Canon EF 11-24mm f/4L USM lens review

My landscape photography began in earnest in 2006 with a Canon 17-40mm f/4 on a 12-megapixel Canon 5D. At f/8 to f/16 that pair delivered results that still impress me; a large print from it hangs on my wall.

As megapixel counts climbed, the 17-40 began to show its age. It struggled to deliver the sharpness and detail that high-resolution bodies demanded.

In 2016 I bought a second-hand 11-24mm f/4 for £2,200. On the 50-megapixel 5DSR it produced remarkable results, and it stayed on the camera until I sold it in 2020, having moved to Sony. What follows comes from four years of use rather than test charts.

Build quality is the L-series standard. At 1,180 g it is a substantial lens, mostly because of the large bulbous front element, which is protected by a built-in hood. There is no front filter thread; a gelatin holder sits at the rear.

The lens makes the camera pretty front heavy but I never found this a major issue, plus for landscape I usually had it on a tripod. On the Sony body you need to use an adapter so the front heaviness becomes more extreme. So handling wide much better on a 5d sized body. 

Despite the extreme angle of view the 11-24 delivers excellent image quality. Centre sharpness holds impressively across the focal range; the corners soften a little towards the mid and outer frame at the widest settings. Each frame below shows where its nine crops come from. Click a crop to see it at 100%.

At 11mm the lens shows some chromatic aberration, which raw software removes in one click. The frame below is the source; drag the handle on the crops: uncorrected on the left, corrected on the right, both at 100%.

To add: one frame with the sun in it. The Sony 12-24 f/4 G went back for flare, so readers will want to know how the 11-24 behaves.

An f/4 lens is not the obvious choice for night work, but it can still produce superb images; under a full moon it's not unusual to be working at f/8. I never shot tracked and stacked frames with the 11-24, but here are two single frames at 12mm and 17mm in the 20 to 30 second range.

Filters mean a system, and cost. I used the original Lee SW150 (not the Mark II) with the 11-24 adaptor ring, and the results were good. The holder is big, and internal reflections can appear when shooting towards a light source.

On Canon's mirrorless bodies the drop-in filter EF-EOS R adapter puts the filter behind the lens instead. I never tried it, having moved to Sony, but it removes the one real awkwardness of this lens.

The large image circle makes the 11-24 unusual on a shift adapter. I used a Fotodiox Pro Shift adapter (EOS to NEX) on the Sony body: limited shift at 11mm, but image quality that rivalled, and sometimes bettered, the 17mm TS-E at full shift. There is no EXIF with these adapters.

For the very best results the built-in hood has to be removed by a specialist. I never had it done, the service was too expensive, so everything here is with the hood on. A quality shift adapter plus the hood removal makes for an expensive but genuinely unique combination.

Although I sold it when I moved to Sony, the 11-24 remains one of my most-used lenses by number of frames: around five thousand in the catalogue, 93 of them on the photoblog. Its field of view is still unmatched on EF, and on Canon's mirrorless bodies the rear filter adapter answers the one real complaint. Once I had it, the 24 and 17mm TS-E lenses stayed in the bag.

On the A7RIII with the MC-11 it worked well, but I eventually went native. The Sony 12-24 f/4 G went back for flare; the 12-24 GM, though not as wide, gave me a lighter lens, f/2.8 and better image quality. None of that changes the recommendation: at around £700 used, the 11-24 is a bargain for anyone on EF or adapting to mirrorless who wants 11mm and can carry it.