Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM

Lenses that are made for professionals are often expected to be heavy and highly expensive. However, Canon is one of the manufacturers that wanted to change that when they introduced the Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens back in August 2005. One of the reasons why this lens was more affordable than the others was because this standard zoom lens falls just within the wide-angle and short telephoto boundaries. Going to the telephoto zoom category means that more money needs to be spent especially if it has the L-series durability. The Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens is more of a general purpose lens that appears to show a lot of promise.

Design & Construction

The Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens shares the same diameter of several other lenses like the Canon EF 24-70mm. Although it sports a black design with a noticeable red ring, the Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM puts itself in the L-series family and as a result gains a lot of the durability features that many of the pricier lenses have. The L-series is considered as Canon’s flagship series and the fact that the Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM isn’t a highly expensive model makes this a great value just in terms of design and construction alone. The lens often rivals with the 24-70mm model and the Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens beats it in terms of how compact and light the lens is.

Features & Specifications

The Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens can be mounted to your Canon body so you can enjoy some decent performance without adding too much weight. The quality of this lens is high enough for you to keep the aperture at f/4 constantly without sacrificing optical quality. You can use the 24mm all the way up to the maximum 105mm without the need for chatting the shutter speed. With its circular barrel aperture, you can also take nice shots where the background is defocused.

The Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens performance nicely when using the wide angle settings where you got even sharpness at every corner and shooting wide open does not produce any negative effects. Diffraction limiting can take into effect when you move to f/11 and the sharpness begins to soften when you head up to 70mm.

Chromatic aberration is significantly reduced because of the Ultra-Low Dispersion (UD) glass element. Because of this reduction, the image sharpness isn’t affected as much and you won’t see as much color fringing. This also makes sure that the image stays in the high contrast levels around all the corners. You get the worst possible case of chromatic aberration if you use the maximum wide angle settings but fortunately it appears only on the corners. It is noticeably less at 105mm but you shouldn’t see much else if you go for focal lengths in between.

This Canon lens also features an Image Stabilizer which helps reduce the image blur that can be caused if you shake while taking a shot. Vibrations are difficult to prevent but there are gyro sensors that can detect them. This serves as a trigger in fixing the light path so lens is corrected.

The autofocus capabilities of the Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens is also superb because it uses the ring-type USM motor which employs ultra-sonic frequencies that vibrate to make the autofocus function much faster than lenses without this motor. It makes use of an integrated CPU and an improved AF algorithm to keep the function smooth. You can also stop with precision and accuracy whenever necessary or move on to the manual focus ring for manual adjustments and it does not require you to switch out of the autofocus mode.

Bottom Line

The Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens costs about $1,000 and considering its age, some stores may sell it for even cheaper. Although it is light and compact, this is a very capable standard zoom lens that has decent image quality in various areas and has the long lasting quality that many L-series have. The image stabilizer and autofocus functions provide even more value that professionals and amateur photographers will appreciate.

Average User Rating:
Actual User Reviews:
• “I believe where this lens meets its expectations is the ability as a walkaround that can shoot everything with quality. I was looking for a lens that would allow me to have two lenses on a shoot. One being a longer zoom, or one a prime portrait low light, whichever needed, along with my new 24-105Lf4IS. I got tired of lugging a lot of lenses around. The Image Stabilization in this lens is superior to the older version, which makes up for low light situations. It would have been nice though if Canon could have managed a f2.8-4 instead, but the lens takes excellent quality L shots, better quality and color than the 17-85IS. Hand held at 1/7s no prob. It has become my “always on” lens, the colors are very pleasant, replacing my 17-85IS. If you are looking for a step into the “L” world, this lens is it. You can add the primes later. Now I’m hooked on my first “L”. The 24-105L coupled with the 70-300IS would make a complete package for quality range and pro shots.” – L.Jones (CA,USA)

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• “The name of the game here is portability, flexibility, and good but not incredible image quality.

This lens is often tagged a “walkabout” lens, and that’s a good description. There’s nothing better if you want to carry camera and lens about and get a variety of shots in the range from wide angle to short telephoto. It’s difficult for lens designers to make all the compromises necessary to have a lens go from wide angle to telephoto, and have a max focal length over four times the widest focal length, but Canon has done a good job here. The image stabilization works excellently when hand held (it cuts image quality if you use the stabilization from a tripod, though). The f/4 maximum aperture cuts the size and weight down quite a bit. Image quality is excellent for a zoom from about 30mm up to 90mm, good from 90mm to 105mm, and tolerable from 24 to 30mm (getting better in the 28 to 30mm range). As expected, image quality is best stopped down to about f/8, but is still good wide open at f/4.

I can’t say the lens has major flaws, but relative weaknesses are the wide angle performance, and the f/4 maximum aperture. The lens is not fast enough for shots of moving subject indoors. For stationary subjects, the image stabilization lets you take shots with slower exposure times than you’d expect, but stabilization won’t do anything to improve a moving subject.

Build quality is excellent as expected, but the lens is quite compact and light, much better than the 24-70/2.8 zoom that is its obvious rival.

Also, if you are after the absolute maximum image quality, prime lenses will do better than this lens in the normal and telephoto range (35 to 105). My $75 50/1.8 lens far outshines this one in sharp, crisp imaging. Zooms that don’t have to accommodate both wide and telephoto focal lengths will also outperform this one–My 70-200/4 lens is much sharper and more contrasty, and even my 16-35 lens outperforms this one in the 24-28mm range (the 24-105 does do better from about 30-35mm, though). All these things aren’t surprising, and they are no reason to condemn or even criticize the 24-105.

If money isn’t a major concern for you, and you want a superb compromise lens, this is the one to pick. The only lens that can hold a candle to it is the old 28-135 IS zoom. If you get that one, you’ll get inferior image quality and much less effective stabilization. But you’ll also save quite a bit of money!” – M.Broderick (OK,USA)

• “My first L lens and I’m sold. While I did spend a lot of time – a lot, this isn’t a small purchase – on deciding between this and the 24-70/2.8, I feel I made the right decision. First, I took into account what I actually shot. Not what I thought about shooting or wanted to shoot, but what I really spent my time shooting. Then I backed that up by looking at the past six months’ worth of photos. For me, this is the right choice. The big decision wasn’t over image quality – rather it was the max aperture. 2.8 vs 4.0. The 4.0 with IS won. I absolutely LOVE the IS! Even at higher speeds, IS rocks. OK, so shooting with it is a dream. Incredibly fast focus. Wonderful fit and finish. I could gush all night. If you’re spending a lot of time trying to justify it, don’t. If it won’t break your bank, it’s well worth it. If you’re trying to decide which lens, try what I did. It made all the difference to me. “ – A.Swanson (CA,USA)

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