture manually but gladly do so to benefit from the superb optics.
I myself use an old Contax 35-70mm f3.4 with an adapter, it's image quality exceeds anything that Canon currently produce in that range and it cost a fraction of the price.

So yes to answer your question - L lenses don't always provide the best image quality but that isn't the full story.
They do provide weather sealing, auto focus and IS - so it's up to the consumer to decide on the pros and cons depending upon their needs.

That is why I have a selection of lenses - Canon L for convenience and a few other specialist lenses for when outright image quality is important.

[AB26]

Hi Dave,

I am not a Canon shooter, however I do believe that Canon will not manufacture any “inferior” lenses. If it says Canon it should be good enough for the purpose it was made to serve.

Depending on what you aim to achieve, you will find a lens that will do the job for you. It is a matter of what suits your purpose and not so much about what is the best. The best will be the more expensive lenses used by 1Dx shooters.

What will I buy? In Nikon terms it would be any Nikon lens that I really need for what I want to achieve.

The best Canon lens to buy is the one that suits your specific needs and your budget imho.

[rpcrowe]

The best Canon lens to buy is the one that suits your specific needs and your budget imho.

Well said Andre! I really think that some folks get all wound up in the smoke and mirrors of lens testing always forgetting that what the lens accomplishes in real life shooting is the important factor.