[Klaus]

Hello all,


something I do not understand regarding the verdict of the lens tests.


I got an offer to buy a pretty nice L lens from Canon and I compared those to my existing (much cheaper) lens. I found out the L lenses are much less sharper than my old ones, but the verdict says take the L and forget the old crap.


Ok, distortion and vignetting are bad compared to the new lens, end yes the old lens are  EF-S and the other one is a L. But for distortion and vignetting the camera and later Lightroom will correct this pretty fine - but the sharpness of the old lens is much better!!!


Why does the verdict praise the L lens and condem the EF-S lens?

Because its L and EF-S???


Any idea???



In detail:

"New Lens": Canon EF 17-40mm f/4 USM L

"Old Lens": Canon EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 USM IS

The advantages of each lenses are pretty clear to me… I struggle with the sharpness.

Example values (all values taken from border at F/8):


17 mm

New: 1872

Old: 2057


24 mm

New: 1677

Old: 2167


40 mm (new) / 50 mm (old):

New: 1638

Old: 2167


If I compare the values taken from centre the differences are much more.


Regards,

Martin

 

 

We put high priority on the extreme corners with all wide-angle lenses and the 17-85 IS doesn't shine here.

The 17-85 has also mucher higher vignetting, CAs and distortions than the 17-40L.