2024 has been the year where Canon has finally, grudgingly, let a third party lens makers creep in to their RF mount, though with one huge caveat. There are still (absolutely!) no full frame lenses from third parties allowed, but Canon is opening up the RF/RF-S mount to APS-C lenses. Earlier this year I reviewed a few of the first Sigma lenses to come in an RF mount, and the Tamron 11-20mm F2.8 RXD becomes the first Tamron lens to arrive on the platform. This is great, as it provides another high quality wide angle option for Canon shooters to consider. But is there enough here to bypass the equally interesting Sigma 10-18mm F2.8 DN lens that is also now available on RF? Find out in either the video review below or the text review linked here…or just enjoy the photos in the gallery below.
Thanks to Tamron USA for sending me a loaner of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. All opinions and conclusions are my own.*The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the APS-C mode on my 45MP Canon EOS R5, which I reviewed here.
Tamron loves its initials in their lens names, so let’s sort out that alphabet soup. Di III is their designation for a mirrorless lens design, and, in this case, the addition of -A at the (Di III-A) refers to their development for APS-C mirrorless. RXD refers to the focus motor, and means Rapid eXtra-silent stepping Drive.
As with the Sigma lenses I’ve reviewed before, Canon is explicitly keeping you out of the full frame protocols. I don’t own a Canon APS-C camera, so I’m doing this review on the APS-C mode of my full frame Canon EOS R5. Typically I can evaluate full frame coverage on Sony or Nikon, but here all options but the 1.6x APS-C crop are greyed out. Canon is making SURE you don’t enter that sacred full frame space under any circumstance!
Canon is unique amongst other brands in that their APS-C crop is tighter than other brands. It is 1.6x rather than 1.5x, meaning that the effective focal length of the lens changes a bit in this application. Whereas it will be 16-30mm frame equivalent on 1.5x, it will be 17.6-32mm on Canon. That’s unfortunate with a wide angle lens, as typically your priority will be to have as wide of framing as possible.
The 11-20RF covers a very useful range nonetheless, giving you a variety of framing options at 11, 14, 16, 18, and 20mm (the marked positions on the zoom ring):
The 11-20RF is priced at $659 USD, which is identical to where the Sigma 10-18mm F2.8 DN is priced (my review here) and considerably more expensive than the roughly $300 budget Canon RF-S 10-18mm F4.5-6.3 IS STM lens. It it worth the price premium over the Canon, and should it be considered instead of the Sigma? Check out my reviews if you have questions.
Keywords: Tamron, 11-20mm, Tamron 11-20mm Review, Tamron 11-20 RF, RXD, Tamron, 11-20, F2.8, f/2.8, Canon, Canon EOS R5, EOS, R, R5, Review, Canon EOS R6 MK II, Canon EOS R6 II, EOS R6 II Review, RF, mirrorless, Canon EOS R7 Review, Sports, Tracking, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Handling, Focus, Portraits, Resolution, High ISO, Image Quality, Sample Images, Photography, 45MP, 24MP, Canon, #letthelightin, #DA, #EOSR5, #Canon, #withmytamron
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
2024 has been the year where Canon has finally, grudgingly, let a third party lens makers creep in to their RF mount, though with one huge caveat. There are still (absolutely!) no full frame lenses from third parties allowed, but Canon is opening up the RF/RF-S mount to APS-C lenses. Earlier this year I reviewed a few of the first Sigma lenses to come in an RF mount, and the Tamron 11-20mm F2.8 RXD becomes the first Tamron lens to arrive on the platform. This is great, as it provides another high quality wide angle option for Canon shooters to consider. But is there enough here to bypass the equally interesting Sigma 10-18mm F2.8 DN lens that is also now available on RF? Find out in either my video review or in the text review below.
Thanks to Tamron USA for sending me a loaner of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. All opinions and conclusions are my own.*The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the APS-C mode on my 45MP Canon EOS R5, which I reviewed here.
Tamron loves its initials in their lens names, so let’s sort out that alphabet soup. Di III is their designation for a mirrorless lens design, and, in this case, the addition of -A at the (Di III-A) refers to their development for APS-C mirrorless. RXD refers to the focus motor, and means Rapid eXtra-silent stepping Drive.
As with the Sigma lenses I’ve reviewed before, Canon is explicitly keeping you out of the full frame protocols. I don’t own a Canon APS-C camera, so I’m doing this review on the APS-C mode of my full frame Canon EOS R5. Typically I can evaluate full frame coverage on Sony or Nikon, but here all options but the 1.6x APS-C crop are greyed out. Canon is making SURE you don’t enter that sacred full frame space under any circumstance!
Canon is unique amongst other brands in that their APS-C crop is tighter than other brands. It is 1.6x rather than 1.5x, meaning that the effective focal length of the lens changes a bit in this application. Whereas it will be 16-30mm frame equivalent on 1.5x, it will be 17.6-32mm on Canon. That’s unfortunate with a wide angle lens, as typically your priority will be to have as wide of framing as possible.
The 11-20RF covers a very useful range nonetheless, giving you a variety of framing options at 11, 14, 16, 18, and 20mm (the marked positions on the zoom ring):
The 11-20RF is priced at $659 USD, which is identical to where the Sigma 10-18mm F2.8 DN is priced (my review here) and considerably more expensive than the roughly $300 budget Canon RF-S 10-18mm F4.5-6.3 IS STM lens. It it worth the price premium over the Canon, and should it be considered instead of the Sigma? While this is the third platform that I’ve reviewed this lens on (Sony E and Fuji X previously), so there will be some recycled material in this review. But I will try to specifically address those questions in the RF version of the review.
Build and Handling
The Tamron 11-20mm RXD certainly hits a sweet spot for size and weight for a wide angle zoom. It feels reasonably compact on my frame Canon EOS R5, but I’ve also reviewed it on smaller bodies on Sony, and it worked fine there.. It is 2.9″ (D) x 3.4″ (L), or 73 x 86.2 mm according to the specifications, as even though the Canon RF mount is wider in diameter than the Sony E or Fuji X mounts, this isn’t the widest part of the lens. Like most of Tamron’s mirrorless lenses it has a 67mm front filter thread which allows filters to be shared across almost all of Tamron’s other options for the platform (excluding the much larger 150-500mm, obviously!) The weight is 11.8 oz (335 g), making it the heaviest of the three wide angle zoom options on Canon RF-S. The Sigma is 270g, while the “slow” Canon lens is just 150g.
I call the Canon “slow” because it starts at a rather dim F4.5 at 10mm and quickly arrives at a maximum aperture of an even slower F6.3 later in the zoom range. That’s a huge disadvantage relative to the Tamron and Sigma lenses, that have a constant F2.8 aperture throughout the zoom range. F2.8 lets in twice as much light as F4, which means that at best the Canon will be 1 1/3 stops dimmer and at worst 2 1/3 stops. That means that the Tamron or Sigma lenses will be much, much more useful in low light situations. Canon tries to compensate by including IS (Image Stabilization) in their lens, but that won’t always help as it doesn’t stop movement of subjects, meaning that you would still have to jack up the ISO to freeze action. I would much rather have a faster lens like the Tamron.
While the depth of field is more equivalent to a full frame F4 lens, the F2.8 aperture will always have the light gathering capability of an F2.8 lens (regardless of whether attached to APS-C or Full Frame), meaning that the 11-20mm RXD has the advantage of being able to have more in focus at larger apertures but all the light gathering potential of an F2.8 lens – which can be a big help in low light conditions.
This is a new lens on Canon, but it has been out on Sony since 2021. That means that this lens comes from an older stage of Tamron’s development cycle and design language, but Tamron had made a key update to the RF version in that it has an AF | MF on upper left side of the lens. I appreciate having the AF | MF switch, and that alone makes this perhaps the best version of this lens.
Right now this only allow for firmware updates (no customization as with some lenses), but I like having future options.
The position of the two rings on the 11-20mm is reversed relative to the 17-70mm, which is unfortunate for those who will buy both lenses to use as a kit (I’m assuming the 17-70mm will soon be available on RF too). The closer (and wider) of the two is the zoom ring. The zoom ring has a rubberized, ribbed texture, is easy to find by touch, and moves smoothly through the zoom range without any sticking points. The inner barrel will extend about 2cm at the 11mm position:
The lens will be at its fully retracted position at 20mm.
While many would prefer an internally zooming lens, thus far all of these Tamron zooms have been externally zooming, though they must be doing a fairly good job of sealing the lenses, and I’ve heard little anecdotal reports from buyers about getting dust inside of them. The inner barrel extends smoothly and without any wobble.
The second ring (nearer the front of the lens) is the manual focus ring. This (like all mirrorless lenses) is focus-by-wire, meaning that focus input on the focus ring is routed through the focus motor to move the elements. Manual focus feel is fairly light and without a lot of tactile feedback. Typical manual focus aids are all available, as Tamron lenses on Canon RF function largely like native lenses.
Tamron has included a shallow, petal-shaped lens hood with deep ribs inside that disrupt stray light bouncing around. It’s plastic and lightweight, but the quality of the plastics is apparent by feel. It doesn’t feel as cheap as some hoods that I see. It feels like it could take a few bumps without cracking. Due to the wide-angle nature of the lens, the lens hood is fairly wide, so it doesn’t reverse completely flush along the sides of the lens for storage.
The lens’ housing is a nice grade of engineered plastics with a satin finish. There’s a platinum-colored accept ring right near the lens mount. Nothing fancy on the outside, but the lens “look” is clean and it looks nice mounted on the camera.
As noted, however, the good stuff is inside. There’s a rubber gasket at the lens mount that is the outer evidence of the weather sealing inside, and this is diagram from Tamron shows that there are a total of seven seal points in the lens. This is capped off by a nice fluorine coating on the front element, which not only helps protect it from scratches but also makes it water and fingerprint resistant and thus easier to clean.
Tamron’s recent trends regarding MFD (minimum focus distance) hold true here, as the lens sports two different MFDs for wide (0.15m/5.9″) and telephoto (0.24m/9.4″). Both are pretty close, frankly, with the 11mm position requiring you to be nearly on top of your subject (the length from the sensor to the end of the lens WITHOUT the hood is 12cm, leaving you only 3cm of working room to your subject. If you leave the hood on, that length grows to 14.5cmm, leaving you a few mm of working room. It will be almost impossible to avoid shading your subject with the lens attached, so remove the hood to give you a bit more working room. Even so, I found it almost impossible to properly light my test chart even moving my lights right in, as this is what MFD looks like:
Should you be able to get that close, you get as high as a 0.25x (1:4) magnification figure, which looks like this.
Being able to pull off shots that close in the real world are rarely going to happen, so I consider that 0.25x figure to mostly be marketing. You can still get a reasonable magnification by backing up a bit, though. My preference is just to use the 20mm position or somewhere in between. The telephoto end gives you a better working distance and better results in terms of sharpness, but unfortunately the magnification figure drops to a much more pedestrian 0.13x, though even that figure is better than the Fuji 8-16mm (0.10x) and only slightly lower than the Fuji 10-24mm (0.16x). The magnification at 20mm looks like this:
You’ll note that the 20mm position gives a much flatter focus plane. The telephoto magnification figure is a bit lower, but achieving the result will be much simpler in the field and probably much more satisfying in the process. I find a nice compromise is to shoot somewhere around 16mm, as you can get closer than 20mm, achieve a higher magnification level, but without being right on top of the subject like at 11mm.
As is common with wide angle lenses, Tamron has reduced the number of blades from nine to 7 rounded blades. A lens like this is less about bokeh and more about being able to produce nice sunstars, and the seven bladed aperture produces a cleaner looking sunstar.
