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Canon EF-S 24mm f/2.8 STM Review | Small and Deadly
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Jul 24, 2023
Canon EF-S 24mm f/2.8 STM Review | Photographer Dustin Abbott shares a full, thorough review of the Canon EF-S 24mm f/2.8 STM pancake lens. The review includes many sample images and was filmed by and shot on a new Canon EOS 80D body. Read my Written Review: http://bit.ly/1Uj9mEg Order your copy here: http://bhpho.to/243IKNO Visit the Image Gallery: http://bit.ly/1QAmaiS Want to support this channel? Use these affiliate links to shop at: B&H Photo: http://bhpho.to/1TA0Xge Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/shop/dustinabbott Ebay: http://bit.ly/DustineBay Make a donation via Paypal: paypal.me/dustinTWI Get a discount off all Skylum Editing Software (Luminar, Aurora HDR, AirMagic) by using code DUSTINHDR at checkout: http://bit.ly/LuminarDLA Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/dustinabbott | Check me out on: Personal Website: http://dustinabbott.net/ | Sign up for my Newsletter: http://bit.ly/1RHvUNp | Instagram: http://bit.ly/DLAinsta | Google+: http://bit.ly/24PjMzv | Facebook: http://on.fb.me/1nuUUeH | Twitter: http://bit.ly/1RyYxIH | Flickr: http://bit.ly/1UcnC0B | 500px: http://bit.ly/1Sy2Ngu My filming setup: Sony a7R III: B&H Photo: https://bhpho.to/2D6ibNO or Amazon: http://amzn.to/2CNxOvH | or | Sony a9 @ B&H Photo: https://bhpho.to/2HyWIyt or Amazon: https://amzn.to/2s1vYE0 Tamron 28-75mm F2.8 RXD @B&H Photo: https://bhpho.to/2FA00la or Amazon https://amzn.to/2G2kaEr Lights: Rotolight AEOS @B&H Photo https://bhpho.to/2IK7mqV | Genaray Contender @B&H Photo: https://bhpho.to/33HbGNM | and Aputure AL-MW: https://bhpho.to/2N3MtZV
View Video Transcript
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Hi, I'm Dustin Abbott, and I'm here today to do a review of the Canon EF-S 24mm f2.8 STM pancake lens
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Now those of us that have shot Canon's EOS M system over the last several years have lamented
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the lack of support specifically in the low number of new lenses that have been introduced
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for the camera system. But the reality is that when I step back and I consider Canon's releases
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even for its EFS or that's crop sensor mount, I note that really there haven't been a lot of
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quality releases there and most specifically when it comes to prime lenses. Canon has a number of
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consumer grade zoom lenses with variable apertures that are quite common from the 18 to 55 millimeter
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to the 18 to 135 and so on and so forth. They also have one fixed aperture zoom lens
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that is a 17-55mm f2.8. And when it comes down to prime lenses
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there really has only been one crop sensor-specific EF-S prime lens. That's the 60mm f2.8 macro lens
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Until this lens was announced and then released, the EF-S 24mm f2.8
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When you look at a lens like this and you use it in real life
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you begin to wonder, Canon, why not this sooner and why not more lenses like this? This is a lens
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that makes a lot of sense on the Canon crop sensor mount. Now, the reason why I haven't jumped into
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this sooner is because a couple of things. Number one, most of my crop sensor shooting has been
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on a Canon's M system, and I use crop sensor. I shoot full frame personally, and I have multiple
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full-frame camera bodies, and most of my lenses are designed around that kit. When I shoot a crop
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sensor, it tends to be on the mirrorless because I'm wanting to have that very small size. But
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over the last little while, I've begun to use some crop sensor cameras more for some specific
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reasons. Number one, as I'm doing right now, they're great video rigs, and I'm using the Canon EOS 80D
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to film this segment right now, and I really appreciate its ability to track and the good
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video footage that it produces. I've also been using a Canon 70D for that purpose and both of
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these cameras also sometimes with a telephoto mounted on them to give just that extra bit of
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crop reach that comes in certain situations. And the reason why I didn't jump on this particular
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lens is because I had the excellent little 22 millimeter f2 lens for the M system that is It similar in a number of ways and is also obviously very compact In some ways when I think of 24 millimeters I think of it more because I mostly shoot full
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frame. I think of that as being a fairly wide focal length. The reality is, however, is that
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the 24 millimeter for the crop sensor really has a very similar field of view as the first pancake
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lens that Canon produced a few years ago, and that is the 40 millimeter f2.8 STM lens
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Now this is for full frame. Of course, it works very nicely on crop sensor and even on the
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mirrorless bodies via the adapter. The 40 millimeter angle of view is very close to what
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this approximates on a crop sensor. It comes out to being a 38.3 or so millimeters comparable on a
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full frame body. And so don't think of this as a wide angle lens as I was. Think of it more as a
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a slightly wide normal view lens. In other words, a very flexible tool
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for just general purpose shooting and a lens to nicely keep on your camera
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One of the great things about shooting with lenses like this one is how compact they are
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and thus how easy it is to bring them along. Even if you don't think that you're going to shoot with them
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there's really no reason to leave it behind. In fact, some people will use them
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instead of the camera's cap, they will use a lens like this
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even when they're traveling along because as you can see, it's scarcely bigger than what the cap itself is
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In fact, the overall length of this lens is under an inch long. It comes out at right around 0.90 inches or 22.8 millimeters
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Incredibly short and compact. And as a result, there's barely room for the AF manual focus switch that's there
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And then, of course, a very tiny little focus ring. Don't plan on using that focus ring a whole lot
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SDM lenses are not my favorite to manually focus and I only really use them in an emergency type
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situation for that. But fortunately the actual autofocus performance is really very good on this
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lens. In fact as I began to use this lens I discovered that there's a lot to like about it
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Number one this is probably the sharpest EFS lens that Canon produces outside of the 60 millimeter
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macro lens. It's incredibly sharp and I've been in the process of reviewing Canon's new 18-135mm
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IS USM with the new Nano USM focus technology. While the Nano USM focus is incredible, a great
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advancement for Canon, the overall optics of that lens that I will share my review with shortly
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are not overly impressive. This lens blows it out of the water, particularly even wide open at f2.8
