Panasonic 12-35/2.8 OIS vs. Canon 24-70/4.0 L

Panasonic 12-35/2.8 OIS vs. Canon 24-70/4.0 L is a lens comparism which i decided to do a longer time ago, since i own both lenses for more than a year now. And now i got the time to do the comparism shots.

Introduction

Both lenses handle an identical focal length range or better angle of view, from wide angle to short telephoto lens. The Canon  24-70/4.0 replaced the Tamron 28-75mm/2.8 as a avery day standard zoom lens.

In a direct comparism mounted on the camera the proportions work out, but anyway the Canon lens looks pretty big, considering its a lens with a maximum f-stop of 4.0. The Canon 24-70/4.0 has the same filter diameter of 77mm like the Canon 16-35/4.0 L IS.

The zoom lens provides an image stabalization system, which according to Canon will cover 4 EV. Besides this the zoom provides a macro mode, which is activated with a button on the zoom ring.

The Panasonic counterpart provides an image stabalization system too, but the lens doesn’t offer a mcaro mode like the Canon lens. Even though providing a maximum aparture of 2.8 the Panasonic lens has a filter diameter of 58mm only.

The comparism

Knowing the results of the comaprism the  Canon 24-70/4.0 L IS isn’t as sharp and crisp like the Canon 16-35/4.0 L IS at wide maximum aparture. Here the Panasonic lens is a little bit better at f 2.8 and even sharper closeing down to f 4.0. But closing down the aparture by one f-stop on the Canon 24-70/4.0 L IS  improves overall sharpness quite a bit.

But take a look yourself at the comparism for  24mm/12mm :

For the center part of the image at 12mm/24mm the Panasonic does a better job at f 2.8. But both lenses hae a good sharpness closeing down the aparture by 1 f-stop. Closing down to f16 overall sharpness is reduced due to defraction blur, which is heavier on mFT because of the smaller sensor.

And now the corners:

Here the same effect, on maximum aparture the results are not good, but closing down by 1-stop the optical performance is ok for a universal zoom lens.

And now tkae 25mm / 50mm respectively:

Here the optical performance at maximum aparture is a little bit better compared to the start focal length of the zoom and improves by closing down the aparture.

Comparing the corners the Canon lens beats the Panasonic lens at wide open aparture. Closing down to f 5.6 or f 8.0 the Canon lens is really sharp, while i miss such a performance for the Panaosinc lens.

Results for  35mm/70mm :

This seems to be the best focal length for both zoom lenses, because both lenses show a very good sharpness even at aparture wide open, while closing down the aparture doesn’t improve sharpness that much.

In the corner areas optical performance is a little bit reduced but still is better than at the starting focallength of 12mm/24mm. Here the Canon lens is a little bit better than the Panasonic lens.

Conclusion

both lenses a pretty good, but if you need more sharpness at 12mm/24mm you should search for another lens, and this is true for both systems. Compared at 50mm or 70mm both lenses a very good and i use them quite often.

What are your experiences with such universal zoom lens? I’m looking forward to your comments and questions.

ciao tuxoche