Recently I had the chance to test the sharpness and optical quality of Canon RF 28-70 mm f/2 lens.
I took many test shots of Budapest in the Blue Hour, at different focal length and apertures.
The lots of small lights really put every kind of optics under heavy pressure, but luckily the one and only full-frame f/2 zoom lens stood the test very well!
Let’s see how the Canon RF 28-70 mm f/2 lens performed at night!
But, before starting the pixel-peeping part, a few things about the size and build of this lens.
Canon 28-70 mm f/2L: Size and build quality
About the Canon RF mount
As the name tells you, this is an RF lens, which means it will only fit to the Canon cameras featuring an R-mount. This mount was introduced for the long-waited full-frame lineup of Canon mirrorless cameras.
As of October, 2019, there are only 2 Canon mirrorless full-frame bodies: the Canon EOS R and the Canon EOS RP.
So it’s important to know that this lens will NOT fit onto a DSLR.
Simply because the flange distance of the RF mount (the back of the lens to the sensor) is much shorter than with any DSLR.
The RF mount has a flange distance of 20 mm, whereas the Canon EF mount (the one used on FF DSLRs) is 44 mm.
It is exactly the short flange distance that made this lens possible to make – in case you were wondering why Canon did not come out with a similar lens earlier.
Simply it would not be possible to produce such a wide angle, fast aperture lens with a flange distance of a DSLR.
Here’s an article on flange distance on WikiPedia
Size
It is HUGE!
I mean, it’s as heavy as a 70-200 mm f/2.8 IS lens, but it is much shorter and even thicker.
It doesn’t really come through when you look at the images, but it feels BIG
It really feels like a brick 🙂
Also, the filter thread is 95 mm! So it may well be a small fortune to buy some filters for this cuteness…
Controls / quality
The lens has one switch on the side, the AF/MF switch.
You have to really respect the fact, that this lens has an AF switch, unlike other RF lenses (for example the Canon 24-240 mm does not have one, you have to go into the Menu here to activate Manual focus).
The Canon RF 28-70 mm f/2 lens has 3 rings:
- zoom ring
- focus ring
- control ring
The latter may need some explanation.
You can assign certain features to this ring in the Menu. To be honest, I would assign Aperture to it, but I would rather set aperture on the camera body.
Canon 28-70 mm f/2L: Sharpness at different apertures / focal lengths
In short, the Canon RF 28-70mm f/2 delivers excellent performance even f/2 setting across the whole frame. Of course, on the very edges, it’s a tiny bit less sharp at f/2, but once stopped down even to f/2.8, the sharpness is top-notch from edge to edge!
Optical quality
The photos you can see here were taken on my night photo tours in Budapest, Hungary. The camera + lens was kindly provided by Chris Runge from the US (thank you for that Chris!).
This lens performs equally well in all focal length. Sharpness, optical aberration, vignetting they perform in the same manner no matter the focal length.
Sharpness is very good starting at f/2 in the center:
Then only at the far edges does it drop down a bit at f/2 (but it’s still great!):
But sharpness reaches excellent levels across the frame from f/2.8 and upwards:
At f/2 some chromatic aberration / purple fringing can be noticeable even in the center:
The purple fringing disappears once the lens is stopped down to f/2.8:
Vignetting
Every fast aperture is lens is prone to vignetting (light falloff on the edges), and the Canon RF 28-70 mm f/2 is no exception.
But even at f/2, it’s pretty well controlled, and there’s nothing you wouldn’t be able to correct with a single click in Adobe Lightroom:
Does the Canon 28-70 mm F/2 create good starbursts?
Come on, who doesn’t love starbursts?
I do, and I bet you love those star-like lights that can be achieved with narrow apertures.
Luckily the Canon 28-70 mm F/2 does not disappoint in this regard.
From f/11 and above you can have some nice starbursts:
My 2 cents: is the 28-70 mm f/2 worth it?
It’s true: this lens really substitutes 3 fast, high quality prime lenses.
Sharpness is very good across the board, even at f/2.
So it’s an ideal lens for wedding photographers who simply don’t have the time to switch between prime lenses back and forth.
