Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM Autofocus Lens

It may be pricey, but the Canon 16-35mm full-frame lens is well established. What Digital Camera's Canon 16-35mm lens review finds out if it's still worth splashing out for

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  Proven pedigree

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  Showing its age slightly

Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM is one very impressive in all aspects lens! With top notch image quality pretty much throughout the zoom range, outstanding build quality and fast maximum aperture, this is the lens to own when looking for an UWA zoom.

The Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM Lens is what I consider one of the most important lenses in Canon's lineup . Taking over the ultra-wide angle position of the available professional grade f/2.8 zoom lenses from the Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L USM Lens , the 16-35 L II becomes the new standard for...

This second version of a 16-35mm zoom lens from Canon features a fast constant aperture of f/2.8, weather sealed construction, virtually silent ultrasonic focusing with full time manual override.

Replacing Canon's original 16-35mm f/2.8L of 2001, this full-frame ultrawide for pros ($1,450, street) has two UD glass elements to suppress chromatic aberrations, and three aspheric elements to minimize linear distortion.

Both the EF 16-35mm f/2.8L and the EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM lenses produce superb images with minimal distortion across a wide range of angles and apertures. Both lenses have excellent central field imaging performance when shot at f/2.8.

Gary Wolstenholme reviews the second version of a 16-35mm zoom lens from Canon featuring a fast constant aperture of f/2.8.

The Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8 USM L II may not be the greatest lens around in absolute terms but it delivers regarding its primary purpose - a very good performance at its ultra-wide to wide settings (16-26mm) from about f/4 onwards.

Of course the easiest way to explain the results of our test is an assumption that we somehow got a faulty copy of the lens. It is quite often repeated in commentaries, especially when we find a fault in more expensive lenses.

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  solid, sealed barrel,, excellent image quality in the frame centre,, chromatic aberration sensibly controlled,, only slight distortion, taking into account the focal lengths range,, low astigmatism,, low vignetting level,, very quick, silent and accurate autofocus,, lens hood and a case included.

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  unacceptable image quality at frame edge in the aperture range from f/2.8-4.0,, average work against bright light,, bad price/quality ratio.

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My go-to combo for landscapes for the past 2 years has been a 70D with the Ef-s 10-22mm. Last week I shifted to a 5D Mark IV with the 16-35mm f/2.8L II.It's difficult to determine what improvement is due to the full-sensor camera and which to the high-quality lens, but this combo is magic.

The quality of the lens is above what I expected. I have a Canon 24-105 lens that came with my Mark III and while I love this lens when I took a test photo with the 16-35 against the 24-105 the 16-35 was sooo much crisper.

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  Consistent Output, Durable, Easily Interchangeable, Fast / accurate auto-focus, Lightweight, Nice Bokeh, Rugged, Strong Construction

Nothing negative about this lens, its amazing.Canon equipped it with a cheap flimsy plastic hood, it bends and even gets past the main ring of the lens. Not sturdy enough, the only draw back that keeps on nagging me when I use it. Else, buy it, its a very good lens.

We were looking for a new lens for our Cannon, this fit the bill and the bundle package is a great feature!

I bought this lens rather cheaply because of the damaged front part of the barrel with warped filter thread. Looked horrible but the filter could still be mounted. I got that fixed later while repairing an unrelated damage case.

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  very sharp, silent and accurate AF, tough build, ...

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  ?

Great lens!!! It's everything I expected and am very happy I bought it. I did tons or research on this before finally pulling the trigger, and am glad I went this route. Hard to swallow the price tag though.

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  Rugged, Easily Interchangeable, Fast / accurate auto-focus, Durable, Lightweight, Consistent Output, Strong Construction

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  Pricey

I only give this a "9" because it's slightly less sharp than the 70-200/2.8 IS which is not surprising. However I feel that 9 is still plenty. This lens has finally brought me the wider half of the Zoom Holy Duo (the other naturally being the 70-200).

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  + sharp + bright + fast and accurate AF + weather sealing

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  none really

This lens is my primary shooting lens. I use it on a full frame digital camera. I do believe that this is the best wide-angle lens Canon has to offer. I realize that the price of the 17-40 is a tempting alternative to many.

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  1. build quality, 2. speed of autofocus, 3. f/2.8 all the way, 4. no barrel distorsion, 5. sharp at any aperture

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  1. price

This is a terrific wide lens that allows you so to have a sharp focus a great background and most important no distortions.

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  High Quality

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  Expensive