Canon EF-S 35mm f/2.8 Macro IS STM | Final Review | 4K

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Hi, I'm Dustin Abbott and I'm here to give you my final review of the new Canon EF-S 35mm F2.8
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This is a macro IS and it has an SDM focus motor
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So quickly give you a breakdown of what all of that means. And if you would like to look at the build and the design in more detail, I recommend that you take a look at my first look and hands-on episode here
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And so anyway, but just to give you a quick breakdown, EFS means that this is made for Canon's APS-C or crop sensor cameras
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And so that's cameras like their Rebel or Kiss series, or cameras like the 60, 70, or 80D, 70, 7D, and of course even 7D Mark II
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And so, of course, there's a lot of different cameras that fall under that. It'll also fit on the SL1 series or the new SL2
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But all of these are crop sensors, but it will not mount physically on any of the full-frame Canon bodies
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And so just so you know who it's for, if you have a crop sensor camera, a Rebel or something like that, this lens will work great for you
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And so it is also has, it's a macro lens and this is a full one-to-one macro
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Now, previous to this, Canon has only really had one kind of dedicated EF-S macro lens
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And that is the excellent 60mm f2.8 and that is a USM lens
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Now, it is actually, it is kind of a more natural, typical focal length for macro shooting
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And it has a full frame equivalent of a little over 90 millimeters
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And so, you know, pretty close to the field of view between 90 and 100 millimeters
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right at where the 100 millimeter, you know, there's a couple of full frame 100 millimeter macro lenses from Canon
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And so it also doubles as a good portrait lens. But there are some limitations to that lens where Ken's design philosophy has changed
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For one thing, USM is excellent for shooting stills. It's not excellent, however, for shooting video
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And it has lots of torque to get nice fast focus when you're shooting stills
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But all of that torque actually works against you when you're shooting video
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and that it kind of jumps too quickly. it makes focus adjustments too quickly. There's a lot of noise and clicking when shooting video
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And so Canon as you move to kind of hybrid focus systems that work better when shooting video
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like STM, which stands for Canon Stepping Motor. And so the downside of STM is that
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as I've covered a lot of time, so I won't spend a lot of time with it here, it means that there is no physical coupling to the actual focus elements. It's what you call a
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focus by wire system. In other words, the lens needs to be, the camera needs to be on and
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powered up for there to be any kind of input that is put into the focus motor. And so as you turn
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that manual focus lens, it sends input into the focus motor, which then adjusts the elements
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However, Canon has been improving that. And so while it's still far from being my favorite system
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there's a little bit less lag than what there used to be and so there is some improvement but
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it's not nearly as good as a true actual physical moving of the elements it's not my favorite focus
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system however SDM actually in this case one of the things I did want to cover is the actual
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focus speed and I'm happy to report that under most kinds of scenarios as you can see it jumps
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to extreme focus pulls quite quickly. And so we can even go from where I focus now
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on a near macro type subject. And so here, now I'm gonna come up
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and shoot a distant affinity scene and it's near instant. And so focus speed is actually really good in this lens
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and even at macro type distances it does a really good job Every now and then if you completely miss focus for some reason and it does a full focus rack that takes longer on macro lenses
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because there are tons of possibilities, focus possibilities. Fortunately, that has been a very, very rare occurrence for me
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Do note, however, that there is no focus limiter here. And so it's a good thing that it nails it, gets it right most of the time
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the first time because you can't set up any kind of focus limiter to just keep you, for example
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at macro focus distances. Overall, not really a problem. And actually in my testing here
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the focus was actually really good right out of the box. It didn't need much of any kind of
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calibration on this Canon 80D body that I'm doing a test on. I had good accurate autofocus right out
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the box. So of course, very positive there. The good news here is it also works really well with
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if you have a newer body with Canon's DPAF. And so it focuses nice and quickly that way. And so
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it focuses quickly either using phase detect through the viewfinder, but then also using
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contrast AF through DPAF. Really good, quick, accurate results. And so autofocus really is a
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plus here. And so the one thing that I do miss, and that is at macro focus distances, STM is not
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my favorite because of that, what I've detailed about manual focus. Macro shooters tend to do a
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little bit more manual focus. For one thing, manual focus, you can magnify the image in the
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viewfinder. Manual focus means you don't have to worry about at those really, really finite
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distances. You don't have to worry about getting an auto focus point right on that, whatever the