Tamron touts the flare resistance of this lens, but it isn’t perfect, as you can see. We’ll dive into that more in the image quality section.
The Tamron 11-20mm RXD is a simple lens in terms of design and features, but at the same time I’ve had no long term issues with Tamron lenses just like this one. They’ve held up fine and get the job done, though I do miss some of missing features.
Stills Autofocus
As noted, the 11-20RF is equipped with Tamron’s Rapid eXtra-silent stepping Drive (RXD), and this will be the first time that I’ve used a native Tamron lens on Canon RF. I wasn’t surprised to find that autofocus worked great, however, delivering fast and accurate results.
Canon’s focus systems are pretty great, and the Tamron works just like a better native lens, with quick, silent focus that is nearly instantaneous in making focus changes.
Eye Detect works fine (as it does almost universally now), though with a wide angle lens like this you have to be pretty close for the eye to occupy a large enough part of the frame to show active tracking. If you are close enough, however, the “stickiness” of the box on the eye is fairly good and will follow the subject around.
Bottom line is that the Tamron 11-20RF works a treat on Canon. All good.
Video Autofocus
That goodness extends to video AF as well. Focus pulls were fantastic, with smooth confidence and no visible steps. Focus breathing is low, making this a very nice lens for pulling focus with.
My “hand test” where I alternately block the view of my face with my hand and then remove went fine overall, though it’s a little hard to block the camera’s view when the angle of view is so wide!
More subtle focus transitions during video capture were generally smooth, and while occasionally focus will stick on a subject when you want it to move, I felt in general that focus worked well. This would be a nice vlogging lens, too. Here’s a still from one of my video clips:
This pairing gives me a lot of hope for Tamron lenses on Canon RF. Focus seems extremely natural and smooth.
Image Quality Breakdown
I’ve reviewed the optics of this lens twice previously, and nothing has changed. This is an optical formula of 12 elements in 10 groups, with 5 of those being exotic elements (molded glass aspherical, hybrid aspherical, and Low Dispersion). Here’s a look at the optical design and MTFs:
If you understand MTF diagrams, you will note that these are very good looking MTFs for a wide angle zoom lens. Tamron does its MTFs wide open, and the surprising thing about the 11mm result is that there is actually a bit of dip in resolution near the mid-frame position with the corner resolving better than the mid-frame area (though contrast is must lower in the corner relative to the mid-frame). The 20mm result shows a more typical slide towards the edge of the frame.
I didn’t find it hard to get results that were sharp across the frame.
Results at 20mm, F2.8 also looked very crisp and detailed.
My vignette and distortion tests showed largely expected results. Here’s a look at 11mm:
Distortion is a constant on all three platforms, with a mildly complex barrel distortion that corrects fairly well with a +9. The standard correction profile will do a slightly better job. Vignette falls in between my results on Sony and Fuji at a +71. Fuji was the worst at a +78, with Sony far better at +46. In my experience lenses tend to perform best in this metric on the platform they were first designed for (Sony, in this case). In both of these metrics, the Tamron easily outperforms the Sigma 10-18mm on RF, as I had to dial in a +23 to correct the barrel distortion and had to max out the vignette slider.
Here’s what things look like at 20mm:
There is a mild amount of pincushion distortion that required a -5 to correct and a bit less vignette, requiring a +54 to correct.
I saw good results with longitudinal chromatic aberrations (LoCA), with very crisp results, good results, and strong contrast even at F2.8:
There is a mild amount of lateral style fringing near the edges of the frame that you can only see at high levels of magnification.
Colors were rich and images looked nice, in my opinion.
Here’s another sample on Canon:
I’ve already tested this lens on the most challenging platform for APS-C, which is Fuji’s 40MP sensor. Canon’s current highest APS-C resolution is the 32.5MP sensor found in several models. Unfortunately I don’t have access to one of those models, so I’m testing on the APS-C mode of my Canon EOS R5. That’s a very undemanding 17MP, so I’ll focus new information in this section on the vignette performance, which will be unique to Canon. Canon results will fall in between my Sony tests (24MP) and more extreme Fuji tests (40MP). If you have a lower resolution camera (24MP), then look at the results in the Sony test here. If you have the higher resolution sensor, you might want to check out the Fuji findings here, though with the understanding that you’ll see better apparent sharpness results on Canon because the pixel density is lower and because it is much easier to sharpen Canon files.
I noted that I would dive into flare resistance a bit more. I felt like flare resistance at larger apertures was actually pretty good. This shot at 20mm, F2.8, doesn’t show any negative impact from shooting right into the bright directional sun.
This F2.8 wide shot shows a bit of ghosting in the trees to the right of sun in the frame, but nothing too bad.
Stopping the lens down introduces a few more prismatic spots, though nothing too destructive.
The performance actually feels better than what I found on Sony. Perhaps coatings have improved a bit. I feel like contrast holds up really well with the sun in the frame.
Coma performance is quite, with night sky images looking clean other than a bit of “star-stretching” in the corners.
I really liked the Sigma 10-18mm on platforms like Sony and Fuji, but I was frankly a little underwhelmed by the lens on Canon, for some reason. I like the Tamron better here, and a lot of that came down to how the colors of the optical glass meshed with Canon’s color science. The Tamron seems like a better fit.
The Tamron 11-20mm F2.8 Di III-A RXD is a welcome addition to the Canon RF platform, as it gives another legitimate wide angle zoom option. It’s an important lens, in that while it isn’t new (on other platforms), it is the first Tamron lens to come to Canon’s RF platform. Here’s the hope that this is the first of many, including (eventually) some full frame options.
Like the Sigma 10-18mm F2.8, the Tamron isn’t cheap, costing twice as much as Canon’s own slower and plasticky RF-S 10-18mm. But it is also the superior optical instrument in build, function, and aperture speed.
Not everyone will want to spend over $600 for this lens, but those that do will find a lens that they will invariably enjoy, providing fast autofocus, good handling, and a very good (and consistent) optical performance. I’d say that it would currently be my choice, and that’s about as good a recommendation as I can give.
Pros:
Finally a Tamron on Canon RF!
Great wide angle zoom range
Maintains F2.8 aperture
Relatively compact and lightweight
Good build with weather sealing
Fast, quiet, and accurate autofocus
Shares a 67mm filter thread with other Tamron lenses on Sony
Exceptional optical performance
Good coma control
Strong aberration control
Cons:
No aperture ring
Corners lag behind the center a fair bit
Relatively expensive compared to the Canon RF-S 10-18mm
Keywords: Tamron, 11-20mm, Tamron 11-20mm Review, Tamron 11-20 RF, RXD, Tamron, 11-20, F2.8, f/2.8, Canon, Canon EOS R5, EOS, R, R5, Review, Canon EOS R6 MK II, Canon EOS R6 II, EOS R6 II Review, RF, mirrorless, Canon EOS R7 Review, Sports, Tracking, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Handling, Focus, Portraits, Resolution, High ISO, Image Quality, Sample Images, Photography, 45MP, 24MP, Canon, #letthelightin, #DA, #EOSR5, #Canon, #withmytamron
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
It’s been a while since I’ve reviewed a Canon RF mount lens. Canon’s closed policy that has limited third party development looks like it will finally be changing at the end of 2023, but to this point it has meant that the only significant lenses for Canon RF mount are from Canon themselves. And I’ll be honest: for me, personally, there haven’t been a lot of home run first party lenses from Canon. Many are either very expensive or have critical flaws…or both. There have been a few exceptional lenses that I either own or would like to own, but if you’re on a tighter budget, the hidden gems have been pretty few and far between. But the Canon RF 28mm F2.8 STM might just be the compact, portable, and affordable prime lens that you’ve been looking for thanks to very good price to performance ratio. You can get my full thoughts by watching the video review below…and just keep reading.
Thanks to Camera Canada for getting me a loaner of the RF 28mm F2.8 STM. If you’re in Canada, check them out for a reliable online retailer. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the 45MP Canon EOS R5, which I reviewed here.
The last budget lens from Canon that I reviewed was the interesting Canon RF 16mm F2.8 STM, a wide angle prime with both big flaws (huge barrel distortion, heavy vignette) but also big strengths (good autofocus, good sharpness and color). Like that lens, the new RF 28mm F2.8 STM comes to market at a price point of $299 USD, which means that only the RF 50mm F1.8 STM currently has a lower price among the full frame offerings from Canon. That makes this an important lens, as there are many people who have to stretch and save to get a new camera, and often there isn’t a lot left over to purchase lenses with. The RF 28mm is going to make sense both for those on a tight budget and also those who value as small and light of lenses as possible. This is a lens that is so short that from certain angles you can’t even see it around the camera grip.
The spiritual predecessor of this lens was actually the EF 28mm F2.8 IS USM lens, a true hidden gem from Canon released a little over ten years ago. Canon released both the EF 24mm and 28mm IS lenses at the same time, and while their maximum apertures didn’t excite anyone, what made them interesting was that they were the first Canon prime lenses with a focal length less than 100mm to receive Image Stabilization (IS). That made them interesting for video work, and while the 28mm was never a popular lens, it was always a highly rated one for its optical performance. That’s still true, as this tiny little lens can produce some stunningly good images.
Fast forward to 2023 and lens IS has become a little less important for the simple reason that the majority of camera released in the past four years include IBIS (In Body Image Stabilization), including the EOS R5 that I’m doing this review on. I will note that Canon has probably released more cameras without in camera stabilization than most other brands during this time, so there are certainly some of you who will notice the lack of image stabilization in the lens.
The other spiritual successor of this lens was also released in 2012, and it was the Canon EF 40mm F2.8 STM. This was Canon’s first “pancake” lens and also their first lens to receive the new-at-the-time STM or stepping motor. It was the beginning of the transition towards hybrid focus systems good for both video and stills that would become the standard on mirrorless cameras in the future. Like that lens, the RF 28mm F2.8 STM is a “pancake” style lens that is only 1″ (24.7mm) in length. It makes the compact 50mm F1.8 STM look hefty by comparison.
I actually really enjoyed the EF 40mm F2.8 STM and used it for several years, but this new RF 28mm lens is definitely superior in a number of ways and I think could definitely become a “hidden gem” for a lot of people. Will you be one of them?
Canon RF 28mm F2.8 STM Build and Handling
The Canon RF mount is a fairly large one in diameter, so most RF lenses don’t feel particularly small because their diameter is fairly big. But the RF 28mm manages to feel very small despite having a relatively huge diameter compared to the length. The lens is only 24.7mm long (under 1″) but is 69.2mm (2.7″) in diameter, giving it a very unusual lens profile.
The lens is extremely lightweight, weighing only 120g (4.2oz). Despite that very small weight, however, the lens doesn’t feel particularly “cheap” or plasticky. This is far remove from the “plastic fantastic” feel of the EF 50mm F1.8 II. The build is probably most similar to the RF 16mm F2.8 STM, which is similar to but just slightly better than the RF 50mm F1.8 STM. We’ve got a metal lens mount that feels sturdy and then engineered plastics for the barrel. A rear view also shows the 12 communication pins that the RF lens mount has which enables Canon to have more flexibility in lens design.
Almost no one does plastic lens mounts like the “cheap” Canon lenses used to have; it feels like build quality in general has been better on Canon’s RF lenses than was standard on similar EF lenses in the past. That’s the the good news.
The bad news is that Canon persists in the pettiest forms of “nickel and diming” with their consumer grade lenses. They never include a lens hood. The EW-55C lens hood will set you back an additional $45 so I suspect that 90% of purchasers will never bother with a lens hood. I didn’t have one on my test unit, but here’s a look at what one will look like should you purchase it.
