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Canon EF 16-35mm f/4L IS Video Review - The New Wide Angle Standard
Jul 19, 2023
Here is a real world review of Canon excellent new wide angle zoom complete with Image Stabilizer. Includes a number of sample images taken with the lens (with minimal processing).
To purchase the lens, click here: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1051475-USA/canon_9518b002_ef_16_35mm_f_4l_is.html/BI/19614/KBID/12112/kw/CA16354LEF/DFF/d10-v2-t1-xCA16354LEF
To read the written review, click here: http://wp.me/p2u32Q-1wk
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0:00
Hello, I'm Dustin Abbott and I'm here to talk to you about Canon's newest super wide angle zoom, the EF 16-35mm F4LIS USM lens
0:19
And this lens has already been very well received by both photographers and reviewers, and most are calling it Canon's best wide angle zoom lens ever
0:28
So let's take a look at why here today. First of all, if you have bought a Canon lens in the last
0:35
five years or so, you're pretty familiar with the build quality you're looking at here. And it's
0:40
nothing to be ashamed of. It's a very well-made lens. It does claim weather sealing so long as
0:46
you're adding a filter to the front to complete the sealing. It has the gasket around the rear
0:53
of the lens to help to seal it to the mount, providing you have a weather-sealed body
0:58
And the lens itself has a very familiar looking design. It has the zoom ring towards the end
1:06
and the zoom ring, it moves nice and easily with a touch more resistance than what I would have
1:12
expected. Not quite as smooth as what I find some of the 70 to 200 variants. And then on, by contrast
1:19
However, the nice, widely ribbed focus ring, which is really a beauty, it's perfectly damp
1:26
And it moves very, very nicely, and it's really a joy to use
1:31
And in between there, you have the new kind of fleck design that Canon has been using on most of the barrels of its lenses
1:38
The lens itself is an engineered plastic in its main construction over a metal frame
1:44
It does have a metal bayonet mount on the end. The front filter thread, which is 77mm, good or bad, depending on what set of filters you already have
1:55
but 77mm is a very, very common filter thread. But the thread itself is plastic
2:01
The front lens element is slightly convex, but designed in such a way that you can put a filter over the top
2:07
and never have to worry about anything hitting it. And in my experience, even mounting a couple of filters does not provide vignetting
2:14
and so Canon has done a very good job with this design. There's also a focus window that gives you your distance
2:22
And then on the side, there are the standard two switches, one for the AF and the other for turning the stabilizer on and off
2:30
And that's where things get interesting on this lens compared to any other wide-angle zoom that Canon has released for a full-frame body
2:38
in that it does come with an image stabilizer. That has proven to be very effective
2:43
and you can hand-hold down to really pretty ridiculous shutter speeds, which helps at times you might ask what's the application for that but for
2:51
example if you like me don't always carry a tripod into the field you might
2:55
find yourself in situations where you want a low shutter speed say to to blur
2:59
some water and and if you don have a tripod you would be might be out of luck but with this lens you can with good technique you can hand down to even a full second exposure and get a nicely sharp result along
3:12
with that blurring effect that you're looking for in the water. Now, this also comes with Canon's new design of lens hood, which actually has a little button
3:23
where it will click into place. It's a nice design, and let me just say that this lens hood design is a huge advantage over
3:31
the wide angle lenses before either the 17-40L or the 16-35mm f2.8L. Both of them had lens hoods
3:39
that were not only so shallow as to make you wonder what possible purpose they could serve
3:44
but they also flared out so wide that it made them, storing them, a real pain. And as a result
3:50
many photographers like myself would just end up leaving them at home. But this is a nice practical
3:55
design that does a great job of not adding any shading to the actual lens, but also helps to
4:01
It gives some sun protection and keeps any kind of collisions away from that very fragile front element
4:07
And so a nice design there. In design, its ethos really is most similar to Canon's new 24-70mm f2.8 L
4:16
And while I don't have a copy of that here, just for size comparisons, this is Canon's 24-70mm f2.8
4:23
And so you can see that this is not a small lens, the new 16-35mm
4:30
It's slimmer around in the barrel, but it's quite a long lens
4:34
It actually is a bit longer than Canon's earlier wide-angle zooms, although it's a hair lighter than what the 16-35mm f2.8 L Mark II is
4:45
The other thing included in the box is one of these pouches
4:50
Now, maybe this is the most useful thing in the world to you. To me, these are entirely useless
4:56
They don't add a lot of protection. They take up room and so they don't make it into the field with me
5:01
Now I'm mounted on a camera body. The lens itself, it has a nice balance to it
5:07
This is a Canon EOS 6D full frame body. And in the field, I haven't found it to be in any way cumbersome with its weight
5:16
Now in the field and actual use, this is a dream to use really
5:21
It has very, very fast and extremely accurate autofocus. and I can't recall out of hundreds of shots taken during this review period
5:30
having even one shot that I discarded because of it being out of focus
5:34
And so it's highly effective in that way. It's not entirely silent when focusing
5:39
When the focus motor goes, there is just a tiny little schick sound
5:44
Let's see if you can hear it. And so you'll find that it is not entirely quiet
5:54
and neither is the image stabilizer perfectly quiet when in application. It tends to make a little bit of noise
6:03
and you definitely know when it starts up and when it stops
6:06
