The Great 24-70 vs 24-105 Debate

24-105 is great if it's your only lens, 24-70 is the better lens once you have a telephoto (because it's a better lens, period).


(I started with 24-105, and it was the right choice then but isn't now.)

Thanks for the responses guys!


It definately sounds like the 24-70 is the way to go. I'm gonna head over to my local pro shop and try out both lenses sometime this week. Hopefully that will help make my decision.


Mike

Good luck with the 24-70 L, I think its a great start. When I was first putting together mylenskit I was really trying to figure out where I wanted to go too, 24-105 or the 24-70. I purchased my 40D a few years back and along with it I purchased the 24-70 because I liked lower light side of the 24-70 and the out of focus background the 24-70 can give. I dont think you can go wrong with the 24-70, its a beautiful lens

I cast my vote for the 24-105.


When I go on vacation and can only take two lenses I take the 24-105 and the 100-400 and the 24-105 is my everyday walk around lens. I find that most of my shots are around f8 and I and only occasionally get down to f4 so going down to f2.8 is not a huge deal for me. Much of my photography is of wildlife, aircraft & boats where I rarely get the chance to carefully do anything so the IS is a major bonus for me. I get a clear picture and more depth of field which is what I want.


My father-in-law is a very different photographer than I. He does a lot of wedding, portrait and carefully planned landscapes. He is big on primes and big aperture and often uses the 24-70 for his walk around flexible lens.

I just want to ask about image quality between the two lenses. Which one is sharper? According to the charts, it seems that the 24-105 is a bit sharper than the 24-70 but how about on real life images? f4 is f4 and f2.8 can be stopped down to f4, is the 24-70 sharp wide open or do you need to stop down to f4 atleast to get a sharp image?

In the "real world" I've got no issues with the sharpness/ image quality of my 24-70mm f/2.8 wide open. There's a photo I took at f/2.8 blown up to A2 size hanging in the main office of my work and the detail is delicious. Sure, it's even sharper at f/4 but it's still excellent wide open.


Ben

If stopping a subject is out of the picture, is it worth the move to 24-70 than having an IS and extra reach?

Hmmmm... that's a question only you can answer I reckon. Depends on what YOU want out of your lens. I love having f/2.8 but more for the narrow depth of field than the low light capabilities. I haven't found much of a need for IS anyway, I've got a pretty steady hand and I guessI'm just a little more conscious ofmy techniqueto eliminate camera shake when using it.

IS isn't that big a deal to me either with such a short focal zoom range. I also have pretty steady hands and good shooting technique, so I'm confident in my abilities to get that sharp shot handheld. The f/2.8 just helps because it allows more light into the lens thus allowing better focusing in low light conditions when I do photojournalism type stuff. Depending on what you shoot mostly will help you decide which features are more important and not so needed.

I love my 24-70 on my 5DmkII. I think it's a better lens than 24-105mm especially indoors and low light. I found the images sharper and extra stop very helpful. I picked up the 24-105mm for 800 bucks during a Midwest Photo twitter special and didn't like it as much. I felt the extra reach wasn't that significant and IS didn't help much at all. I ended up selling it to a friend.