The lens hood is a metal alloy, which sounds good, except that some have already noted that it adds a fair bit of weight to the package, which kind of defeats the purpose.
As is the case with all non-L Canon lenses, there is no weather sealing of any kind on the lens or any kind of included case or pouch. There are any number of third party brands producing lenses for other platforms that would include weather sealing, a hood, and a case for a similar price. It just feels like stubbornness by Canon at this point.
That rant aside, the RF 28mm follows a very similar design language to most similar RF lenses with several accent rings in a platinum color and the diamond pattern texture of the multi-purpose ring adding some variety to the look of the lens. The outer shell is durable, resistant to marking or scratching. The new Canon RF finish is matte and lightly flocked, making it resistant to finger prints and scratching. My long term experience with other similar lenses is that they hold up well over the long haul and look pretty much the same after years of use. My “old” RF 50mm F1.8 STM looks pretty much as new as the new RF 28mm despite years of use.
One area of improvement that while I could see a visible seam on the barrels of the RF 16mm and 50mm lenses, I don’t spot anything similar here. You’ll note from the photo above that the control switch is actually on a raised area on the lens that adds a few contour lines and more variety to the lens. The switch is mounted transversely to better fit in the narrow space, and I would say that the quality of the movement in the switch feels a little better than those previous budget lenses. M
I also like the way they’ve handled the switch options. Rather than just a choice between “control” and “focus”, they’ve essentially put an AF/MF switch here with a middle option for the control ring. I’ve complained in past reviews of the RF 16mm and 50mm lenses that when you chose “focus” you didn’t actually engage manual focus (you still had to select that in the camera). But this new approach is much better, as you actually have three choices here. The AF selection means that the front control ring will do nothing (which is what some people want at times). The Control option enables the ring to function in whatever capacity you have chosen in camera – an aperture ring, a focus compensation wheel, etc… But selecting MF is where the core improvement is, in that you can directly engage manual focus from the switch and just start manual focusing. My only complaint is that the detent at the “Control” setting isn’t defined enough. It takes a fair bit of force to start movement on either the AF or MF side and it is easy to slip past the Control setting to either the AF or MF position beyond.
I feel like the manual focus action itself is improved over earlier lenses. The damping on the tiny ring is pretty good, and while there is some feeling of inertia with big focus changes (you can tell it is focus by wire and the focus motor is moving things), it is reasonably well masked and I felt like I could fine tune focus with precision. I continue to LOVE Canon’s “focus guide”; it really does give great precision to manual focusing.
The diamond pattern texture on the ring makes for nice grip and feel and there is no feeling of “detents” here, so video shooters might enjoy setting the control to aperture and having a reasonable “declicked” aperture experience.
Up front we have a 55mm filter thread that will be replicated if you use the lens hood.
Clearly the standout about the build is how compact everything is. This could be the lens that really changes how you pack out your camera. I did my review on the fairly large Canon EOS R5, but if you use this on a small camera like an R8, the total weight with camera and lens would only be 581g! Not quite point and shoot territory, but you can see that even on the R5 the overall package is very compact.
The aperture iris is made up of 7 rounded aperture blades which help keep the aperture reasonably circular, though even here at F5.6 you can see that the shape isn’t purely round.
The minimum focus distance is 23cm (9.1″), which is useful in several ways. It’s not so close that you have to be right on top of your subject to get good magnification, but it also delivers a reasonable 0.17x magnification at that distance, which looks like this:
That’s not incredibly high, obviously, but enough to get a reasonably blurred background for some shots.
As noted in the intro, the RF 28mm doesn’t have image stabilization, but that wasn’t a problem on my Canon EOS R5. That might be a problem if you are using one of Canon’s cameras without IBIS, however, so keep that in mind.
While I will continue to beat the drum of complaining about Canon’s rigid policies regarding weather sealing and lens hoods on non-L lenses, I do think the RF 28mm F2.8 STM is a fairly nicely built little lens that handles well for being less than an inch long.
Autofocus and Video Performance
Canon has equipped the RF 28mm F2.8 STM with a “gear type” STM motor. STM is the lower tier of their autofocus motors, with the best lenses getting a linear-style Nano-USM motor. How happy you are with the autofocus performance from the RF 28mm is largely going to depend on your expectations and what you are doing with it.
If you read the marketing language attached the photo above, you might be led to believe that this focus motor is silent in operation. Canon says “exceptionally quiet”. It’s this kind of thing that makes me scratch my head, as Canon seems to be operating in a vacuum where their standard of comparison is to their own older EF mount lenses and not what’s available across the board on other platforms. It is true that compared to lenses equipped with old micro-motors the RF 28mm is exceptionally quiet, but if you compare it to the focus motors from just about every modern lens makers, it doesn’t even rank as particularly quiet; I would place it bottom 30% for quietness. Focus noise is not loud, but there is an audible whirring/scratchy sound as the focus elements move. I can hear it even when holding the camera at waist level. I’m currently also reviewing an autofocus lens from TTArtisan, and they just started producing autofocus lenses this year…but the STM focus motor on that lens is definitely quieter than the Canon…and it retails for only $125. That’s not to dunk on Canon, as all camera companies tend towards hyperbole in their marketing language, but it is fair to say that the focus motor is not particularly quiet by modern standards. Fortunately the modern standard for autofocus motors is very quiet…so this focus motor is a reasonably (but not exceptionally) quiet one.
I had excellent focus accuracy on my EOS R5 across a wide range of subjects and focus distances.
It’s easier to see in the video review, but when I moved the camera around even in stills mode you could instantly see the camera/lens tracking the eye. What’s easy to see here, however, is how precise the focus was in this shot of Nala:
Eye AF accuracy was good (as we expect at this point), but I also found accuracy very good with non-trackable subjects like this autumn leaf against a complex background.
I did my autofocus speed tests indoors and outdoors, and found AF-C/Servo-AF autofocus changes near instant outdoors and just a bit slower indoors. The actual autofocus change is near instant, but there’s a bit of lag before focus begins as the motor develops inertia.
For stills work I think that most everyone will be satisfied with the autofocus performance. It’s fast enough, quiet enough, and definitely accurate enough.
Things get a little more complicated when you turn to the video side of things, however.
When doing my autofocus pulls test for video I found the lag before focus changes far more pronounced. It feels like Canon has “detuned” the focus speed to allow for smoother focus transitions, and, while I don’t see any visible steps, what I do see is a fairly lengthy pause while inertia builds before the focus change. This is further highlighted by a fairly heavy focus breathing, which really draws your attention to the moment when focus changes.
That caused some issues with my hand test, as the lens is not at all responsive to sudden changes, so I either reveal or conceal my face with my hand before the lens, and, initially, it would be as if nothing had changed, and only after that pause would focus slide to either my face or my hand. That delay actually caused me to have to reshoot the test multiple times and hold the transitions longer, as at first I wasn’t even sure that autofocus was engaged.
Things work best when the autofocus has the ability to gradually move in a linear direction, as if when moving slowly towards a subject. It’s when the lens has to make a significant focus change that the transition is jarring.
For video I would primarily use this lens either for static shots or shots with small, gradual focus changes. Any big focus changes are going to show a lot of focus breathing.
In summation: I like the autofocus accuracy for stills, and the focus speed and quietness are largely fine. The minor flaws for autofocus during photos are magnified during video capture, however, so I wouldn’t call this a great video option.
Canon RF 28mm F2.8 STM Image Quality
The Canon RF 28mm F2.8 STM has an optical design of 8 elements in 6 groups (that’s a lot of glass packed into that small of a lens!) That includes what seems to be a protective layer of glass deep in the lens mount. There are three aspheric elements in the optical design, and that adds up to a lens with a surprisingly strong MTF chart (particularly for a pancake lens!)
The MTF suggest a sharp center, an even sharper mid frame, and with sharpness and contrast only dropping at the very edge of the frame. Real world results look great, to my eye, with excellent detail and contrast. Look at how much detail is in this shot of drying autumn weeds.
That’s very impressive (and on a 45MP body!). I didn’t have a Canon APS-C body on hand, but that particular sharpness profile (MTF) speaks of a lens that will translate to APS-C extremely well, as that bit of drop-off at the edge of the frame will be cropped off. Canon’s APS-C crop will make this lens behave like a 45mm lens…a focal length I personally love. Here’s a few shots taken on the APS-C mode of my EOS-R5 – they definitely look very sharp.
We’ll work through the chart results by first looking at distortion and vignette. Canon has definitely taken to really relying on a software layer to correct for these issues on many of their recent lenses, and that’s definitely the case here.
The RF 16mm F2.8 was one of the worst offenders in this area that I’ve ever seen, but fortunately the less extreme nature of the focal length makes for a milder amount of distortion. I used a +21 to straighten the lines in the middle, but you can see that the distortion pattern isn’t completely linear, so that left a bit of a flaring out in the corners. The standard correction profile does a cleaner job with those lines, though I do see a bit of unevenness in those lines.
Good enough for most applications, though. The vignette is another story, however, requiring me to max out the sliders to fully eliminate the vignette at F2.8 (a +100 correction).
What you see in the viewfinder is the corrected look (like the image above), so that’s what I thought I was framing, though the unedited RAW file first shown (left side) shows that Canon leaves plenty of room for correction. I actually had a little more usable image when doing a manual correction, though that’s less of a factor with a 28mm lens as opposed to an ultra wide where you want as much width as possible.
How about chromatic aberrations?
My tests showed little longitudinal chromatic aberrations before and after the plane of focus. You can see a bit of green fringing after the plane of focus here, though the foreground is very neutral.
I also see little fringing on any of the shiny surfaces of this old SLR in this image. My experience says that this kind of image can be disastrous for lenses that suffer with fringing.
Lateral Chromatic Aberrations usually show up along the edges of the frame as fringing on either side of high contrast areas. If I turn corrections off, I do see a little bit of fringing at 100% viewing, but there isn’t anything to see if I turn corrections back on.
The RF 28mm doesn’t quite escape this section unscathed, but neither is there anything fatal here. All pancake lenses require some compromises to achieve their small size, but I would say that Canon has done an effective job of mitigating those issues.
So how about resolution and contrast? All chart tests done with a Canon EOS R5 (45MP) using a tripod and a two second timer. Here’s a look at my test chart:
And here are the crops (at roughly 180% magnification) from the center, mid-frame, and extreme corner shot at F2.8:
This shows just want the MTF charts suggest. This is a very sharp lens, with excellent sharpness across the frame. Even the corners look quite good.
This is really important when you have a maximum aperture of just F2.8 in a prime lens, as it means that can shoot wide open and get excellent sharpness. You can use smaller apertures as a tool to increase depth of field, not to have to get sufficient sharpness. F2.8 delivers plenty of sharpness even when composed close to the edge.
That helps with low light performance as you can shoot with the aperture wide open. I brought ISO up to 1600 for this low light photo (with only a 1/25th shutter speed), but you can see the image still looks great.
Sharpness further improves at F4 with contrast visibly improving in the center:
…and into the corners:
Stopping on down to F5.6 gives just a little more sparkle everywhere:
That means that real world images at smaller apertures just look fantastic, with great contrast and detail everywhere.
Obviously a little prime lens like this doesn’t have the flexibility or features of Canon’s expensive RF 24-70mm F2.8L IS, but it is delivering similar image quality…at least at 28mm.
Sharpness peaks at F5.6, and is only a tiny bit worse at F8 due to diffraction, but by F22 the image will be very softened due to diffraction.
