New Canon 24 -105 lens

Just a couple of quick handheld shots from my garden with my 24-105 lens and 5DMKII, I'm just about to start some flower work and grabbed a couple of fast shots to see how the 24 - 105 faired, I usually use my f2.8 100mm macro lens or sometimes the 50mm 1.4 for flowers, what do you think to the results from the 24 - 105?

Nice!

Jan,

These are lovely. The 24-105 is one of my favorite lenses. That said, for flowers - the 100 2.8 was made to do that close work and I think the bokeh is more pleasing with it as well.

While the images are lovely, I noticed the unpleasant bokeh, too.

Hi Kathy & Michael

Thank you for commenting, yes, I agree with you, these were just a couple of quick grab shots, I think the lens did reasonably well, but the 100mm macro will remain my first choice for flower work. Since buying the 5DmkII the 24-105 has hardly been off the camera, I've been in Scotland a lot since getting the new camera and was very happy with the way it performed on the landscape shots. It's flower season now and all kinds of flowers are about to bloom in my garden so I think it's time to swap over to the macro lens, I must admit somewhat reluctantly, like you Kathy the 24-105 is one of my favourite lenses, I really like having the flexibility of a zoom.

Hi Janet

As ever, lovely pictures. I showed Sue your website last night and she really liked it.

I too have been pleased with how well the 24-105 holds up on the 1Ds3 - given some of the internet chat you'd think it was useless. The funny bokeh I think is partly lens and partly IS fundction in some cases. You seem to get double lines. In terms of crispness, mine seem best around f8 and if I make a bi (36 by 24) print the corners can be a tiny bit soft - but that could be also contributed by the raw conversion.

The 100 macro needs no excuses whatsoever. Just briliant all round.

Mike

Mike Shimwell said:

I showed Sue your website last night and she really liked it.

I too have been pleased with how well the 24-105 holds up on the 1Ds3 - given some of the internet chat you'd think it was useless. The funny bokeh I think is partly lens and partly IS fundction in some cases

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Hi Mike

Thank you and thanks to Sue too for the kind comments. To be fair to the lens the shots I posted her were literally just grab shots, the Clematis shot I was on tiptoe and not too steady, the second one I was bent over awkwardly and again not too steady and it was a bit breezy on both, I think if I'd taken more care the results would have been better. Anyway I swaped over to my beloved 100mm macro yesterday and must admit that the results from it are superior, cleaner, crisper. I've had a good garden photography session today, and am delighted with the results, I may post some in the next few days to compare......

Thank you for taking the time to comment.

Mike Shimwell said:

The funny bokeh I think is partly lens and partly IS fundction in some cases. You seem to get double lines.

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Hi Mike,

It's a phenomenon also known as spurious resolution, and it's related to aliasing artifacts. The effect varies by lens, amongst others due to the 'bokeh' characteristics of the lens.

Bart

Cheers Bart - the explanation given relates principally to the interference effects of defocusing a periodic pattern, but I can imagine that with a digital sensor there are addditional artifacts to consider, as well as the bokeh characteristics of the lens in use being relevent.

I see this much more on the 24-105 than on the 100 macro, althogh it may be that I tend to use the 100 in a different way, of course. I find it particularly inrritating when you get the effects in backfround foliage and, typically, branch structures (which are of course periodic).

Cheers

Mike