Quote Originally Posted by jrw View Post
... I ask the questions and make the points I do as I am not seeing a presented reason to upgrade that is based on creative process but rather technical details that come from gear reviews and advertising.
I have the luxury of taking photographs for my own enjoyment as a hobby. There are no clients.

The 24-105L is a pretty good lens, but has become middle of the road as lens designs have advanced. There's massive barrel distortion on the wide end. Despite being f/4 it has a large t-stop number. Corners at all focal lengths are just ok. Image stabilization has come a fair ways since the 24-105L release. My copy suffers from zoom creep.

I appreciate the point of view of objective criteria, but that's not really the point here. Would the average viewer notice a "better" image with the 24-70 f/4 vs 24-105L? No, probably not. Then again the average viewer is not very perceptive. I'd wager it'd take an ENORMOUS difference in technical quality for the average viewer to notice anything. I'm talking moderate size prints with 5DSR with 24 TSE versus XT with original non-stabilized 18-55 here.

The purpose of the thread was to ask of anyone's experience using the 24-70 f/4. 2 people have: Mike liked it while renting and Dave didn't care for its fit with his photography style. Real users, especially experienced and talented users like on this site, can bring great observations to the table.

Whether 24-70 f/4 is enough improvement for ME to spend the extra money to acquire it versus my 24-105 is a question I have to answer for myself. I'm on the fence. But, falling victim to an advertiser's sale pitch is definitely not the reason I'm considering it.

Dave