The bokeh quality from the RF 28mm is also fairly good. F2.8 is not a huge maximum aperture, so backgrounds will rarely turn into that magical “cream” that extremely large aperture lenses can create. When used up close, however, the bokeh looks pretty good.
Step back a bit and choose a more challenging scene, and the bokeh can get a little busy.
This image falls somewhere in between, as there is more edges on some of the out-of-focus textures than what I would like, but there is still some nice subject separation and the image looks pleasing.
But I’m reminded this is a pancake lens, and for such a small optic, this is a pretty nice end result.
I also noted that the RF 28mm handled bright specular highlights pretty well. There was no issue with “onion-bokeh” or similar issues.
Canon and Fuji are my favorites for color rendition, and I was reminded when processing images from the RF 28mm and my EOS R5 how much I do enjoy Canon’s color science.
Here’s another image that shows up that nice balance of saturation without lending to garishness.
Flare resistance is not a particular strength for this little lens. When I worked with bright, directional sunlight I saw a lot of different flare artifacts, including blobs of color, loss of contrast, and prismatic blooming. I also didn’t find that I could produce a particularly well defined sunstar.
Hmmm, it would be nice to have a lens hood included, no?
I’ve used or reviewed half a dozen pancake lenses at this point, but none of them deliver quite this level of optical performance. This is a very strong little lens optically, and I would argue that its optics are as good as any non-L lens in Canon’s currently lineup. You can see many more beautiful images by visiting the image gallery here.
Conclusion
It’s been a while since I’ve been excited by a new non-L Canon lens, but I really like the Canon RF 28mm F2.8 STM. It’s far from a flawless lens, but it is a surprisingly complete one for a pancake lens. This is a lens that doesn’t take up much more room than a front cap for your camera, and yet can produce any number of stunning images.
Pancake lenses are fun because they give you a completely different perspective on your larger cameras. They are discrete and “cute” in a way normal lenses are not. Not everyone loves the 28mm focal length, but I dare you to try out this particular lens and focal length and discover just how useful it can be.
This is also a great option for those shooting with an RF mount APS-C camera, as at the time of this review there are still very few RF-S lenses…and nothing like this. This lens actually reminds me of the EF-M 22mm F2, a lens that I got a lot of joy out of during my time with the Canon M system. I used that lens a lot while vacationing and was just so impressed by the quality of images I could get out of that lightweight combination. I can get even better images with this lens on the superior Canon EOS R5 sensor, and the RF 28mm F2.8 is easily sharp enough to handle that high resolution point. There haven’t been many lenses on Canon RF to date that quality as a bargain, but this just might be one. At $299 USD, it’s not incredibly cheap, but it is a lot of lens (at least in one sense) for the money!
Keywords: Canon RF 28mm F2.8, Canon RF 28mm F2.8 STM, Canon RF 28mm Review, Review, STM, F2.8, RF, F/2.8, Canon RF 28 Review, Canon EOS R5, EOS, R5, EOS R5, Canon EOS R6, EOS R6 Review, mirrorless, full frame, EOS R5 Review, Canon R5 Review, Canon EOS R5 Review, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Handling, Focus, Portraits, Resolution, High ISO, Image Quality, Sample Images, Photography, 45Mpx, 45MP, Canon, letthelightin
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
28mm is often the forgotten focal length in modern photography. During the film era 28mm lenses were extremely popular, but the focal length has grown less popular in modern photography. There are near 10 autofocusing 35mm options in Sony E-mount, but only two 28mm options, neither of which was released in the past 4-5 years. The 28mm lenses that I’ve reviewed have tended to be fairly exceptional, however, including the extremely high end Zeiss Otus 28mm F1.4 (my review here) and the excellent Sigma 28mm F1.4 ART (my review here). The Sigma was actually one of the best of the ART series for DSLRs even though its sales were probably mediocre. Laowa has decided that it is time for a new 28mm option, however, so they are bringing a large aperture 28mm option to full frame mirrorless cameras with mount options for Canon RF (reviewed here), Sony E mount, Nikon Z mount, and Leica L mount. The Laowa 28mm F1.2 is part of their premium Argus lineup and joins the 35mm F0.95 (which I reviewed here) and the 45mm F0.95 as the full frame options in the series to date. The Argus 28mm (as we’ll call it for brevity) has a slightly smaller maximum aperture than those two lenses, though F1.2 is still very large in a full frame lens.
A large aperture prime lens like this is going to excel in light gathering, and Laowa has managed to deliver a lens that is also compact and discreet, which makes me think that street photography could be a top application for a lens like this.
The “old school” focal length combines with an vintage aesthetic on the Argus 28mm to produce a lens that will probably have a niche market but could prove a cult favorite, too. As always, I admire Laowa’s willingness to take some risks and be daring in their optical design. The challenge for Laowa is going to be whether they’ve managed to produce a lens with some practical value to potential customers, or simply a novelty. I’ll do my best to help you make that determination for yourself in this review. You can watch either my video review…or just keep reading!
Thanks to Laowa for getting me a prerelease loaner of the lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. *The tests and the photos shown in this review have been taken on a 45 MP Canon EOS R5.
Argus 28mm Build, Handling, and Features
Laowa has managed to produce a lens significantly smaller than the 35mm F0.95 I reviewed in fall of 2021. That lens was 76.8mm in diameter and 103mm in length and weighed in at 755g. The new Argus 28mm is positively svelte by comparison at only 68.5mm in diameter (2.69″) and 106.3mm in length (4.18″). It weighs 562g (19.8 oz) and has a very small 62mm front filter thread. The weight is moderate despite the high standard of build that Laowa uses. Everything is metal and glass, giving the lens a reassuring heft to it.
I’ve compared Laowa lenses to classic Zeiss lenses in construction, and that’s never been more apt than on this more premium Argus lens. Everything is beautifully made, up to and including the shallow metal lens hood that bayonets on the front. That hood is similar to what I saw on the APS-C specific Arguas 25mm F0.95 (my review here) for better or worse. The hood has a squared, anamorphic-look design. I’m not quite sure what the logic is here, as for strictly photography this isn’t necessarily a positive development. It means that the lens hood will have to removed to use filters on the lens. By necessity the lens cap also has a unique design where it clips onto the sides of the lens hood. The leather-patterned texture on the front of the lens hood and the shape of the lens hood itself gives this lens a bit of a retro vibe to it. You’ll either love or hate it, I suspect.
The focus ring is made of ribbed metal and is perfectly damped, moving smoothly and precisely along its roughly 125° of rotation. This lens has a rather poor minimum focus distance of just 50cm (1.7 feet), and that eliminates a lot of close focus abilities. That results in a shorter focus throw than what I saw on the 35mm Argus.
It also results in one of the poorest maximum magnification figures I’ve ever seen on a lens. The maximum magnification is just 0.073x, which is less than half of the 0.18x I saw when testing the Sigma 28mm. Here’s what the Argus 28mm’s magnification looks like:
That’s unfortunate, as I personally will almost never use a lens with a very low magnification figure because it really creatively limits what I can do with the lens.
This is an all manual lens without any electronics, which does mean that both focus and aperture must be controlled manually. The aperture ring also moves smoothly, and you have the choice of using it “clicked” or “declicked”. There is a switch on the left side of the barrel that allows you to choose between the two. When “clicked”, you will feel light detents at the major aperture stops (F1.2, F1.4, F2, F2.8, etc…) This is the typical arrangement for photographers. In the “declicked” mode the aperture will smoothly move throughout its whole range without any stops. This allows for videographers to do aperture “racking” and is typically the preferred approach for videography.
In either case, the aperture is pretty awesome. It sports a high count of 13 blades, and does an excellent job of staying circular in shape as it is stopped down. It’s a treat to watch those blades open and close as you slide that aperture ring.
The low magnification figure means that you’ll rarely get a strong blur to backgrounds. The quality of the background blur is just okay as a byproduct.
As a fully manual lens, there are no switches or controls other than the rings and the aperture click control. The lens does have nicely etched distance markings along with a hyperfocal guide.
There isn’t anything like weather sealing, image stabilization, or any kind of electronics built into the lens. If you’re not familiar with how lenses like this work, they do function largely as normal save you have to control focus and aperture. The camera will still meter properly and takes photos as normal, though you will have to turn ON a setting in the camera to release the shutter without a lens attached. This seems counterintuitive, since a lens IS attached, but since there are no electronics, the camera doesn’t know a lens is there. What isn’t as normal, however, is that no electronic information is submitted to the camera, so the camera won’t know the focal length or lens designation nor the selected aperture for the shot. There will be no automatic distortion or vignette correction; this will all have to be dealt with in post. The EXIF data only contains what the camera provides, like ISO and shutter speed. If you have a camera with IBIS (in body image stabilization) you will have to manually set the focal length on the lens, but then the image stabilization will work normally.
The Argus 28mm feels dense and well made (Laowa can be proud of the build quality), though as always I would like to see some further progression by Laowa on both the electronics side along with some weather sealing on these premium lenses. The Laowa 28mm F1.2 Argus is aggressively priced at $599 USD, which is very reasonable for a premium manual focus lens with a large maximum aperture.
Laowa Argus 28mm F1.2 Optical Performance
This is the widest aperture I’ve ever seen at this focal length on a full frame lens. Once again Laowa has dared to push the design envelope with the F1.2 aperture on the Argus 28mm. That brings a certain amount of risk with it, however, particularly when you also work to make a small and light lens. The optical formula is 13 elements in 7 groups. A quick look at the MTF shows
Optical shortcomings are going to be easily seen on high resolution cameras like me EOS R5 (45MP). The Argus 28mm showed some fairly typical Laowa optical flaws along with some of the Laowa strengths (this is the 15th Laowa review I’ve done, so I’m pretty familiar with their optical designs). One of each shows up in our distortion and vignette test:
Vignette is one of those Laowa weaknesses, and it is very evident here. I had to max out the vignette correction slider to achieve the result on the right above. A typical Laowa strength is low distortion, and that’s true here. I played with correcting the tiny amount of distortion and decided my best result came with just leaving it alone. There’s not enough worth correcting. The vignette is a different story, however, though, even at smaller apertures. I had to max out the sliders to eliminate the vignette at F1.2, and that was barely enough. I did this review in late February, which means a lot of snow around here, and snow really punishes vignette. You can see how dark the corners are in this wide open, uncorrected image.
This shot of a decoration on the wall to check out the bokeh shows off just how dark the corners are.
Even at smaller landscape apertures I could still see some vignette effects:
Like many Zeiss lenses, this can be part of the overall look of the images, however. A feature rather than a bug, so to speak. In some images the heavy vignette really draws your eye towards the center of the frame, though this obviously works best with a center composition. It works for this shot of a decoration in our home, for example.
Heavy vignette is one of the expected optical weaknesses of a large aperture lens, and it is on full display here. I would prefer to add that vignette rather if desired rather than to correct it on every shot, though, particularly with a lens like this that won’t receive any automatic corrections in camera.
How about chromatic aberrations? I felt like they were actually fairly well controlled for a wide aperture lens like this. The “Home” sign” in the photo above shows no fringing along the white edges in the transition to defocus, and you can also see only minimal green/blue fringing around the bokeh highlights on the wall decoration. I pumped light up through my “glass camera” and put a lot of windows behind it, and I didn’t really see any fringing on the glass or metal of the camera or in the edges of the windows beyond.
I find fringing around windows to be really jarring, personally, so I’m happy to see that well controlled here.
