Lens: Canon EF 35-70mm f3.5-4.5 – failure was not an option

The Canon EF 35-70mm f3.5-4.5 was one of the the first EF lenses released. A modest 2x ratio made it the lease expensive zoom available at a time when Canon couldn’t afford to make bad lenses. Today on analog film or digital, this little lens produces excellent results.

Canon’s EF 35-70 f3.5-4.5 was released in 1987 on the launch of the EOS system. It was based on an earlier FD manual focus lens; the EF version was the “kit” zoom lens for those that opted for a zoom instead of a standard 50mm lens.

The EF 35-70 f3.5-4.5 was the lowest priced zoom in the range, all the other zoom lenses (the EF 28-70 f3.5-4.5, the EF 35-105 f3.5-4.5 and the EF 35-135 f3.5-4.5) were more expensive due to being wider at the short end or having a greater zoom ratio requiring more complex and expensive optical constructions.

That said, the humble EF 35-70 is an excellent performer. At the launch of the EOS system Canon could not afford to release a poor quality lens.

The EF 35-70 uses Canon’s arc-form drive (AFD) motor to power the auto focus, which is audible in operation and offers a manual focus action which is characteristically gritty. Manual focus requires flicking a switch and is not available full-time. That’s no matter because the auto focus is fast and accurate (accuracy is mostly dependent on the camera body) and manual focus isn’t necessary.

Handling

Design and build quality are very good and typical of the early EF lenses: focus distance window with IR correction marks, metal mount, solid plastic body, light weight with good feel.

Note that in 1988 Canon released an optically identical autofocus-only version of this lens which is without focusing ring or distance window, the EF 35-70 f3.5-4.5 A, which was intended for the program only EOS 850 and 750 cameras.

The 35-70 has a separate ring to control zoom and focus – a two-touch design. The filter mount on the front of the lens rotates with focus and retracts with zoom into the lens body, which makes using polarising filters difficult. (Note: do not use any filter with a wide mount with this lens because it can become jammed inside the barrel.) I don’t use polarising filers so this is not a problem for me. Most early zoom designs (and some modern ones) suffer from a rotating filter ring so this is not unusual.

The lens is compact, light and easy to operate. Designed in the film days – which are the very definition of “full frame – and produced from 1987 to around 1989, the EF 35-70 f3.5-4.5 is compatible with all Canon EOS film and EOS digital bodies. It will work with APS-C sensor bodies but the 1.6 crop factor makes the resulting angle of view unexciting.

Results

I mounted the EF 35-70 f3.5-4.5 to a digital Canon EOS 5D set to 1600 ISO and spent an afternoon walking through Sydney on a day that enjoyed periods of rain and overcast. My mini-project was photographing people wearing face masks (because COVID). It helps to have a project.

The lens was fitted with an EW-68B lens hood and no filter.

My testing procedure is to shoot wide open, or close to, as a way of demonstrating the lens’ character: if the images look good wide open then they will be even better stopped down a bit. Details are contained in the gallery image captions.

The photographs were shot raw and post processed in Canon Digital Photo Professional 4.12 to adjust levels and contrast with occasional light cropping or rotation. The 35-70 is one of the few lenses Canon do not provide lens data for, so there has been no correction for chromatic aberration, peripheral illumination or distortion. Processing in Lightroom or similar and correcting for CA and distortion may improve results.

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Conclusion

At wide open the lens has good centre sharpness that slowly softens at the extreme edges, along with some light falloff. This is not a problem for street photography and the resulting images have lovely smooth detail.

Backlight and flare are handled well, although it would be easy to contrive situations that cause flare to overwhelm the image. The lens hood may have helped, it certainly kept rain off the front element.

The only shortcomings with the lens are its limited focal length and zoom range; it has nothing to answer for regarding sharpness.

It’s easy to be constantly wishing for a wider or longer lens, but working within the confines of the available equipment is an excellent discipline. The 35mm focal length is considered ideal for street photography, the 70mm long end is good for portraiture, and 50mm is right there in the middle so this lens can be extremely versatile.

If you enjoyed this review you may be interested in others I have put together. Thanks.