This Canon Lens Had Soul

Canon has always been a really fascinating company with how they approach their lenses and even their cameras. While other brands would put a lot of work into making their prime lenses super sharp, Canon put the effort more into their zoom lenses. And when I reviewed the Canon 16-35mm f2.8 III in 2016, I surely felt that to be the case. For a lens that Canon made, it surely did feel like it still had a soul and a very unique way of presenting the world to your camera’s sensor.

So why am I writing about this lens in 2026? Well, compared to the 15-35mm f2.8 RF that we reviewed back in 2020, the Canon 16-35mm f2.8 III lens feels like something that wasn’t trying to conform to the rest of the photography world. In contrast, the latter lens feels too sharp, at times too saturated, and still like a lens that was acting based on external validation instead of internal validation. And for the years before then, Canon’s lenses genuinely felt different from all the other optics out there.

I say this because if you’ve ever been in search for that particular look that made everyone talk about Canon color science, this is that lens. Somehow or another, this lens balanced both the photojournalistic look and the travel look so well. These days, it’s all just about applying camera profiles, filters, presets, etc. Yet this zoom lens really didn’t need it.

Specifically in the past two or three years, Canon’s lenses have often felt like something really weird. Not only are they splitting hairs between video and photo usage; but they’re also feeling a whole lot more like the deliver a photoshopped look. By that, I mean way too manicured in the way that a French manicure is just an overstatement of one’s natural nails. And I don’t like it all that much.

Look, if one of the Chinese brands remade the Canon 16-35mm f2.8 III for mirrorless cameras, I’d buy it tomorrow. Not only is that a really wide and useful set of focal lengths; but it delivered a look that is otherwise tough to get from zoom lenses these days. Tamron surely has character to their lenses, but the industry really does need more variety.

Otherwise, the Canon 16-35mm f2.8 III was a lens that basically made it on par with everything else out there. And looking back on the review, I’d still rate it pretty highly with the only thing being unique about it is how to makes the world look at times. Really though, I wish Canon did that with all their lenses. The company would sometimes do really weird things like release a 50MP full-frame sensor camera but not speak to which lenses were designed to resolve the highest sharpness from them. In some ways, I understand that today. But today, we call those character lenses. We need more of those because otherwise, lenses all just look too much the same with nothing signature or unique about them.

And in a world where everything is sharp, what makes them unique?