I saw a bit of Lateral CA (LaCA) in the transitions from black to white on the edges of the frame on my test chart, though nothing extreme. What little bit is there is easily corrected with the one-click “Remove Chromatic Aberrations” button in editing software.
What I did see, however, was some surface or spherical aberrations that have the primary effect of reducing contrast at large apertures. This is very common for ultra-wide aperture lenses, and will be pretty obvious on our sharpness and contrast chart tests. Here’s a look at that chart for reference:
If we look at crops at F1.2 from across the frame at about 170% magnification, we see the kind good center sharpness (though with only average contrast), slightly softer mid-frame performance, and much softer corners.
A real world F1.2 shot shows that the lens is very usable even at F1.2, as corner sharpness is rarely going to be necessary at F1.2.
I thought this night shot of our city hall building at F1.2 really looked pretty good, though at a pixel level there is a little bit of haze on the textures.
Stopping down from F1.2 to F1.4 produced little change. The lens metered the same for my chart test, though the histograph did shift a little bit to the right at F1.4. I saw a tiny bit more contrast in the center of the frame, but little other change. One real world quirk I did notice is that the images at wide open ended up being cooler in white balance and color tone, and then stopping down warmed things up a bit. It’s a quirk I’ve seen before with some wide aperture lenses.
Stopping down to F2 produces a much bigger different, with contrast really jumping in the center and midframe, though the outer midframe and edge performance remains fairly soft.
By landscape apertures (F5.6-8), the lens is sharp across the frame, with the edge performance being MUCH improved. This lens delivers a lot of detail at smaller apertures.
Returning to City Hall during the day and shooting at F5.6 shows a nicely detailed image all across the frame, though you can also see that the (uncorrected) vignette here remains an issue.
As expected, this proved a nice little lens for street. It was discrete, had low distortion, and I felt city scenes suited the Laowa color palette better than landscapes.
The focal length is a nice flexible one for an application where you “zoom with your feet”, allowing me to get broader scenes:
…but also to get closer to store fronts and shoot shallow depth of field shots.
Laowa colors are often not highly saturated. They are a bit muted out of camera, though one can always process to taste:
This will work fine for those that like to edit to a certain “look” anyway (particularly a lower contrast look), as I find the images naturally take to presets like Lightroom/ACR’s “Warm Contrast” creative look:
The biggest creative challenge for me is as mentioned previously – the very poor minimum focus distance and magnification. I love to use large aperture lenses for creating very shallow depth of field shots and allowing a subject to pop out against a strongly blurred background. That’s hard to do with the Argus 28mm. This attempt to get something creative with a guitar left me a little frustrated.
The Argus 35mm F0.95 was not optimized for close-up work (not a priority), and the same is true here. The Argus 28mm definitely has lower contrast at close focus distances. Take for example this shot:
If I focused on the edge of the front decoration (lantern case), contrast was lower than if I focused roughly one foot further and focused on the edge of the second decoration there.
This F1.4 shot at a longer distance shows better contrast than close distance shots.
There’s one final area of weakness to cover, however, and that is that (unsurprisingly), the lens is a bit flare-prone. The lens hood is very shallow, and that’s a LOT of glass for the sun to be hitting and bouncing around in. I found that the severity of the flare effects depended a lot on how I composed the shot, but, at its worst, I saw a lot of veiling (loss of contrast) and some ghosting artifacts (blobs of color):
The flare was more pronounced at wide apertures and the lens performed better at smaller apertures, so landscape type photography is going to be relatively unaffected.
I had a chance to test the coma of the lens with a night-time astro shoot, and found that there is definitely some coma at the edges of the frame (what looks like a flock of birds or maybe flying angels is actually stars distorted by coma!). That, along with the heavy vignette, make this a less than ideal option for astrophotography despite the very bright aperture.
Overall, the Laowa 28mm F1.2 Argus is about what I expected – optically nuanced. This is not a highly corrected lens without any optical flaws, but the byproduct is that it is also a lens with a lot of character…the kind of character that certain photographers will love because it feels vintage and analog rather than modern and clinical. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I hope this section has helped you determine your own feelings about the optical performance of the lens. Feel free to check out more images by visiting the image gallery here.
Conclusion
Like the Laowa 35mm F0.95 Argus, the Laowa 28mm F1.2 Argus is not a lens for everyone. That’s true of any manual everything lens, but the unique (by modern standards) focal length will also contribute to that. But there also really isn’t a huge variety of native mount lenses available for Canon RF and Nikon Z (Sony FE is well covered at this point), and this is a unique focal length/aperture combination. There are plenty of 24mm and 35mm options, but very few 28mm lenses. This is a lens designed for a certain kind of photographer. That photographer tends to be creative and deliberate, one who treasures unique rendering over technical perfection and who isn’t afraid to move a little slower in the capture process in order to get the right shot.
I actually enjoy the 28mm focal length, so I do appreciate the creative options that the Argus 28mm brings even despite some of its technical imperfections. I hear anecdotal feedback every day from photographers who just don’t enjoy the technically perfect, over-corrected aesthetic of many modern lenses, so to them the Argus 28mm might be a breath of fresh air.
But I do have some serious complaints about this lens. The low magnification level really robs me of potential creativity with it, and the heavy vignette and tendency towards flare artifacts at wide apertures is also limiting. The price point of right under $600 USD is quite reasonable for this type of lens, however, and that might draw in some potential buyers that passed on the 50% more expensive 30mm F0.95 Argus. If you want a discrete wide aperture 28mm lens, there really isn’t any competition for this lens…for now!
Pros:
Gorgeous build quality and design
Metal everything
Fantastic focus ring – buttery smooth
Choice of either clicked or declicked aperture
Huge maximum aperture
Some vintage charm and quirks in rendering
Low distortion
Reasonable price
Cons:
Fairly low contrast and resolution at large apertures except center of frame
Low magnification and poor performance up close
Somewhat flare prone
Very heavy vignette that lingers even at smaller apertures
Receive a 5% discount on all purchases at Amplis Foto, Canada’s Leading Photographic Supplier. Please enter discount code: AMPLIS52018DA in your cart. It is good for everything in your cart, and is stackable with other coupons, too! It will take 5% off your entire order! Proceeds go towards keeping this site going and providing you with new reviews!
Keywords: laowa 28mm, laowa 28mm F1.2, laowa 28mm F1.2, laowa 28argus, argus, 28mm, F1.2, F/1.2, laowa, laowa 28mm F1.2 review, laowa 28mm argus review, Review, Dustin Abbott, Portrait, Canon EOS R5, R5, R6, EOS R, Sony a7RIV, Sony Alpha 1, Sharpness, Resolution, Bokeh, Video Test, Sample Images, Real World
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
28mm is often the forgotten focal length in modern photography. During the film era 28mm lenses were extremely popular, but the focal length has grown less popular in modern photography. There are near 10 autofocusing 35mm options in Sony E-mount, but only two 28mm options, neither of which was released in the past 4-5 years. The 28mm lenses that I’ve reviewed have tended to be fairly exceptional, however, including the extremely high end Zeiss Otus 28mm F1.4 (my review here) and the excellent Sigma 28mm F1.4 ART (my review here). The Sigma was actually one of the best of the ART series for DSLRs even though its sales were probably mediocre. Laowa has decided that it is time for a new 28mm option, however, so they are bringing a large aperture 28mm option to full frame mirrorless cameras with mount options for Canon RF (reviewed here), Sony E mount, Nikon Z mount, and Leica L mount. The Laowa 28mm F1.2 is part of their premium Argus lineup and joins the 35mm F0.95 (which I reviewed here) and the 45mm F0.95 as the full frame options in the series to date. The Argus 28mm F1.2 has a slightly smaller maximum aperture than those two lenses, though F1.2 is still very large in a full frame lens.
A large aperture prime lens like this is going to excel in light gathering, and Laowa has managed to deliver a lens that is also compact and discreet, which makes me think that street photography could be a top application for a lens like this.
The “old school” focal length combines with an vintage aesthetic on the Argus 28mm to produce a lens that will probably have a niche market but could prove a cult favorite, too. As always, I admire Laowa’s willingness to take some risks and be daring in their optical design. The challenge for Laowa is going to be whether they’ve managed to produce a lens with some practical value to potential customers, or simply a novelty. I’ll do my best to help you make that determination for yourself in this review. You can watch my video review or read the text review…or just enjoy the photos below.
Thanks to Laowa for getting me a prerelease loaner of the lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. *The tests and the photos shown in this review have been taken on a 45 MP Canon EOS R5.
Receive a 5% discount on all purchases at Amplis Foto, Canada’s Leading Photographic Supplier. Please enter discount code: AMPLIS52018DA in your cart. It is good for everything in your cart, and is stackable with other coupons, too! It will take 5% off your entire order! Proceeds go towards keeping this site going and providing you with new reviews!
Keywords: laowa 28mm, laowa 28mm F1.2, laowa 28mm F1.2, laowa 28argus, argus, 28mm, F1.2, F/1.2, laowa, laowa 28mm F1.2 review, laowa 28mm argus review, Review, Dustin Abbott, Portrait, Canon EOS R5, R5, R6, EOS R, Sony a7RIV, Sony Alpha 1, Sharpness, Resolution, Bokeh, Video Test, Sample Images, Real World
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
One of my absolute favorite lenses in the Canon EF mount was the Canon EF 35mm F2 IS. I loved the form factor, the image quality, the great autofocus, and the very helpful Image Stabilization. It featured a nice magnification level of 0.24x, too, allowing for fun close up shots. This was the lens that I was reminded of when I pulled the new Canon RF 24mm F1.8 Macro IS STM lens out of the box. It has a very similar form factor. Of course, the RF24M (as I’ll call it for brevity in this review) is also highly similar to the Canon RF 35mm F1.8 Macro IS STM that I reviewed in 2019. Canon is slowly but surely starting to build out their lens catalog of decent lenses that aren’t $1500-3000 in price, and the RF24M at a price point of $599 USD joins the recent RF 16mm F2.8 (my review here), the aforementioned 35mm F1.8 Macro, and the RF 85mm F2 Macro IS (my review here) as lenses that that help fill that space.
The 24mm, 35mm, and 85mm lenses mentioned here all carry the designation of “macro”, but these aren’t 1:1 macro lens. They are 1:2 macro lenses, which means that they can only deliver one-half life size magnification, or 0.50x. That remains extremely useful, of course, but there are some limitations. Perhaps the greatest limitation is the fact they all of these lenses rely on extremely close focus to achieve their magnification, and that’s most extreme on the RF24M. Minimum focus distance is just 14cm (5.5”), but the problem is that the lens takes up 9 of those centimeters, and the inner barrel extends an additional centimeter at close focus distances. That leaves just 4 cm (about 1.57”) left between the lens and the subject, which means that it is very difficult to NOT shade your subject with the camera/lens, and you definitely will be scaring off any live critter you might have wanted to get a close focus shot of. Macro(ish) work is going to be better served by choosing subjects that won’t get scared off by close proximity to the camera…and that you have a means of getting some light on.
Fortunately Nala is not at all scared of the camera, and while this isn’t a macro shot, per se, it is probably my favorite photo I got with the lens during my review.
I was actually trying to get this shot of an old, rusty lock, but the curiosity of a kitten means that I cannot do any photography on the floor without interference. This gives you a little better sense of what you can achieve with close focus.
I’ve got some consistent gripes with Canon’s design and packaging philosophy with it’s non-L-series lenses, but I’m extremely happy nonetheless to see mid-level lenses like the RF24M come available. The R system needs a strong compliment of affordable lenses that aren’t just bargain optics but actually competent, and the RF 24mm F1.8 Macro IS seems to fill that role. I continue to disagree with Canon’s decision to close their platform (for now, at least) to third party lens development, but it is that in large part which makes lenses like this one so important.
