Canon EF 11-24 mm f/4L USM
5. Chromatic and spherical aberration
Chromatic aberration
The photos below prove clearly that the tested lens doesn’t have any problems with the correction of the longitudinal chromatic aberration so it can be only praised in this category.
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The situation with the lateral chromatic aberration is quite different, though. One look at graphs, shown below (first for the edge of the APS-C sensor, the second one for the edge of full frame), and everything is explained pretty clearly.
At 11 mm focal length that aberration can reach a very high level of 0.20% and, although it decreases on stopping down, that situation never improves enough to be called at least decent. The image improves when you pass to the 17 mm focal length but also in that place the aberration level should be called high – especially near the maximum relative aperture. Only at 24 mm you can speak about moderate values of that aberration.
It is pretty clear the lateral chromatic aberration contributes a lot to the worsening of the optical properties of the tested lens.
As a kind of consolation you can add that the Sigma 12-24 mm II at the shortest focal length also had the aberration amounting to 0.2% - on both types of detectors to boot.
| Canon 5D III, 11 mm, APS-C, f/4.0 | Canon 5D III, 24 mm, FF, f/4.0 |
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Spherical aberration
The Canon 11–24 mm didn’t have any focus shift effect but its extreme parameters made it very difficult for us to get circles of light of a sensible size both in front of and behind the focal point. Still what we managed to depict doesn’t look bad. There are simply no reasons to think that the tested lens corrects the spherical aberration in a bad way.
| Canon 5D MkIII, 24 mm, f/4.0, in front of | Canon 5D MkIII, 324 mm, f/4.0, behind |
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