RF 24-70 F 2.8 Image softness at F16? Best aperture for maximum DOF?

[oplatka]

Hi In reading some of the evaluations of the RF 24-70 F 2.8 lens, the comments seem to point out that at F 16, the image becomes soft.  I am curious what people have experienced when using this lens at f 16 or higher settings.   My other question is at what setting can you achieve maximum depth of field without sacrificing sharpness?  Thank you for your response.

[John_Q · Accepted solution]

Hello oplatka,

This lens is very good at f/2.8, the widest aperture. It gets a little sharper at f/4. The sharpest results seem to be between f/5.6 and f/8 before dropping slightly at f/11, again at f/16 and again at f/22. At the corners, the best results can be seen between f/8 and f/11 per photojournalists testing. Between f/8 and f/11 will likely deliver the best depth-of-field.

[John_Q · Accepted solution]

Hello oplatka,

This lens is very good at f/2.8, the widest aperture. It gets a little sharper at f/4. The sharpest results seem to be between f/5.6 and f/8 before dropping slightly at f/11, again at f/16 and again at f/22. At the corners, the best results can be seen between f/8 and f/11 per photojournalists testing. Between f/8 and f/11 will likely deliver the best depth-of-field.

[shadowsports · Accepted solution]

Greetings,

This is f16.  I front focused a little bit, but am always happy with the results.  You'll be hard pressed to find a better lens than the f2.8.  it's a winner.  

[oplatka]

Thank you for your response.

[oplatka]

Thanks for your feedback

[p4pictures]

With most lenses the sharpness reduces as the aperture nears the end of the range. This is due to an effect known as diffraction loss. EOS R-series cameras use digital lens optimiser (DLO) to help counter that diffraction loss for JPGs created in the camera, for RAW images Canon Digital Photo Professional (DPP) also has DLO as part of it's lens corrections so can be used to get the maximum sharpness at any aperture. 

Please note that a lot of reviewers online process their images with other software like Adobe Lightroom, Adobe Camera RAW, Capture One, DXO etc and these do not have the same capability for diffraction correction as DPP does.

If you are concerned you should try for yourself, get a RAW image from your camera at a high aperture f/16 or f/22, process it with DPP and save the output as a TIFF, then take the same image and process with the other software before also saving as a TIFF, you will find a difference if you look closely.