Handling and Features
Performance
Verdict
Specification
An ultra-wide angle lens, which sports a fast maximum aperture of f/2.8 and silent focusing with full-time manual focus override. This lens certainly isn't inexpensive, being available for around £1850. In this review we'll take a look at how it performs and whether the premium price is justified.
Canon EF 14mm f/2.8L II USM Handling and Features
Build and design is typical of Canon's L series lenses, with tough black plastics and metal used throughout. The lens is weather sealed and designed to cope with the rigours of daily professional use. Despite the rugged build, this lens isn't very heavy, weighing only 645g. As a result the lens balances well on the Canon EOS 5D MKIII used for testing even without a battery grip attached.
Auto focus is powered by an Ultrasonic motor, and focusing is very fast as a result. Manual adjustments can be made at any point by turning the focus ring. The focusing ring is smooth and well damped, which makes applying fine manual adjustments a pleasure. Minimum focus is 20cm from the sensor plane, which is great for shooting in claustrophobic environments, or for exploiting the distorted perspective wide angle lenses produce from close up.
Focusing is performed internally, but as there is no filter thread, there is no easy way of mounting graduated or polarising filters on the lens. The bulbous front element is protected by a permanent petal shaped hood. A holder for gel filters is provided on the rear of the lens.
Canon EF 14mm f/2.8L II USM Performance
Sharpness is already excellent in the centre of the frame at maximum aperture, although the performance of this lens towards the edges of the frame lets it down, only achieving fairly good clarity. Stopping down improves performance towards the edges of the frame, although it never reaches excellent levels of sharpness, peaking at very good levels between f/4 and f/11. Sharpness in the centre of the frame remains high, peaking at outstanding levels at f/4.
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How to read our chartsThe blue column represents readings from the centre of the picture frame at the various apertures and the green is from the edges. Averaging them out gives the red weighted column.The scale on the left side is an indication of actual image resolution. The taller the column, the better the lens performance. Simple. For this review, the lens was tested on a Canon EOS 5D Mark III using Imatest. |
Chromatic aberrations are reasonably controlled, just exceeding three quarters of a pixel width at f/2.8, f/4 and f/22. Still, this low level should cause few issues, even in large prints and harsh crops from the edges of the frame.
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How to read our chartsChromatic aberration is the lens' inability to focus on the sensor or film all colours of visible light at the same point. Severe chromatic aberration gives a noticeable fringing or a halo effect around sharp edges within the picture. It can be cured in software.Apochromatic lenses have special lens elements (aspheric, extra-low dispersion etc) to minimize the problem, hence they usually cost more. For this review, the lens was tested on a Canon EOS 5D Mark III using Imatest. |
As is typical with lenses of this focal length, falloff of illumination towards the corners of the frame is quite pronounced at 14mm. Here the corners of the frame are 2.65 stops darker than the image centre and illumination isn't visually uniform until the lens is stopped down to f/8.
Distortion is well controlled for a lens of this focal length. Imatest detected 3.7% barrel distortion which will certainly be noticeable, but as the distortion pattern is uniform across the frame, it should be relatively simple to correct in image editing software afterwards.
Due to the extreme wide angle view of this lens, the permanent hood does little to shade the lens from extraneous light that may cause flare. Even so this lens performs pretty well for this type of lens, retaining good contrast, even when shooting into the light.
Value For Money
This lens currently costs around £1850 and is also the widest lens Canon make for their full frame EOS cameras. If you can live without such a wide angle, the Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II lens may be better value, being priced at around £1220.
If you have the desire to go even wider, and don't require the f/2.8 maximum aperture, Sigma currently produce a 12-24mm f/4.5-5.6 zoom lens, which costs around £590, which is much better value for money.
Nikon users have the excellent 14-24mm f/2.8G lens as an option for the 14mm focal length. The price of £1300 for the Nikon lens certainly puts the price of the Canon optic into perspective, especially as it adds the flexibility of a zoom.
Canon EF 14mm f/2.8L II USM Verdict
Overall, this lens performs pretty well, and is capable of producing excellent sharpness in the centre of the frame, and very good sharpness towards the edges. Unfortunately it is very expensive, especially for an ultra-wide angle prime lens that may see limited use. Unless you have the need to be shooting at 14mm a lot, then Canon's 16-35mm zoom may be a better value choice.