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It's very sharp even at f2.8, it has good flare resistance, chromatic aberrations are
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well controlled. Really the only optical flaw that I can point to is that it does vignette fairly strongly
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Although because it is a native lens, that vignette can be removed either in camera if
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you shooting JPEGs if you use the peripheral illumination correction or it can be very easily removed in post but beyond that there very little to criticize there good sharpness
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actually excellent sharpness in the center of the frame and really out towards except at the very
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extreme corners at f2.8 and stopping down a bit will clear up those corners very nicely and so
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overall even for shooting landscape type images it's really useful even from wide open on
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And so it's very nice in that. The autofocus is one of the snappier STM implementations that I've
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used. STM, of course, is very, very smooth for autofocus and particularly if you're using a 70D
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or an 80D body where you have the ability to do the DPAF and servo AF during video recording
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STM lenses will make very smooth transitions and allow you to do pull focus and without that
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pulsing or hunting. That's really the strength of the lens or of the focus system is the smoothness
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in which it does. This also adds on really good autofocus speed as well and even making
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significant changes. I find that it does it quite snappy either through traditional viewfinder AF
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or even when using it in like what you might know as live view, particularly with these camera
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bodies that have Canon's DPAF and it just focuses in very quickly and you have very little issues
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with that. And so in that sense, it's overall a delight to use all around. The lens itself is
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also extremely light. It's 125 grams. That's 4.4 ounces. And so it's very light. You're not going
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to notice the weight at all there and it makes your body quite portable. On top of that, it has
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a quite common 52 millimeter front filter thread that's inexpensive, easy to find. Like all of
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Canon's EFS lenses, it doesn't come with a lens hood. However, the optional hood for it is just a
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little tiny thing that might, at the very best, it offers some protection value, but it's not really
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going to offer any kind of shading value. If you're looking for protection and you're worried about
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that, I think that you would probably be better served by just throwing a clear or a UV filter on
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the front and to call it a day. One other really nice thing about this lens, as I mentioned, it has
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great optical performance. It's six elements in five groups, but the nice thing is that it can
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focus down extremely close, just a little over six inches or 16 centimeters, and so it can focus
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down closely, and it also has a great maximum reproduction value of 0.27 times. By comparison
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I always thought that the magnification was fairly decent on the 40 millimeter STM lens
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but it only actually has a 0.18 times magnification. The class leader amongst full frame lenses currently is the Tamron 45 millimeter
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I'm actually using that to film at the moment. And it has a maximum reproduction ratio of 0 times which means that this lens is right behind it That an incredibly useful figure not only for still shooting but this is a great video lens And it gives you a lot of
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flexibility. In fact, I encourage you to check out this video that I shot doing a quick review of
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some headlights and taillights for my bicycle. And I did it exclusively using this lens right here
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And it's amazing the different kinds of shots I can get because of the ability to focus down very closely
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And so it's an incredibly useful focal length both at normal shooting but then also at very close focus shooting
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There aren't many lenses that I call a no-brainer. And that is because, you know, camera gear is expensive
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But this lens, there's not really anything that I could say you shouldn't buy it for
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It's incredibly useful. it's unique amongst the Canon EF-S lenses and it's also very very reasonable it comes in at
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under 200 bucks for it and it's a an investment that is well worth it it's going to pay off for
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you in a number of ways and you will probably find it to be a very flexible useful lens that
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you will use often one thing that I like about the pancake size lens is that if I'm shooting a
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telephoto, I often will pack along one of these lenses, either the 40 millimeter if I'm carrying
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a full frame kit or this 24 millimeter if I'm going out with a crop sensor kit because it gives
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you an alternate viewpoint to scenes and it has so little weight impact. It's easy to throw it on
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to take a few shots and then to stow it away. And if you have it in a jacket pocket or in your camera
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case, even if you never pull it out, you never feel bad about it because it's so light, it's so
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small and compact. The overall build is nice. It's not premium grade, but it's nice. It has a metal
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mount. It feels well constructed and solid. And over the years of use that I've gotten out of the
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40 millimeter, I've never had an issue with it. It has served me well. And so if there's any lens
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that is a no-brainer, if you are a crop sensor shooter, I would have to say that it's the EFS
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24 millimeter f2.8. It's sharp. It's easy to use. It's extremely compact and it's inexpensive to
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boot. That is a rare combination from Canon right there. If you haven't already, please subscribe
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and so you can keep up with more videos that are coming out. And I've got a whole big number of
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reviews that are in the pipe right now that will be coming out over the next few weeks and months
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And if you haven't already, please subscribe for my newsletter or visit my website and there's
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linkage down below to that. I also have some linkage if you're interested in going out and
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shopping for this lens and beyond that there's also a link to my full written review that has
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many more image samples and a little bit more information if you want to follow up all of that
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is right down below thanks for watching today have a great day
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