However it still nice and quiet overall and so shouldn provide a huge issue to you when using it But most importantly all of these things are effective
6:19
Autofocus under all conditions that I've used it has been quick, snappy, and very accurate
6:24
And the IS works extremely well. Now getting to the actual lens or image quality, this lens, it has very, very few optical shortcomings
6:34
There was a lot of discontent over Canon's previous wide angle zoom lenses
6:39
because the image quality in the corners in particular tended to be fairly mushy and soft
6:47
That was a serious problem with a lens that's primarily used for many photographers for landscape purposes
6:52
and they really need those edges to be sharp. You could stop down a fair bit, and you would get reasonable image quality
6:59
But this lens does a great job, even wide open. At f4, it is sharp really from corner to corner and only slightly improves if you stop it down to f6.8 and maybe peak sharpness somewhere between there and f8
7:14
It's extremely sharp and it has very few negative qualities to it
7:19
The chromatic aberrations are well controlled. The colors are nice and contrasty
7:23
contrasty. You zoom in 100% into an image that you've taken, and you'll find that there's that
7:30
nice strong ideal of contrast, or what we call micro contrast, there that helps images to look
7:36
even sharper and snappier. Color rendition is very, very nice, and really there's nothing to
7:42
complain about there. A coma is not perfect. I have, although I struggled to get some clear skies
7:49
during my review period. I did get out and shoot a few night skies, and I don't find that the
7:54
performance there is quite as good as what, say, my Rokinon 14mm lens is. But nonetheless, this is
8:01
actually a better performance than the predecessors of this lens, and you will be able to produce
8:06
stunning images at night with it as well. In reality, there's a lot of things to praise about
8:12
this. It has excellent build quality, and also important to me is that Roger over at Lens
8:18
Reynolds, who does breakdowns of the lenses because they have large quantities that are
8:22
loaned out, rented out. And he discovered that the internal build is very easy. He feels like it will
8:28
weather well over the years and be easy to fix and correct. It has fast, accurate AF. It has a
8:36
very effective image stabilizer. It's very, very sharp, even into the corners, which wasn't true
8:41
of Canon's previous wide angle zooms. Chromatic aberrations are well controlled. It has a
8:47
flooring coating on both the front and the rear element and that helps with ghosting but it also
8:53
helps if fingerprints are on there that they clean off very easily. It has a well-designed lens hood
8:59
that is very practical and far more functional than previous versions and there's a lot of things that
9:05
it does well and perhaps the biggest shocker considering a lot of Canon's recent releases
9:09
is that just about everyone agrees that the price on this lens is fair It comes in at And so while that not cheap it positions it very nicely between the 17 f4 L which is about and then the f2 version of the 16 and that comes in at about and so
9:35
considering Canon's recent pricing $1,199 seems to strike a nice balance and in the place where a
9:41
a lot of photographers will be able to afford to use it. If I can find any drawbacks for this lens
9:48
is, and really it's nitpicking, you might be limited in some situations by having a
9:56
aperture that only opens up to f4. And so if you're wanting to do something with a shallow
10:00
depth of field, your options are more limited with that. I also discovered going out to shoot
10:05
night skies. It means that you have to crank up the ISO that much more because it doesn't allow in
10:12
quite as much light. You'll also find that if you have filters on in the field, I noticed for example
10:18
when I was, I would have even a circular polarizer on and I was out in the woods, that the viewfinder
10:23
can be a bit dim because it only opens up to f4 and then of course if you have a polarizer or an
10:30
ND filter on there, that's going to stop even more light from reaching the sensor which will be
10:34
affected in your viewfinder. And so those are potential limitations of the F4 aperture. Also
10:41
if you're shooting video and you're either using the mic or an onboard mic or a mic that's mounted
10:49
on the camera itself, it is very possible that you're going to pick up some either focus motor
10:54
noise and perhaps some image stabilizer noise. I feel like those could be a little quieter
10:59
And in all honesty, Tamron has done a better job, at least in its development of both of its VC and also its USD drive
11:08
to make these quieter in operation than what I find on this particular lens
11:13
And beyond that, I mean, really the only other kind of indictment that I might be able to give this lens is that
11:20
I find that it works so well that it's not particularly exciting
11:26
It doesn't go quite as wide and as dramatic as say my Rokinon 14mm which has all kinds of other shortcomings by comparison
11:35
But I just find it more exciting to use. Also the f4 aperture is not particularly exciting
11:40
But if you're looking for a lens that is going to perform well, that has fairly well controlled distortion
11:47
that's very easy to correct in post, great color, amazing sharpness, a great build quality and a reasonable price
11:54
really this lens is going to be hard to beat and there's a reason why
11:58
reviewers have found it to be the best wide angle zoom that Canon
12:03
has produced at this point. Give it a try. I think you're going to find it to be an excellent
12:07
performer. If you would like to read a more thorough written review, you can check
12:11
out the link below that goes to my website, DustinAbbott.net and you will also find
12:17
a lot more image samples there to give you an idea of how this lens performs
12:21
in the real world in the field. I hope you've enjoyed this. If you haven't already, subscribe. Have a great day. Bye-bye
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