|
Canon EF 24mm f/1.4 USM L - Review / Test Report |
|
Lens Reviews -
Canon EOS (APS-C)
|
|
Page 1 of 3
Review by Klaus Schroiff, published December 2005
Special thanks to Markus Stamm for providing the lens for testing purposes!
Introduction
Released back in 1997 the Canon EF 24mm f/1.4 USM L is one of many ultra fast
fix focals in the Canon lens line-up - seems as if Canon is really enjoying
to go to the max in this niche.
Regarding its release date it is obviously a full frame lens. On APS-C DSLRs
it has a field-of-view equivalent
to a classic ~38mm lens so it can be considered as a moderate wide-angle lens here.
The optical construction is made of 11 elements in 9 groups with one ground aspherical
element and one UD (Ultra-low Dispersion) element.
Its minimum focus distance is 0.25m resulting in a max. object magnification
of ~1:6. Typical for many high performance wide angles the lens features
a floating system to achieve a constantly high image quality throughout the
focusing range. The aperture mechanism has 7 aperture blades. The filter size is 77mm.
In order to achieve a max. aperture of f/1.4 Canon had to use big glass elements
so the lens is rather fat at 84x77mm and comparatively heavy (550g).
A petal-type hood is included.
As to be expected from a member of the professional grade Canon L league the
lens is beautifully crafted with a metal body and high quality plastics. The
very broad, rubberized focus ring has a smooth and well damped action. The front
element does not rotate so using a polarizer is no problem. The focusing speed is
very fast and thanks to USM the AF noise level is near silent. Typical for ring-type USM
AF drives full-time manual focusing is possible in one-shot AF mode.
|