Canon’s engineers have shown that they are capable of producing very sharp wide angle lenses in recent years, though at the cost of certain other optical flaws – namely vignette and distortion. That very much remains true here, but the RF24M is also a very flexible tool that can create some great images. Many people love the RF 35mm F1.8 Macro IS, and the new 24mm gives a similar lens with a different focal length that some prefer. If that happens to be you, you can read this text review or watch my video review to help decide if the RF 24mm F1.8 Macro IS STM should be the next lens for you.
Thanks to Camera Canada for getting me a loaner of the RF 24mm F1.8 Macro IS. If you’re in Canada, check them out for a reliable online retailer. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the 45MP Canon EOS R5, which I reviewed here.
Canon RF 24mm F1.8 Macro IS STM Build and Handling
The RF24M is, in concept, the kind of lens that I love. It is reasonably compact at only 2.9″ (74.4mm) in diameter and 2.5″ (63.1mm) in length and weighs in at a diminutive 9.5oz (270g). It is nearly identical in size to the RF 35mm f1.8. They both share a common 52mm front filter thread as well. The lens profile is that squat prime look that frankly looks really good on the camera.
The combination of a 24mm focal length (a preferred walk-around focal length of many) along with the extremely close focus abilities of the RF24M make it an extremely versatile option, and the compact size and light weight make it an easy lens to pack along.
While Canon has moved to including IBIS (In Body Image Stabilization) in almost all of their newer cameras they also continue to value in-lens stabilization (IS). The IS in the lens is rated for 5 stops but works in conjunction with IBIS (if your camera is so-equipped) and Canon rates the combined stabilization of up to 6.5 stops of correction. Tack sharp results at shutter speeds like the 1/10th or 1/15th of a second are effortless, as shown here:
You can go even slower, obviously, but it’s rare situations where I feel the need for extremely low shutter speeds handheld. In this case, however, it allowed me to stay at ISO 3200 for this shot rather than jacking up the ISO to noisier values.
The RF24M has Canon’s typical consumer-grade build quality. It feels better than the budget EF 50mm F1.8 STM but not at the level of most recent third party lenses from Tamron and Sigma on other platforms.. The RF24M unfortunately highlights the fact that Canon seems intent on persisting in one of their more foolish trends – not including weather sealing or a lens hood on non-L series lenses. This policy seems even more archaic when one considers that essentially all the competition at any price includes a lens hood, and I’ve also noted that weather sealing of some kind is now included on more lenses than not. Canon’s policy was fine back in the day when third party alternatives were budget options that were typically rough around the edges, but in the modern market, many third-party lenses are extremely competent and are often more polished than first party alternatives. I think Canon is doing itself a disservice here, as in many cases people will not purchase a separate lens hood (the EW-65B costs an additional $50) and thus never get the basic benefit of a lens hood (added flare resistance and protection of the lens). Vello makes an inexpensive alternative hood for about $15.
The body design of the RF24M is engineered plastics around a metal lens mount. It has a matte finish that is similar to other recent Canon lenses and also has the additional stylish platinum accent area that matches where the lens mounts to the camera body.
There are two switches (On/Off for the IS and AF/MF) on the side of the barrel. They are low profile (no inadvertent bumping) and move precisely. There is also a manual focus ring located in the center of the lens. This being a mirrorless lens with an STM focus motor, there is not direct mechanical coupling to the lens elements, so manual input on the focus ring is routed through the focus motor (focus-by-wire). As per usual, there are limitations to this approach, including less tactile response and no hard stops in either direction. On a positive note, the camera body will show an electronic distance scale on either the viewfinder or the LCD when input is detected, so this helps.
The RF standard control ring is located near the front of the lens and can be programmed in camera to a variety of different functions. A couple practical ones to me include Aperture (you can use it essentially like an aperture ring) and (my current choice) Exposure Compensation. The control ring has a different texture to it than the manual focus ring to help distinguish between the two.
There are nine rounded aperture blades in the aperture iris, and this does a fairly good job of keeping a circular shape as the lens is stopped down. Here’s a look at the bokeh geometry at F1.8, F2, and F2.8.
Even at F2.8 you can see very little of the aperture blade shape.
As noted, The RF24M is not entirely an internally focusing lens, though most all of the barrel extension comes in the “macro” range. You will probably want to enable the “Retract Lens on Power Off” setting to make sure that the inner barrel is not extended during storage. It feels like that could be a point of vulnerability.
In many ways the build quality of the RF24M is fine. I suspect the lens will be durable and it handles nicely. I like the form factor. What I don’t love is that Canon continues to expect the market to be fine with them offering less for the $600 USD price tag. No weather sealing, no lens hood, no case or pouch. I know that they are capable of better!
Autofocus and Video Performance
Canon has given the RF 24mm F1.8 a Lead-Screw-type STM motor, which is the more robust version of STM that Canon employs. The Lead-Screw STM are typically faster and quieter than the cheaper Gear-Type STM motors, and, while I don’t like either as well as Canon’s Nano-USM lenses, the autofocus performance of this type of STM motor is clearly better than the cheaper version.
For many applications, the speed and quietness is just fine. I noticed little focus noise during normal operations. Eye AF works very accurately and makes this an appealing option for vlogging and moving with the camera an arm’s length away. I found that even just handholding the camera and lens (EOS R5) made for a fairly stable and natural environment for moving around in. I saw good accuracy with both human and animal subjects.
Most focus changes for stills happen quickly and without much drama. The lens is not completely silent in focus, but sound is minimal. And, most importantly, I saw very good focus accuracy.
I shot in several different low light situations with the lens and found that focus continued to be confident, though there could be a little more hunting if it didn’t find a good contrast edge. This shot has the added benefit of being only 1/4th second shutter speed, which shows off the solid IS performance as well.
Things are a little less rosy for video. Video focus pulls are mostly smooth, but they are certainly not fast. Even when doing the test when I put my hand in front of the camera and allowing focus to then snap back to my eye there were was some delay before focus began to move to the desired spot. I didn’t notice a significant amount of focus breathing, though there is a bit.
The focus system is not the peak of sophistication (there’s more noise and less torque than the best modern focus systems), but in general focus was accurate along with being fairly smooth and quiet. I have no major complaints here.
Canon RF24M Image Quality
I was unable to find an MTF chart for the RF 24m F1.8 Macro IS STM, but I will obviously share my own findings. In general I felt like the results from the lens were quite good, but there is some unfortunately familiar Canon optical flaws.
The worst of these is going to be found when we look at the vignette and distortion results.
Canon has become completely dependent on electronic correction in too many of their lenses – even some L-series lenses. It’s not unusual (as it is here) to find that you have framed something like my chart in the viewfinder and then find that the RAW image is actually considerably wider than what I saw in the viewfinder or on the LCD. There is a strong amount of barrel distortion without the correction.
I had to dial in a fairly massive about of correction here (a +33) to correct the distortion and nearly maxed out the slider to correct for the vignette. What’s unusual for a lens with so much distortion, however, is that the nature of the distortion is very linear. I was able to achieve a nearly perfect manual correction, which was a pleasant surprise. Also interesting is that the fully corrected image is still considerably wider than the profile corrected image. I just did a “constrain crop” that removes the distorted portion of the image left after correction, and got a file output of 7536 x 5026 (about 37MP):
If I crop to the same dimensions as the JPEG image (what I saw in the viewfinder) I end up with dimensions of 6978 x 4657 (about 32.5MP).
What’s interesting is that the RAW image that receives the profile correction outputs at full size (45MP), though clearly the image has been deeply cropped from the original RAW (which is somehow the EXACT same size!). The only solution to this is that there is some upscaling that takes place after the correction/crop, and, sure enough, if I look at my manual corrected and cropped file at 100% and compare it to the outputted file with the profile correction, the detail looks better in what I’ve manually outputted.
Hmmm. Pro tip. If you want a wider perspective, shoot in RAW, manually correct, and then just “constrain crop”. You end up with significantly more in the frame, which could be very useful when shooting interiors or even landscape shots. You can see what I mean if you compare the edges of the frame in this comparison where I’ve used that technique.
The good news is that as a first party lens, it receives “Cadillac” profile treatment. The correction profiles in camera (JPEG and Video) are augmented by excellent profiles in Lightroom and other software for RAWs. I don’t love this approach, but we are going to have to accept the reality that Canon is designing lenses like this with the idea that electronics are part of the process to give the desired optical result. You can see that the “curved bridge” becomes a “straight bridge” after the correction profile is added.
There are limits. You’ll want to be careful about putting people near the edge of the frame as the act of correcting will stretch and distort them.
Because the correction works well, however, it will do in a pinch for shooting interior spaces, though obviously a lens with lower native distortion is a more logical choice if your shooting priorities include real estate or architectural work.
You are also always going to want to correct the vignette in most all situations, which is fine other than the fact that you can end up with some additional noise in the edges of the frame when correcting at higher vignette. Bottom line is that this is a lens (much like the 14-35mm F4L IS, the 16mm F2.8, and the 35mm F1.8) are VERY reliant on profile corrections.
Longitudinal chromatic aberrations (LoCA) typically show up as purple/magenta fringing before the plane of focus and blue/green fringing beyond the plane of focus due to colors not being perfectly focused together. They typically diminish as the lens is stopped down to smaller apertures. The RF24M does show a bit of LoCA (like you can see above in this crop from a macro shot of my Dad’s old camera) but I didn’t find it overly destructive, either.
This shot of dried weeds with light pouring through them is about the worse that I could find.
Lateral chromatic aberrations (LaCA) are a little less pronounced. They show up as fringing on either side of contrast areas (like tree trunks, for example) along the edges of the frame. Unlike LoCA, they do not improve when stopping the aperture down, but are much easier to correct for (typically a one click “remove chromatic aberrations” box in editing software). There’s a minor amount of Lateral CA near the edges of the frame.
There are 11 elements in 9 groups here including a UD (ultra-low dispersion) element and one aspherical lens in the optical formula.
Does that do the job for optical performance? Here’s a look at my chart globally at F2.8, taken with the 45MP Canon EOS R5:
The following are near 200% crops from the center, mid-frame, and extreme lower right corner.
What we find is exceptional resolution and contrast in the center, very good performance in the mid-frame, and really a quite decent corner performance. This is a slightly better than expected optical performance, and I think it is backed with real results. Look at how crisp the textures are on Ferrari here.
Likewise this landscape shot at F1.8, which looks great in the center and still fairly good on the edges.
Stopping down to F2 produces slightly higher contrast across the frame, with a bigger jump happening at F2.8. There’s quite a noticeable difference in corner performance from F2 to F2.8:
There’s very slight additional gains at F4 and F5.6, and very slight regressions at each stop after that. At these landscape apertures details look crisp across the frame:
But in real world use, I’m pretty delighted by the amount of sharpness I get on my high resolution R5, and the lens would look even better on less punishing lower resolution bodies.
This autumn leaf shows nice detail and a fairly soft background beyond.
Let’s talk about the bokeh quality. This isn’t an L-series lens in terms of the optical performance, but frankly the bokeh quality isn’t bad. In some situations it is nice and soft:
Generally the closer you are to the subject the better the bokeh quality, as things can get a little busy in the transition zone:
Here’s a few more samples at difference focus distances to let you evaluate it for yourself.
