OVERVIEW

Much of PebblePlace.com is dedicated to Leica and Contax lenses. Zoom lenses do not fit the profile - certainly not Canon zoom lenses. I love how the classic Contax and Leica lenses feel with their solid build quality, all metal barrels, wonderfully dampened focus rings, lens designs that snap into focus, etc. And the German-made lenses have legendary performance. As nice as the German lenses are, there are times when a zoom is better.

When describing lenses, common buzz words include sharpness, contrast, acuity, corrections, coloring, background blur and other such optical traits. The Canon 24-105mm L may not set any records in those areas, but Canon packs an amazing amount of utility into their new 24-105L zoom. Features like image stabilization (IS) and weather sealing are not part of classic lens vernacular. And Canon lenses have auto focus and auto aperture, and those benefits are obvious. As of late 2007 Canon added lens correction capabilities to their free DPP software - which works very well and helps boost Canon lens performance.

The Canon 24-105L is a 5X zoom, so I am not going to waste words critiquing resolution, etc. We know there are compromises, so there is not much reason belaboring those points. Instead I want to focus on what works and why so many of pictures in the photo galleries were taken with the Canon 24-105L.

HANDLING

Handling and utility are where the Canon 24-105mm L really shines. The above image of the Canadian Rockies (see the Banff gallery for more pictures) was taken at 32mm, F16, 1/30 - HANDHELD with a circular polarizer. It was about a mile hike in 85 F temperatures with full sun. The weather was very comfortable, but dragging a bag full of gear would have been a killjoy. We headed to the lookout with the 1Ds2, the 24-105L and a couple lens filters stuffed into my pocket. To be honest, at the upper altitudes we were feeling a bit winded!

When we arrived at the look-out point there were 30-40 other people there too - all taking pictures. Setting up a tripod was out of the question - and I did not bring one anyway. The image stabilization (IS) on the 24-105L is equal to 3 to 4 stops in shutter speed, so a tripod was not really needed anyway. Without image stabilization the picture would have been blurred, or taken at a faster aperture and possibly lacked depth or field, or without a polarizer - and the polarizer gave the image great “pop”. In my opinion IS saved the day (loosely speaking) - and made the hike more enjoyable since we were able to travel light.

The year before Banff we took a cruise to Alaska (pictures here). For that trip I packed the Canon 1Ds and various Leica and Contax lenses. The high winds, rain, mist, dust and so forth made lens changes next to impossible. One day about 200 images were lost because a large piece of lint settled on the sensor and obscured the center of the pictures. I knew it was risky to change lenses, but I did not want to shoot the entire location with a Leica 21-35mm Vario-Elmarit-R ASPH zoom. I gambled on a lens change - and lost. That was 2005, so things may have been different today now that sensor cleaning systems are commonplace. Though, there are plenty of times when the winds are so strong, or salt spray is the air (at the ocean) that changing lenses still is risky. Having a zoom such as the Canon 24-105mm L is perfect for those times.

During the ’05 Alaska trip there were many other lost images due to focus errors with the manual focus lenses (user error). And some pictures could have been better composed had a different focal length been mounted. We came back from Alaska with 100’s of great pictures, but I knew many pictures were missed too. To avoid making the same mistakes on our next trip, later that summer I purchased a Canon 24-70mm L F2.8. Canon had not yet announced the 24-105L, so the 24-70L was the only option in the “L” line-up.

I stuck with the Canon 24-70L for about 6 months, but disliked the size and weight. Also the Canon 24-70L is not very good at 24mm; its MTF takes a sharp dive at the last couple of mm. Overall the Canon 24-70L is a very sharp lens, but the abrupt drop off in corner sharpness draws attention to itself. Compared to the Canon 24-70L, the Canon 24-105L is ~25% lighter and ~20% shorter. The 24-105L’s hood is much smaller too. As a travel lens I feel the 24-105L offers more than the 24-70L. The Canon 24-105L is lighter, more compact, easier to fit into the camera bag, has more zoom range and sports IS.

Since purchasing the Canon 24-105L, it has been to San Francisco, Banff, Alaska (second trip), Hawaii, New England and  Vancouver Canada. While the 24-105L’s F4 aperture may not be sexiest option available, time and time again the lens has been my most used lens and has captured 1000’s of pictures. Given its proven track record, It is very difficult to say anything bad about the lens.

PERFORMANCE

Fast forward back to 2006 - after returning from Banff in September, we went to San Francisco in late October for a weekend trip (pictures here). I did not set my hopes too high since it can be rainy in the fall and the days are short with sunsets ~6:00 PM. San Francisco is a windy city, so lens changes are risky (the Alaska mishap was still a very fresh memory). I decided to travel light and packed the 24-105L IS, 70-200/4 IS and 35L.

We were very lucky and the light was perfect - great golden California sun. Of course I immediately regretted packing the zooms and wished some German primes were in the bag, but the Canon trio was all there was. Once again the 24-105L was used very often (see the pictures here). And once again the Canon 24-105mm L delivered good results.