Is 24-70f2.8Lii USM a good all around everyday lens? Kids, family vacations etc...

[RealtorRichie]

6D

[RobertTheFat]

If I had that lens, I think I'd use it primarily as an indoor event lens. It's awfully big and heavy to use as a walking-around lens, which I believe is what you're proposing. IMO, a much better walker is the 24-105mm f/4L IS: smaller, lighter, better range, and much cheaper. And it's stabilized, while the 24-70 isn't.

[ScottyP]

What camera do you have? Full frame or crop?
The 24-70 2.8 mk2 is maybe the perfect full frame everyday lens, with the single defect of no IS (and the high price). For crop they make lenses spin the range of 17-55 or 18-55mm.
If you shoot crop the 24-70 might not be wide enough on a crop, but not if you don't use wide angle much.

Everyone should have a wide aperture bright lens. Either an f/2.8 zoom or even better an f/1.4 or f/1.8 prime. Super sharp. Very much smaller. Needs only 1/4 the light, meaning you can shoot a 4x faster shutter when stuck in low light.

[ebiggs1]

And now for the straight skinny....

The EF 24-70mm f2.8 L II is the best lens of its type made. In the world, period.  End of story.  Nobody makes a better lens.

The EF 24-105mm f4 L IS is the "best buy" for a lens of its type. Also, period.

So if you want the best and closest to a "do all" there are your choices.  Of course neither is a complete "do all".  You need one more lens, the EF 70-200mm f2.8 L IS II.  Best buy version EF 70-200mm f4 L non-IS model.

[TCampbell]

On a "full frame" camera such as the 6D, the 24-70 offers a nice range from wide-angle to very moderate amount of telephoto. Optically it's an excellent top-notch lens.  You may find that, at times, you wish you had a bit more on the telephoto end.  But the advantage of the 24-70 f/2.8 is that it gathers more light and will perform better in indoor and other low-light situations.

At some point, you will likely want a lens that can offer a longer focal length.  But if you just bought a lens with a longer focal length in the zoom range, then at some point you'd also be wishing you had a lens that could offer a lower focal ratio (e.g. the f/2.8 lens.)  

So there is no "best". 

The 24-70 is a better lens than the 24-105 if you compare how they perform in the 24-70 range (ignoring that the 24-105 has a range from 70-105 that is missing from the other lens.)

I went with the 24-70 f/2.8 (the original... the II didn't exist back when I bought my lens) because I also had the 70-200mm f/2.8 -- so for me, I had the longer focal lengths covered with a different lens and wasn't missing out on anything.