EF 16-35 II L vs EF 17-40 L vs EF-S 18-55

I’ve recently acquired the Canon EF 16-35 L Mk II lens as a replacement for my 17-40 L. The only reason for the upgrade was the 16-35’s better low-light performance – it runs at a constant f/2.8 whilst the 17-40 is f/4.

Like my previous comparison between the 17-40 and 18-55 I thought it might be interesting to compare the quality. To cut a long story short, here is a 100% cropped view of all three lenses zoomed wide. The two L lenses are at 17mm, the EF-S at its limit of 18mm. All were at f/4. The cropped image you are seeing is from the top-left hand corner of the picture.

The L lenses are generally (as you would expect) much sharper than the EF-S lens, and seem to resolve finer detail with better colour and contrast. It’s at the extremities where the L lenses really show their quality however. Between the two L lenses I can see little difference overall. The 17-40L was, and still is, great value and I would see no reason to upgrade to a 16-35 other than f/2.8 vs f/4.

2. August 2007

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