Canon EF 35 mm f/2.0 review - Summary

Have you rated your lenses yet?

Canon EF 35 mm f/2.0

23 September 2007

Arkadiusz Olech

11. Summary

Pros:

great picture resolution in the center and at the edges of the frame starting from f/4.0
small or medium level of chromatic aberration
small distortion
good performance in bright light
quite fast autofocus

Cons:

weak picture resolution near open aperture
large astigmatism
too large vignetting
loud and not very effective autofocus

Does this lens give us more than just a good equivalent of a kit lens set up at 35 mm? The answer is positive. Although the difference in the middle of the frame is not that great, at the edges the tested lens reaches much better results than zoom lenses. A better aperture of f/2.0 should be treated, however, as an emergency. Yes, we can take a picture but let’s not expect great results. The autofocus performance makes the situation even worse – its work can spoil a rather good optical performance at closed aperture.

If the lens’s price was higher (even by couple of hundred Polish zloty) and the lens had an effective autofocus with a USM motor and was at least a bit sharper at f/2.0, it could be recommended to every amateur photographer. In this situation it is very unclear and the answer isn’t obvious. It looks like it all depends on the kit lens you have. If it is an EF-S 17-55 f/2.8 IS USM or Tamron 17-50 mm, the EF2/35 purchase doesn’t make sense. If we have a lens of weaker aperture than the f/2.8 purchase of the tested Canon seems to be a tempting alternative.

Please Support Us

If you enjoy our reviews and articles, and you want us to continue our work please, support our website by donating through PayPal. The funds are going to be used for paying our editorial team, renting servers, and equipping our testing studio; only that way we will be able to continue providing you interesting content for free.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - advertisement - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Sample shots:


Camera: Canon 20D Parameters: 35 mm, f/2.0, exp. 1/125 s, ISO 400 File: JPG, 3504x2336 pix, 2.7 MB	Camera: Canon 20D Parameters: 35 mm, f/4.0, exp. 1/60 s, ISO 800 File: JPG, 3504x2336 pix, 3.0 MB	Camera: Canon 20D Parameters: 35 mm, f/8.0, exp. 1/100 s, ISO 100 File: JPG, 3504x2336 pix, 3.9 MB

Camera: Canon 20D Parameters: 35 mm, f/5.6, exp. 1/250 s, ISO 400 File: JPG, 3504x2336 pix, 2.5 MB	Camera: Canon 20D Parameters: 35 mm, f/2.0, exp. 1/8000 s, ISO 200 File: JPG, 3504x2336 pix, 2.3 MB	Camera: Canon 20D Parameters: 35 mm, f/4.5, exp. 1/2000 s, ISO 200 File: JPG, 3504x2336 pix, 2.6 MB

Camera: Canon 20D Parameters: 35 mm, f/3.5, exp. 1/1250 s, ISO 200 File: JPG, 3504x2336 pix, 3.5 MB	Camera: Canon 20D Parameters: 35 mm, f/4.0, exp. 1/500 s, ISO 400 File: JPG, 3504x2336 pix, 2.4 MB	Camera: Canon 20D Parameters: 35 mm, f/3.2, exp. 1/2000 s, ISO 200 File: JPG, 3504x2336 pix, 2.3 MB

Camera: Canon 20D Parameters: 35 mm, f/5.6, exp. 1/125 s, ISO 400 File: JPG, 3504x2336 pix, 2.7 MB	Camera: Canon 20D Parameters: 35 mm, f/2.0, exp. 1/320 s, ISO 100 File: JPG, 3504x2336 pix, 2.2 MB	Camera: Canon 20D Parameters: 35 mm, f/4.0, exp. 1/80 s, ISO 100 File: JPG, 3504x2336 pix, 2.4 MB