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focus area you want. You can make little subtle changes without having to worry about adjusting
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an autofocus point at that. And so that's, you know, you lose that. You also lose any kind of
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distance window with this type of lens with STM. And so, you know, a couple of things I do miss
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but the upside here is, is that because of the ability to use, you know, that great live view
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focus here it means that you don't have to worry as much about a focus point and in fact you know
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in the case if you've got one of Canon's newer bodies where you can touch to focus all you really
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have to do is just kind of touch where you want it or move that around on the actual LCD screen
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if you're using an older body you have a little bit more issue with that but with most of the
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newer bodies it's it's it's not as much of an issue as it used to be even though I still wish
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I'm kind of a traditionalist. I wish for better manual focus performance with a macro lens
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It also has Canon's image stabilizer. And the great news here is that the image stabilizer
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it's what they call a hybrid IS, which basically just means that it's kind of set up to adjust for
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macro distances as well as kind of normal distances. And so it means that it is possible
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to do a pretty decent job of doing handheld macro. There's one challenge with doing handheld macro
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You know, for example, if I'm shooting flowers here, you know, there is very rarely a complete stillness of your subject
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particularly when you've got a cat here, my little Cherokee trying to play around it
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But if there's any kind of wind, that subject's moving. And at such very close distances, that movement
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every little bit of movement is really magnified. so it's quite a challenge to kind of hold in place and to match with any kind of movement so
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you might try you know changing to shooting with a you know kind of a servo af to help you in those
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kind of situations but i was able to do quite a bit of successful macro hand holding and of course
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the is also helps if you're wanting to shoot video it helps to stabilize the video footage
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And so all in all, it is successful. Just note that no IS system, no matter who makes it
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is as effective at macro distances And so even if you get let say four stops of assistance at traditional distances note that due to just the nature the challenge of shooting at macro distances that going to drop quite a bit And so a word to the wise
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if you're shooting at macro distances, it's still better to either use a tripod or to get that
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shutter speed up a little bit higher to make sure, because of course, no IS system is going to account
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for movement of your subject as well. So it works and it works well, but just note that there are
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limitations to any such system. Now on a positive note, you don't have to worry about noise. Even
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putting my ear right up next to it and I have the stabilizer on, I can't hear it here outside. Maybe
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if I was in a completely silent room with no other noise, but there's not enough noise there for
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video to pick up and at the same time if you're shooting video the there's not enough noise with
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the autofocus to really pick up either it's there's a extremely extremely light clicking sound
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that I can only hear with my ear right next to it so for most video type work it's not going to be
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a problem so if you haven't already I would encourage you to take a look at my more detailed
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image quality breakdown and and so you can see that here this lens reminds me a lot of a lens
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i reviewed last summer for obvious reasons that lens was canon's efm 28 millimeter f 3.5 macro is
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stm in other words it's basically the same this same lens except for it was first developed for
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canon's mirrorless system and so it's in an efm mount and a little bit different focal length but
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and a little bit different maximum aperture, but really the concept of the lens is almost identical
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as is the performance. And so to break that down, it's a really sharp lens, as macro lenses tend to be
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I compared it to Canon's Superb 35L Mark II. The L lens is a bit better
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but it's only appreciably better at a pixel level, and if you stop down a little bit
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the lenses are virtually the same. And so wide open, it's very sharp in the center, a little bit softer at the edges of the frame
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And if you stop down to F4, both the vignette clears up as well as sharpness and contrast at the edges of the frame
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So a positive there. Image quality is good. Boca quality is actually really nice, nice and soft
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And I didn't see anything that bothered me really at all. The only thing that you will find that I pointed out in that episode is the nature of this focal length
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that it's not a super long focal length. It's a full frame equivalent of 56 millimeters
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and not a huge maximum aperture. So what that means is if you're shooting
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like portrait type distance, don't expect a really blurred out background. And if you're shooting even from a distance
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of like this far away to like this flower, the background's not gonna be very blurred there either
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because there's just not a lot of compression that's provided between that focal length
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and that maximum aperture value. So just note that that really is the only limitation that I'm aware of