As noted, this is called a macro lens though some debate whether a 1:2 level of magnification constitutes true macro. At the least, however, a 1:2 magnification (0.50x) is still extremely useful, allowing you to fill the frame with subjects (like my standard bill from my test chart).
This link of rusted chain stands out nicely isolated from the rest of the strand.
Maybe not true macro, but definitely useful!
Canon claims that the lens has received Super Spectra coatings that improve the resistance to flare. Flare resistance is fairly good, with only some minimal ghosting artifacts and no veiling. The sunburst from the 9-bladed aperture is pleasing as well.
While I didn’t get to shoot stars during my review period, I did shoot a city scene and found some less than desirable results along the edge of the frame.
There are better astro options out there.
So, not a performance without flaws, obviously, but also with some real strengths (and versatility), and in general I was happy with the kinds of images I could get with the RF24M and how they looked.
I didn’t love the Canon RF 35mm F1.8 Macro IS when I reviewed it, and while the RF 24mm F1.8 Macro IS STM is similar in so many ways, I actually feel more positive about it. Yes, it has way too much distortion and vignette, but it also nice and strong in a lot of different areas, including delivering a fairly strong macro performance.
What really stands out is the versatility of a lens like this. You can do a LOT of different photography with a lens like this, from up close work, to walk around and street, to landscape and environmental portraits.
The RF24M is not going to compete with L series lenses optically, but I also found that images had a fairly good pop to them and I generally liked the look of them other than shots where the bokeh got a little busy. Some people love the 24mm focal length, and if that describes you, then the Canon RF 24mm F1.8 Macro IS STM is a lens that will probably become a favorite even if also sports a few flaws.
Maybe you’ll want to go out and grab one…like this:
Purchasing your gear through B&H and these links helps fund this website and keeps the articles coming. You can also make a donation here if you would like. Visit my Amazon page for some of my gear of choice! Thank you for your support.
Purchasing your gear through B&H and these links helps fund this website and keeps the articles coming. You can also make a donation here if you would like. Visit my Amazon page for some of my gear of choice! Thank you for your support.
Receive a 5% discount on all purchases at Amplis Foto, Canada’s Leading Photographic Supplier. Please enter discount code: AMPLIS52018DA in your cart. It is good for everything in your cart, and is stackable with other coupons, too! It will take 5% off your entire order! Proceeds go towards keeping this site going and providing you with new reviews!
Keywords: Canon RF 24mm F1.8, Macro, IS, Canon RF 24mm F1.8 Macro IS STM, Canon RF 24mm Review, Review, STM, F1.8, RF, F/1.8, Canon RF 24 Review, Canon EOS R5, EOS, R5, EOS R5, Canon EOS R6, EOS R6 Review, mirrorless, full frame, EOS R5 Review, Canon R5 Review, Canon EOS R5 Review, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Handling, Focus, Portraits, Resolution, High ISO, Image Quality, Sample Images, Photography, 45Mpx, 45MP, Canon, letthelightin
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
One of my absolute favorite lenses in the Canon EF mount was the Canon EF 35mm F2 IS. I loved the form factor, the image quality, the great autofocus, and the very helpful Image Stabilization. It featured a nice magnification level of 0.24x, too, allowing for fun close up shots. This was the lens that I was reminded of when I pulled the new Canon RF 24mm F1.8 Macro IS STM lens out of the box. It has a very similar form factor. Of course, the RF 24mm (as I’ll call it for brevity in this review) is also highly similar to the Canon RF 35mm F1.8 Macro IS STM that I reviewed in 2019. Canon is slowly but surely starting to build out their lens catalog of decent lenses that aren’t $1500-3000 in price, and the RF 24mm at a price point of $599 USD joins the recent RF 16mm F2.8 (my review here), the aforementioned 35mm F1.8 Macro, and the RF 85mm F2 Macro IS (my review here) as lenses that that help fill that space.
The 24mm, 35mm, and 85mm lenses mentioned here all carry the designation of “macro”, but these aren’t 1:1 macro lens. They are 1:2 macro lenses, which means that they can only deliver one-half life size magnification, or 0.50x. That remains extremely useful, of course, but there are some limitations. Perhaps the greatest limitation is the fact they all of these lenses rely on extremely close focus to achieve their magnification, and that’s most extreme on the RF24M. Minimum focus distance is just 14cm (5.5”), but the problem is that the lens takes up 9 of those centimeters, and the inner barrel extends an additional centimeter at close focus distances. That leaves just 4 cm (about 1.57”) left between the lens and the subject, which means that it is very difficult to NOT shade your subject with the camera/lens, and you definitely will be scaring off any live critter you might have wanted to get a close focus shot of. Macro(ish) work is going to be better served by choosing subjects that won’t get scared off by close proximity to the camera…and that you have a means of getting some light on.
Fortunately Nala is not at all scared of the camera, and while this isn’t a macro shot, per se, it is probably my favorite photo I got with the lens during my review.
I was actually trying to get this shot of an old, rusty lock, but the curiosity of a kitten means that I cannot do any photography on the floor without interference. This gives you a little better sense of what you can achieve with close focus.
I’ve got some consistent gripes with Canon’s design and packaging philosophy with it’s non-L-series lenses, but I’m extremely happy nonetheless to see mid-level lenses like the RF24M come available. The R system needs a strong compliment of affordable lenses that aren’t just bargain optics but actually competent, and the RF 24mm F1.8 Macro IS seems to fill that role. I continue to disagree with Canon’s decision to close their platform (for now, at least) to third party lens development, but it is that in large part which makes lenses like this one so important.
Canon’s engineers have shown that they are capable of producing very sharp wide angle lenses in recent years, though at the cost of certain other optical flaws – namely vignette and distortion. That very much remains true here, but the RF24M is also a very flexible tool that can create some great images. Many people love the RF 35mm F1.8 Macro IS, and the new 24mm gives a similar lens with a different focal length that some prefer. If that happens to be you, you can read the text review or watch my video review to help decide if the RF 24mm F1.8 Macro IS STM should be the next lens for you…or just check out the photos below.
Thanks to Camera Canada for getting me a loaner of the RF 24mm F1.8 Macro IS. If you’re in Canada, check them out for a reliable online retailer. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the 45MP Canon EOS R5, which I reviewed here.
Purchasing your gear through B&H and these links helps fund this website and keeps the articles coming. You can also make a donation here if you would like. Visit my Amazon page for some of my gear of choice! Thank you for your support.
Purchasing your gear through B&H and these links helps fund this website and keeps the articles coming. You can also make a donation here if you would like. Visit my Amazon page for some of my gear of choice! Thank you for your support.
Receive a 5% discount on all purchases at Amplis Foto, Canada’s Leading Photographic Supplier. Please enter discount code: AMPLIS52018DA in your cart. It is good for everything in your cart, and is stackable with other coupons, too! It will take 5% off your entire order! Proceeds go towards keeping this site going and providing you with new reviews!
Keywords: Canon RF 24mm F1.8, Macro, IS, Canon RF 24mm F1.8 Macro IS STM, Canon RF 24mm Review, Review, STM, F1.8, RF, F/1.8, Canon RF 24 Review, Canon EOS R5, EOS, R5, EOS R5, Canon EOS R6, EOS R6 Review, mirrorless, full frame, EOS R5 Review, Canon R5 Review, Canon EOS R5 Review, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Handling, Focus, Portraits, Resolution, High ISO, Image Quality, Sample Images, Photography, 45Mpx, 45MP, Canon, letthelightin
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
A little over a year ago I spent some time with my first Laowa Argus lens. The Argus series is a more premium line of prime lenses that to this point have all had the extreme maximum aperture of F0.95. That lens, the Laowa Argus 35mm F0.95, proved an interesting lens with a dual personality that I documented in my review. Slightly dreamy wide open, extremely sharp when stopped down. The Argus 35mm (and the accompanying Argus 45mm) were designed for full frame sensors, but the subject of today’s review – the Laowa Argus 25mm F0.95 APO – is for the smaller APS-C sensor, with the lens available in Sony E, Nikon Z, Canon RF and EF-M, and Fuji X. What sets the Argus 25 (which I’ll refer to it as for brevity in the review) apart from the previous Argus lenses is that Laowa has employed their APO technology on this lens, which does give it a different character than previous Argus lenses.
A lens with an Apochromatic design has better correction of chromatic and spherical aberration than the much more common achromat lenses. Put simply, most lenses struggle with the fact that colors don’t always focus at the same distance, which results in green or purple (red) fringing due to the fact that those colors aren’t focusing on the same plane of focus. Whereas most lenses are corrected for two color wavelengths (typically red and blue), an apochromatic lens is able to bring three color wavelengths into focus on the same focus plane. This produces a near absence of chromatic aberrations and allows for higher contrast and a near absence of the veiling (lack of contrast) that produces “soft” images. True apochromatic lenses tend to be very sharp and very contrasty. They also are corrected for spherical aberrations on two wavelengths rather than one. Typically very large maximum aperture lenses (particularly those with maximum apertures greater than F1.4) are quite prone to A) fringing and B) low contrast at very wide apertures. The Argus 25 manages to deliver higher contrast results with lower fringing in the sweet spot of the frame:
But APO lenses do have a common downside, and that is that the higher contrast of APO lenses on the subject also leads to more contrast in the defocused area (bokeh) as well, which can result in bokeh that isn’t quite as soft and creamy. That can unfortunately mitigate one of the great strengths of a very wide aperture lens. I do think that is true to some extent here, as while there’s definitely more contrast at F0.95 than I typically see, there’s also slightly more busyness in the bokeh.
The behavior of this focal length will vary according to the crop factor of the camera that you have it mounted to. Sony/Fuji/Nikon have a fairly similar 1.5x crop factor (giving you a 37.5mm full frame equivalent focal length), but the Canon mounts will use Canon’s 1.6x APS-C crop, which results in a 40mm full frame equivalent focal length, which is just enough to take you from wide angle to normal range. Of the two potential focal lengths, I would slightly prefer the Canon crop focal length as I think it is a more definite focal length and less “caught in between” than what the 1.5x crops produce. 40mm is a very flexible focal length for a lot of subjects.
So join me as I explore whether or not tweaking the Argus formula with a little APO magic produces a better end result. You can find my conclusions by watching my video review or reading on in this text review.
A brief review note: When Laowa reached out to me about reviewing the Argus 25 I didn’t clue in that it was an APS-C lens, so I agreed to receive a Canon RF mount loaner. Unfortunately I don’t own a Canon RF-mount APS-C body, so I’ll be doing the review on my full frame Canon EOS R5 in APS-C mode. It’s a reasonable amount of resolution (17MP), but not really high enough to challenge this lens.
Thanks to Laowa for sending me a loaner of the Argus 25mm. As always, this is a completely independent review and all conclusions are my own.
Laowa Argus 25 Build and Handling
This is definitely not a small lens for an APS-C prime, though the Argus 25 isn’t impractically large. It is 71.5mm in diameter (leaving a 62mm front filter thread) and 81mm in length (that’s 2.81 x 3.18”). It weighs in 575g (20.28 oz) due to Laowa’s typical heavy duty, all metal lens construction. I’ve compared Laowa lenses to classic Zeiss lenses in construction, and that’s never been more apt than on this more premium Argus lens. Everything is beautifully made.
The focus ring is made of ribbed metal and moves smoothly and precisely along its near 160° of rotation. The weight is just about perfect, giving you plenty of feel and precision in the focus process.
