Canon EF 70-200 mm f/4L IS II USM review - Distortion

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Canon EF 70-200 mm f/4L IS II USM

6 November 2019

Arkadiusz Olech

6. Distortion

When the Canon 70-200 mm is joined with the APS-C/DX sensor distortion shouldn't bother you at all. At the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of the focal range it amounts to, respectively,−0.36%, +0.53%, and +0.74%; it is +0.10% after attaching the teleconverter. Its absolute value doesn't exceed 1.0 in any place so you can say this aberration is corrected well enough.

Of course the situation changes after passing to full frame. You don't encounter any problems only when you work with the teleconverter, as distortion is practically zero, reaching just +0.13%. At the shorter focal lengths you can notice that aberration without any effort: at 70 mm it reaches −1.39%, at 135 mm it changes the sign and amounts to +1.26%, and by 200 mm it increases to +1.91%.

The performance of the Nikkor 70–200 mm f/4 VR was a bit different – the lowest distortion level was observed at 70 mm and at 200 mm it was a bit higher. What's interesting, in this category the lenses of independent producers prevail. The Tokina's distortion was a tad lower than that of the tested Canon and the Tamron 70-210 mm, which task was the most difficult as its focal range is the widest, performed the best.

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