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It handles flare quite well, and we covered that. Distortion is well controlled
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There is some vignette wide open, but as I've mentioned by f4, it clears up nicely
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So good contrast, good color rendition. I like the images that come out of this lens
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However, where I don't like it so much is that it doesn't have a lot of three-dimensional pop
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if you're shooting anything outside of a macro distance, which is the exact same kind of objection I had to the 28 millimeter EF-M lens
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that it's fantastic at macro type distances. But even if you move out a little bit
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you start to get a little more distractions in the background than what I prefer
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It's not because the bokeh quality is bad. It's actually great. It's just the nature of the focal length
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And so if you're looking for a macro lens that you want to do kind of more portrait shooting
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Probably the 60mm is still the better option for you. It's a little bit more expensive
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but it is a better portrait lens than what this lens is
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This lens is a better kind of multipurpose lens and it also better if you wanting to shoot any kind of video at all The other place where this can be handy is if you do food or product photography a little bit wider focal length is actually quite handy
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a lot of times. It just allows you to get, you know, more things in focus, for example
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without having to stop it way down. And so there are applications where this focal length
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actually works better but that's not true when it comes to something like portrait or if you're
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wanting to compress a background a little bit further all in all however it's an effective
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lens and of course we still haven't gotten to kind of the main feature and that is the built-in
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macro led lights and so just note about them you do have some options you can run one side or the
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other there's two different brightness levels and that's also true on if you're running it on either
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side. And so it does make a difference. And you might see a little bit of extra illumination here
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on my face. But just note that if you are not more, if you're no more than, it works basically
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well for about two feet. And anywhere outside of that kind of focus distance, you're going to find
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that it's just not as effective and illuminating any longer. However, where it comes in really
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important is when you have a shorter focal length like this, it means that your working distance
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is really quite close. This lens can focus down to just a little bit over five inches
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which means that, of course, and that's measured in this body here, 80D, that's measured from here
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And so you've already got about three and a half to four inches there, which means you're focusing
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at just, just another inch or two maximum at minimum focus distance
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And so that means that you may be blocking a good part of the light
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that would be reaching your subject just by the nature of the camera itself. So having that extra bit of light to make up for that
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can make, really can make the difference in getting the shot that you want or not
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One thing I did discover, of course, is if you've got reflective surfaces
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you may get a reflected light that you're not crazy about, that you can't really control the positioning of because it's
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built right into the lens. The other thing about this design is that if you want to use filters on
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it, you're going to need to use the lens hood, which is really, it does very little shading
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It's more of an adapter that allows you to use screw-in filters on that in a 49 millimeter
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filter thread. And so, you know, it's a nice feature to have as far as burning battery life
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LEDs are very power efficient. I don't think it's going to kill your battery all that fast
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And of course, it will automatically shut off whenever the lens or the camera goes into
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standby and the lens powers down. So does the LED light. So don't worry about battery usage. I don't
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think it's going to be a huge impact for you on that. All in all, for $349, this lens has a lot
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of image quality and it has a lot of versatility. Macro lenses are great companions to, say, kit
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lenses because they allow you to do things that kit lenses just can't do. They also give you a
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wider aperture and, of course, some image stabilization for it. So that's a nice combination
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if you're shooting in low light. And so if you're looking for a nice compact second lens
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this obviously is much more compact than the 60 millimeter lens. And there will be situations
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where it is definitely the better option compared to the 60mm macro from Canon
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If you'll take a look in the description down below, you can find the linkage to my full written review with a lot of images there
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You can also find linkage to an image gallery and some buying links
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And you can follow me on social media there. You can become one of my patrons to help to keep these reviews going at my Patreon account
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And of course, if you haven't already, please click that subscribe button. Thanks for watching. Have a great day

Canon EF-S 35mm f/2.8 Macro IS STM | Final Review | 4K

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Canon EF-S 35mm f/2.8 Macro IS STM | Final Review | 4K

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