This is an all manual lens without any electronics, which does mean that both focus and aperture must be controlled manually. The aperture ring also moves smoothly, and you have the choice of using it “clicked” or “declicked”. There is a switch on the left side of the barrel that allows you to choose between the two. When “clicked”, you will feel light detents at the major aperture stops (F1.2, F1.4, F2, F2.8, etc…) This is the typical arrangement for photographers. In the “declicked” mode the aperture will smoothly move throughout its whole range without any stops. This allows for videographers to do aperture “racking” and is typically the preferred approach for videography.
The aperture blade count is lower here than what I saw with the Argus 35mm. Instead of the very high 15 blade count, we have a more standard 9 bladed aperture. It still retains a fairly circular shape when stopped down, however, but isn’t quite as circular (or visually appealing) as the 15 bladed aperture.
You can see the shape of bokeh highlights stays round as you stop the lens down from wide open to F1.2 to F2:
In some situations you will get a bit of a “swirl” effect to the bokeh due to the geometric deformation on the edges of the frame, but this is actually a fair popular effect.
With the aperture blades retracted, however, you can see a LOT of glass in the Argus 25:
As a fully manual lens, there are no switches or controls other than the rings and the aperture click control. The lens does have nicely etched distance markings along with a hyperfocal guide.
There isn’t anything like weather sealing, image stabilization, or any kind of electronics built into the lens. If you’re not familiar with how lenses like this work, they do function largely as normal save you have to control focus and aperture. The camera will still meter properly and takes photos as normal, though you will have to turn ON a setting in the camera to release the shutter without a lens attached. This seems counterintuitive, since a lens IS attached, but since there are no electronics, the camera doesn’t know a lens is there. What isn’t as normal, however, is that no electronic information is submitted to the camera, so the camera won’t know the focal length or lens designation nor the selected aperture for the shot. There will be no automatic distortion or vignette correction; this will all have to be dealt with in post. The EXIF data only contains what the camera provides, like ISO and shutter speed. If you have a camera with IBIS (in body image stabilization) you will have to manually set the focal length on the lens, but then the image stabilization will work normally.
One very unique design element here is the lens hood, which has a squared, anamorphic-look design. I’m not quite sure what the logic is here, as for strictly photography this isn’t necessarily a positive development. It means that the lens hood will have to removed to use filters on the lens. By necessity the lens cap also has a unique design where it clips onto the sides of the lens hood. The leather-patterned texture on the front of the lens hood and the shape of the lens hood itself gives this lens a bit of a retro vibe to it. You’ll either love or hate it, I suspect.
The Argus 25 feels dense and well made (Laowa can be proud of the build quality), though I would like to see some further progression by Laowa on both the electronics side along with some weather sealing on these premium lenses. I want to see Laowa go to the next level of lens development, as I know they are capable of it. The Laowa 25mm F0.95 Argus APO is priced at $549 USD, which makes it a little too expensive to be considered a bargain but inexpensive enough that someone interested in premium manual focus lenses can probably afford it.
Focus Thoughts
In so many ways mirrorless cameras have breathed new life into manual focus lenses. The ability to magnify the image in the viewfinder, or to have focus overlays, or other focus aids made possible by an electronic viewfinder enables very accurate focus results with a lens like the Argus 25. I had very few results I had to discard because of inaccurate focus. That’s not to say that focus is as fast, obviously. Getting a well focused result requires being a little more deliberate.
But a good camera body and viewfinder helps immensely. My Canon EOS R5 is one of my favorite cameras ever for manual focus, as I find the viewfinder very clear and easy to see when focus is in the right area (aided by a bit of focus overlay). Being able to have a stabilized image while focusing due to IBIS doesn’t hurt, either.
One of the huge advantages of a lens with a maximum aperture this big is the simple fact that it can suck in so much light, which does really help even in very dim situations. Take this image, for example:
It looks like a normal image taken under normal lighting conditions, but the reality was that there was almost no light left outside and inside was extremely dim. I shot at ISO 1600 at F0.95 to get this shot at 1/160th second. If I were shooting with a zoom lens starting at F2.8, I would have to cranked the ISO to 12,800 to get the same shot at the same shutter speed, which is where most all APS-C cameras really fall apart in terms of noise. The only other option would have been to reduce the shutter speed way day, which results in much more likeliness of motion blur. You might get away with it with a still subject like this, but what if your subject is moving? If you shoot in dim rooms or environments (restaurants, bars, etc…) a lens like this will allow you to get clean images in a way that many others will not. I focused like normal here despite the dim conditions.
In summation, the focus ring moves smoothly and accurately, and I had no issues with focus during my review.
Laowa Argus 25 Optical Performance
The Argus 25 has a fairly complex optical formula with 14 elements in 9 groups. The MTF chart at F0.95 shows a surprisingly strong center result, a fairly steep drop in mid-frame performance, but then a flattening out of the curve with the corners nearly as good as the mid-frame.
It’s unusual to see that much sharpness at F0.95, but I think the lens is helped by the Apochromatic design. Typically F0.95 lenses aren’t particularly impressive near maximum aperture. As you increase the maximum aperture size you all also increase the risk of many optical aberrations. The most typical are low contrast, high chromatic aberrations, heavy vignette, and being extremely flare prone. You can pretty much guarantee that all of these will happen to some degree; the question is how much these aberrations can be minimized. I was intrigued to see how the APO design would counterbalance the massive maximum aperture, and the results are interesting.
We’ll start with some of the standard tests before I delve into the more subjective opinions on the lens.
Vignette is a typical Laowa weaknesses, and it is very evident here. I had to nearly max out the vignette correction slider to achieve the result on the right above. A typical Laowa strength is low distortion, and that’s true here. I needed only a +3 to correct a mild amount of barrel distortion. The vignette is going to be factor, though, even at smaller apertures. At F0.95, it will certainly give your images a “look” (in this case a dark and gloomy one):
Like many Zeiss lenses, this can be part of the overall look of the images, however. A feature rather than a bug, so to speak. In some images the heavy vignette really draws your eye towards the center of the frame, though this obviously works best with a center composition.
An Apochromatic design definitely goes a long ways towards eliminating Longitudinal Chromatic aberrations (LoCA), and I can see only the faintest amount of green fringing after the plane of focus.
You are unlikely to see this in most real-world situations.
Lateral CA (LaCA) is slightly more evident, with a bit of fringing marring the transitions from black to white on the edges of the frame on my test chart.
As noted in the intro, I had to do my formal tests at slightly lower resolution than optimal due to having to use the APS-C mode on my R5. We’ve only got 17MP of resolution to work with as a result, but that’s enough to get a good sense of the lens. Here’s a look at my test chart.
If we look at crops at F0.95 from across the frame, we see the kind of pattern suggested by the MTF charts, though the mid-frame results are very slightly better than expected.
Since many shots are composed with the subject in the sweet spot for resolution, I found that real world results were quite crisp for an F0.95 lens…at F0.95.
I was also pleasantly surprised to see that I could produce a fairly credible landscape image at F0.95:
You can see some lateral chromatic aberrations and softness towards the edge of the frame, but there’s definitely some fairly crisp portions of the image as well.
Stopping down to F1.2 does add more contrast punch to the image, particularly in the center.
By F1.4 the center is very impressive, though the mid-frame and corners still lag behind the center. By F2 the mid-frame is looking quite crisp:
The corners take until about F4 before reaching peak sharpness. By landscape apertures (F5.6-8), the lens is sharp across the frame, resolving fine details in a beautiful fashion:
I tend to like the colors from Laowa APO lenses better than I do their standard lenses, and I think that’s true here. Something about that extra contrast gives more punch to the colors.
An image like this shows a nice three-dimensional pop to the subject:
So, on one hand, I feel like choosing to go with an Apochromatic design helps solve some of the big problems a lens with a huge maximum aperture. But it also reduces one of the most effective aspects of such a lens, which is the soft, creamy bokeh. It is often the reduced contrast and even the aberrations that help produce that lovely bokeh…and an APO design eliminates some of those flaws. Out goes the baby with the bathwater! Images like these should have lovely, soft bokeh, but I see more busyness than what I would like.
Likewise here, as while I like the image in general, I find a little more outlining and busyness in the bokeh than what is optimal.
But bokeh is a subjective measurement, so I’ll you deliver your own verdict on the quality of the blur.
On a positive note, however, I found the Argus 25 to be better than average in flare resistance for a lens with such a large maximum aperture. I shot several different scenarios with bright sun, and other than some loss of contrast at wide apertures, I felt the lens did fairly well.
I’ve yet to see a huge aperture lens that was actually a great astrophotography lens. The Argus 25 isn’t going to be the first. At F0.95 star points are reasonably crisp in the center, but there is some obvious fringing around the brightest star points. If you look towards the edges, however, you see what either looks like host of angels or a flock of birds fleeing the frame. It’s neither – it is the result of some fairly wicked coma.
Stopping down a bit (no EXIF data, and I was in the dark, so I’ll estimate about F1.2 to F1.4), we can see that rather than flying geese we have shrunk to pigeons, but there’s still a fair bit of coma.
This is a great lens in the dark because it can suck in so much light, but not necessarily for capturing the stars or individual bright lights.
Overall, the Laowa 25mm F0.95 Argus is essentially what I expected when I saw the APO in the design. It’s sharper and more contrasty than the typical F0.95 lens, and feels more usable at that huge aperture, though at the cost of that dreamy look that many people love about such a lens. It all comes down to what you value in lens design. Feel free to check out more images by visiting the image gallery here.
Conclusion
The Laowa Argus 25mm F0.95 APO is both similar and different than the Argus 35mm F0.95 full frame lens that I reviewed. The APO design does alter the formula, which results in more usable sharpness results at huge aperture values like F0.95.
It also means that the bokeh isn’t quite as soft, however, which might turn off some of the core audience that is interested in a lens like this.
These are all a matter of preference, however, and what is definite is that there is always room for more premium prime lenses for APS-C, a space that often gets overlooked. This is a serious lens, and it is interesting to see Laowa bring some of their APO experience that they’ve developed in their macro lens designs into a more extreme lens like this. You’ll have to determine for yourself whether or not the end result is something you’re looking for, but I will say this: the list of F0.95 lenses with an Apochromatic design and a price tag of under $550 USD is a VERY short one.
Pros:
Nice quality build and finish
Huge maximum aperture
Higher contrast and sharpness than most F0.95 lenses
Purchasing your gear through B&H and these links helps fund this website and keeps the articles coming. You can also make a donation here if you would like. Visit my Amazon page for some of my gear of choice! Thank you for your support.
Purchasing your gear through B&H and these links helps fund this website and keeps the articles coming. You can also make a donation here if you would like. Visit my Amazon page for some of my gear of choice! Thank you for your support.
Receive a 5% discount on all purchases at Amplis Foto, Canada’s Leading Photographic Supplier. Please enter discount code: AMPLIS52018DA in your cart. It is good for everything in your cart, and is stackable with other coupons, too! It will take 5% off your entire order! Proceeds go towards keeping this site going and providing you with new reviews!
Keywords: laowa 25mm, laowa 25mm F0.95, laowa 25mm F/0.95, laowa 25 argus, argus, 25mm, F0.95, F/0.95, APO, laowa, laowa 25mm F0.95 review, laowa 25mm argus review, Review, Dustin Abbott, Portrait, Canon EOS R5, R5, R6, EOS R, Sony a6600, Canon R7, Fuji X-T4, Sharpness, Resolution, Bokeh, Video Test, Sample Images, Real World letthelightin, DA
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
7Artisans AF 24mm F1.8 Review 
7Artisans AF 24mm F1.8 Gallery 
Sony GP-VPT3 3-in-1 Bluetooth Grip Review 
Nikon Z 50mm Showdown – F1.4 vs F1.8 S 