But of course, this comes at a huge price: not only does it cost 3,000 USD, but also it is very heavy!
So for anyone else (eg. anybody not a wedding / pro portrait photographer), this lens is just too much.
Also, 24 mm is a such a standard nowadays, that many people will really miss that extra 4 mm on the wide end.
For this price you can easily buy 3 or 4 very high quality prime lenses.
I’ll be honest: I would not buy this lens for myself, as I’m mostly a landscape photographer guy.
And even when I’m shooting portraits, I like to use the longer focal lengths, like 85 mm or 135 mm.
So clearly, I’m not the focus group of this lens…
Other reviews of Canon RF 28-70mm f/2 L lens
Sample gallery at Dpreview.com
Video by Manny Ortiz on using Canon RF 28-70mm f/2 as a portrait lens
What do you think?
For what would you use this lens? Or do you have one?
Let me know in the comments!
Welcome! I'm Miklós Mayer, a photo tour guide in Hungary. My job is to show fellow photographers around in my home city and teach them everything I know about photography.
I own this lens, it is a pretty good wedding lens but not a great portrait lens. It really does not develop a lot of pop as it breathes heavily at 70mm when trying to get close. It’s more like 60mm closeup. For that reason, a properly designed f/2.8 zoom will match it in terms of background pop at 70mm. In fact, a lot of lenses will match or beat it for background pop at 70mm, including just about any 70-200mm ever made. If you like that blurry look in the background that a fast telephoto can give it just won’t quite do it (major bummer). Add that to all the purple fringing and CA and it’s an unacceptable lens at $3,000. It’s also an oddity of a lens because no other RF lens I have used has such terrible purple fringing and CA. Even for wedding usage I gave up on it, in fact, I almost quit photography because of this lens as B&H refused my return and I just about lost my ****. My copy has terrible purple fringing and something like 14 pixels of CA on the R5. I literally have 50 year old lenses with less fringing. Even at f/4 this thing fringes like crazy. I think B&H and Canon are running a scam with this lens and personally I think they should be investigated. I guess it’s not illegal to make a garbage product but it should be if you won’t accept the return of said product… Now B&H is calling me daily saying they’re gonna “escalate” the issue as I refused to pay them unless they took the lens back. Surprise, surprise, the idiots won’t just take the lens back… Why is that? My guess is they’re running a scam and they know they’ll never get this crap lens out the door again. So they’re gonna threaten to get a lawyer instead of just taking back the lens, which I suspect has been returned many times before. I guess they’ve probably deleted all record of this lenses history from their computer system but I think I can infer what is really going on here with this scam lens and this scam company (B&H).
To be clear I think this lens is basically a lie and a misleading product. For one, it is not even close to 70mm when focused in the typical portrait ranges. So right there this lens is a lie and misleading to customers. It breathes too much to be called a “70mm” lens. It does not meet the expectations that I or anyone familiar with the 70mm focal length would have of a lens. For a standard lens to have such atrocious breathing is basically a straight up lie on Canon’s part. How can they justifiably sell this lens for $3,000 when it is more like a 28-60mm lens? Plus, this thing is so huge as to be utterly ridiculous. If it met basic expectations for a 28-70mm lens, such as actually achieving the focal lengths from 28-70mm at a constant f/2 aperture, then it might be worth owning. But, as it stands, this lens is too terrible and should never have been sold to customers at any price as a “28-70mm” lens since it does not maintain 70mm at common portrait distances. Very, very sad to say that this is what has happened to Canon after so many years of excellent standard zooms. Let’s be honest, nobody in their right mind would fork over $3,000 if the lens was accurately marketed as a 28-60mm lens… I think most photographers would balk at such a price but that is the actual truth of the RF 28-70mm f/2, it is really a 28-60mm f/2.
Hi Shawn, it’s very common for many zoom lenses to have a much shorter focal length when focusing close. Some 70-200 mm lenses are just 150 mm on the long end when focused close…
I don’t think it’s a huge deal, and many photographers own and love this lens. Jared Polin (Fro knows photo Youtube channel) goes as far as saying this lens is the reason he switched to shooting mostly Canon from Sony.