A Great Little Wide-Angle Zoom
Review by Fernando Santos
As soon as Canon announced this new 14-35mm L-series lens and I saw how small it was, I wanted one. I have the RF 15-35mm F2.8L IS USM, and I like its extra stop of light, but not so much its size, weight, and 82mm filter size. When I want to go out with a lightweight kit, I take the RF 24-240mm, but adding the RF 15-35mm F2.8 is just too much. The new Canon RF 14-35mm solves that size and weight problem, and it lets me add a wide-angle to the kit. The f/4 maximum aperture doesn’t worry me because my wide-angle shooting happens usually between f/8 to f/16.
I really like how small this new lens is, and that it takes 77mm screw-in filters. The electronic focus works great too: super-fast and quiet. The lens has image stabilization (IS), and it can detect panning and adjust for it. With this lens on my Canon EOS R6, I was able to handhold a shot for 2.5 seconds and still get a sharp image, which really impressed me! I can use this lens inside an old, poorly lit church and still bring home a good picture.
If you’re shooting RAW, you’ll notice some vignetting on the corners. Of course, you can manually fix it in post; plus, this is an automatic correction using the lens profile in Lightroom Classic and Adobe Camera Raw. I didn’t notice any problems with distortion or chromatic aberration. Lens coating seems to be great too; shooting directly against the sun didn’t produce much lens flare.
Included with the Canon RF 14-35 mm F4L IS USM lens package is the lens hood and a lens pouch. I just wish the price tag was lower, but we always wish that, right? ■
