Canon EF 200 mm f/2.0L IS USM review - Chromatic and spherical aberration

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Canon EF 200 mm f/2.0L IS USM

16 August 2012

Arkadiusz Olech

5. Chromatic and spherical aberration

One glance at some crops taken out of our autofocus testing chart photos and you know that at the maximum relative aperture the longitudinal chromatic aberration is visible; still it is neither high nor medium there. The aberration disappears completely on stopping down the lens to f/2.8.

Canon EF 200 mm f/2.0L IS USM - Chromatic and spherical aberration

The lateral chromatic aberration is practically zero- the tested lens fares noticeably better than Nikkor AF-S 200 mm f/2G ED VRII, so praised by us, and slightly better than the Canon 2.8/200.

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After attaching the 1.4x converter the situation changes. At most of apertures the chromatic aberration is on a medium level and near the maximum relative aperture it even gets near high values.

Spherical aberration

Let’s look at defocused images of a diode before and after the focal point.

As you see the light inside the circle is very evenly spread in both cases. There are no distinct extremes, either global or local, or any concentric rings. It all proves that the spherical aberration is corrected well.