I upgraded my camera to the Canon EOS R5 last year and have since been shooting with my adapter ring and the EF lenses. If this sounds like jargon to you: let me catch you up to speed. Canon launched its first mirrorless camera in 2018, and the mount on the mirrorless cameras is different than the ones of the previous DSLRs. As a workaround, you can use an adapter ring to shoot with your older EF lenses on the new mirrorless cameras.
After shooting for a year with the adapter ring, I finally bit the bullet and purchased my first RF lens coming in at $2,399. In this article, I'm going to give you a comparison with side-by-side images as well as my surprising discovery as I scrutinized the upgrade.
On the left is the newer RF 24-70mm lens designed for mirrorless cameras. On the right is the older EF 24-70mm lens with the adapter ring.
I have to be honest: the 24-70mm is not my go-to lens. In my mind, it's kind of the jack of all trades and master of none, which, ironically, is why I have it. It does a great job at everything. Great. Not mind-blowing, but also never disappointing. I have my go-to for product work, the 100mm, my go-to for sports, the 16-35 mm, my go-to for portraits, the 70-200mm, and so on. The reason I decided to upgrade the 24-70mm is that although it's not my quintessential glass or anything, it does everything well. On many jobs, I need to capture a wide range of imagery at a fast pace. When I shoot races, for example, I may be capturing runners flying by at a wider angle, but then I notice the detail and need to zoom in. With the 24-70mm, I can quickly zoom in to grab the fleeting moment, then back out to full body shots again. It is the beloved lens of wedding and event photographers for that same reason. It allows photographers to take wide and tight images, and it always delivers a good shot. Everyone needs a jack of all trades in their gear bag.
This shows the versatility of the 24-70mm, as it has a broad focal length.
I had been shooting with the EF 24-70mm lens and the adapter ring for some time now. I liked the images, but on occasion, I found myself frustrated at how it seemed to struggle to focus and track, so I made the plunge and bought the new RF version.
These are SOOC (Straight-Out-Of-Camera). The left photo was taken with the older EF lens used with the adapter ring, and the image on the right is the newer RF version designed for mirrorless cameras.
The left image is shot with the EF 24-70mm and the adapter. You can see the problem of the focus falling off on the edges. On the right image, shot with the RF 24-70mm, you can see the edges retain their sharpness and detail
The image on the top is the EF 24-70mm lens with the adapter ring. You can see here again where the focus falls off at the edges of the image. To my surprise, once again, the RF significantly out-performed the EF lens by retaining sharpness and detail.
Is it worth dropping over $2,000 on? I can't answer that for you.
Everyone has different needs, budgets, and different levels of scrutiny on their work. Is it a big deal if you miss a few shots when the camera is struggling to find its focal point with the adapter ring? Do you have an unforgiving level of scrutiny on your images? If the answer to both of those is no, perhaps you should save for something more suited to your needs. If, however, you have found yourself at a shoot embarrassed, fiddling with your focus or sitting in Lightroom, flagging too many images for the bin, this is a well-invested upgrade. For me, it was such a better experience, I'm thinking of putting website blockers on B&H just so I don't buy the whole RF suite. That's impressive since I'm not a gearhead.
Have you bought any of the RF lenses? If so, leave a comment and tell us what your upgrade experience has been. If you enjoyed this article and want to read more, you can click "Follow" below next to my name for more to come.
Actually, when we are comparing pro glass, I would be very surprised if the new RF lens wasn't optically superior. After all, there's a lot more computer horsepower available for lens design these days to address deficiencies in the older EF lens. That being said I doubt if most people would really notice the difference in the real world unless edge to edge sharpness was a requirement for the purpose like product photography for example.
The EF 24-70 f/2.8 L II is not that old and benefitted plenty from CAD before its introduction in 2012.
It seems to be more about design decisions to increase flat field correction in more recent lenses. This benefits edge/corner performance when shooting flat subjects parallel to the camera's sensor.
Often the additional flat field correction comes with a cost of less smooth out of focus highlights. But it's much easier to compare MTF numbers reflecting performance shooting flat test charts than to compare the aesthetics of out of focus areas of shots of a three dimensional world.
I switched to Canon mirrorless a bit more than one year ago and thought about selling all (or almost all) of my EF lenses... then I got the drop-in filter adapter.
Being able to use a variable ND or variable polarizer between the lens and the camera is so convenient that now, I even regret selling the 2 EF lenses that I sold (16-35mm and 70-200mm).
For product photography, because of this adapter, I think I would even prefer getting the EF tilt-shift lenses over the RF ones if they ever come out with some. I have the 24mm tilt-shift and it's a dream to use with this adapter. I'm dreaming of the 90mm tilt-shift now.
Oh that's an interesting perspective. I've never played with tilt shift lenses. We were just talking about "Shiny Object Syndrome" in the writer's chat. #guilty . I'll add that to my Wishlist! I just bought the Wescott Lindsay Adler optical Snoot with patterns last week. So many fun tools! Thanks for sharing that great insight
The medium telefoto tilt-shift lenses would be a dream for product photography (talking about the 50mm, the 90mm and the 135mm). Of course, there would be some drawbacks as they are manual focus lenses only so for doing focus stacking using the focus ring, it would be a pain. However, when shooting something that is place at an angle from the camera and wanting it all in focus witout using focus stacking, the tilt option of the lenses are pretty interesting.
The shift function would also give some options no even possible in post-production. I had to shoot many pharmaceutical products for a company and they wanted a very precise perspective for every boxes. I shot it with my 100mm macro, but had to shoot top down because they wanted to see the top of the box. Had to correct the perspective of every single image in post-production. If I had the 90mm macro tilt-shift, I would've been able to get my camera higher than the product to see the top, but keep the camera leveled and shift down the lense to get the product with no perspective distortion straight in camera.
Not a gearhead either but i decided that after 7 years of solid work i had to get an upgrade. I bought the Z7ii upgrading from a D810.
The difference between the AF-s 14-24 2.8 and AF-s 24-70 2.8 to the Z 2.8 variants is significant in my opinion. They are way quicker and silent in their focus. Also the sharpness in the edges and the amount of lensflare you get in these newer lenses is much better.
The only lens I didn’t upgrade is the 70-200 2.8 because i just don’t use it that often. If i really need it i’ll just use my D810 which is still a great camera.
I do have to say though that i still don’t like the electronic view finder. There are some upsides to it but i think the resolution needs to be way higher for it to be comfortable, also the dynamic range in the evf is lacking which can make it hard to compose when shooting in high contrast sceneries.
That's great to hear you're finding the Nikon upgrade worth it as well! Thanks for sharing
That's an excellent comparison. I usually skip over gear reviews, especially when it's for a brand I don't use personally. Looking at the close-up of your first image, I can see a considerable difference in sharpness even in the middle of the frame on the ice cubes.
For anyone shooting professionally using Canon gear if the difference with the RF lenses is that great then they definitely should consider that extra investment, if they have sufficient income to warrant it.
Thank you Ivor Rackham ! I had someone on IG comment "I loved this article. I stopped reading F SToppers years ago because the technical talk would make my eyes glaze over. This read like a conversation and I'm here for it!" I feel sometimes the way gear articles are written make it so they're not palatable for many photographers. This was my first gear review and my goal was to make it technically accurate but enjoyable and easy to read. So I'm thrilled to read your feedback thank you!