A Versatile L-Series Workhorse
The Garden Magazine Guy β 5 out of 5 stars
The Canon RF 24β105mm f/4 L is an excellent all-round lens and a dependable professional workhorse. Covering the popular 24mm, 35mm, 50mm and 85mm focal lengths, with additional reach to 105mm, it's extremely versatile and makes an excellent travel lens. For years, I did most of my professional magazine photography with this lens, alongside the RF 35mm f/1.8 Macro and RF 85mm f/2 Macro. Image quality is excellent, with very good sharpness, contrast, colour and fine-detail rendering. It's sharp wide open at f/4, with further improvements toward the edges when stopped down to f/5.6. At 105mm, the outer parts of the image become slightly softer, although stopping down improves sharpness. Background rendering is generally attractive, particularly at longer focal lengths, but the f/4 maximum aperture limits subject separation compared with faster zooms and primes. It's a versatile lens rather than a specialist for shallow-depth-of-field photography. The lens is relatively compact, comfortable to carry all day and ideal when you're unsure what you'll need to photograph. Its constant f/4 aperture, effective image stabilisation and fast autofocus make it particularly convenient for professional work. It reaches farther than a 24β70mm zoom while delivering better optical performance than typical superzooms. It may not be Canon's sharpest or most glamorous L-series lens, but it consistently produces excellent photographs and handles most assignments with a single lens.