Canon RF 28mm F2.8 STM Review

Dustin Abbott

November 4th, 2023

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.

Canon RF 28mm F2.8 STM Pancake Lens Review | Big Fun in a Tiny Package!

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.

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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.

$40-Diffraction$

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!

Pros:

Less than an inch long
Extremely lightweight
Improved design to AF | MF | Control
Ring moves smoothly and with good damping
Autofocus is reasonably quick and quiet
Good focus accuracy
Extremely sharp lens…particularly for a pancake
Fringing well controlled
Good color
Fairly good price
Good option for APS-C shooters, too

Cons:

Lens hood not included
No weather sealing
Significant focus breathing
Significant barrel distortion
Very heavy vignette
Flare issues

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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

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Canon RF 24mm F1.8 Macro IS STM Review

Dustin Abbott

November 17th, 2022

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.

As always, I would recommend that you check out the image galleries to see a greater variety of photos and get a sense of the lens performance for yourself.

Conclusion

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:

Pros:

Lovely form factor
Extremely versatile lens
Focus accuracy is very high
Stable AF tracking on eyes for vlogging
Good up close performance
Good wide open performance
Good flare resistance
Good color

Cons:

Extreme distortion
Very heavy vignette
Coma performance isn’t good
No lens hood or weather sealing

Gear Used:

Purchase the Canon RF 24mm F1.8 Macro IS @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

Purchase the Canon RF 35mm F1.8 IS STM @ B&H | Amazon | Camera Canada Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Purchase a Canon RF 85mm F2 Macro IS STM @ B&H Photo | Camera Canada | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Purchase a Canon EOS R5 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Purchase a Canon EOS R6 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Want to support this channel? Use these affiliate links to shop at: B&H Photo | Amazon | | Camera Canada | Ebay | Make a donation via Paypal

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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.

Canon RF 24mm F1.8 Macro IS STM Gallery

Dustin Abbott

November 17th, 2022

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.

Photos of the Canon RF 24mm F1.8 Macro IS STM

Photos Taken with the Canon RF 24mm F1.8

Gear Used:

Purchase the Canon RF 24mm F1.8 Macro IS @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

Purchase the Canon RF 35mm F1.8 IS STM @ B&H | Amazon | Camera Canada Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Purchase a Canon RF 85mm F2 Macro IS STM @ B&H Photo | Camera Canada | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Purchase a Canon EOS R5 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Purchase a Canon EOS R6 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Want to support this channel? Use these affiliate links to shop at: B&H Photo | Amazon | | Camera Canada | Ebay | Make a donation via Paypal

Buy DA Merchandise https://bit.ly/TWIMerch

Peak Design Leash Strap: Peak Design Store | B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK

Adobe Photoshop Creative Cloud 1-Year Subscription
Get a discount off all Skylum Editing Software (Luminar, Aurora HDR, AirMagic) by using code DUSTINHDR at checkout:
Visit Dustin’s Amazon Storefront and see his favorite gear

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!

Use Code “DUSTINHDR” to get $10 off ($15 CDN) any Skylum product: Luminar, Aurora, or AirMagic

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.

Canon RF 16mm F2.8 STM Review

Dustin Abbott

September 9th, 2022

Canon has been a new roll in the mirrorless space since with a run of amazing cameras that began with the EOS R5 (my review here) and EOS R6 (my review here), and then carrying on to the high end sports model EOS R3 (my review here) and its APS-C counterpart, the EOS R7 (my review is in the process). I’ve had a bit of a love-hate relationship with Canon in the mirrorless space, though, as while I love some of these new cameras, the RF mount remains closed to third party development, which really limits lens choice. I think Canon is making a mistake here, personally, but as of September 2022 when I am working on this review, this remains status quo. That means that (for now) we are wholly dependent on Canon to provide us a variety of necessary lenses at the various price points and performance levels that a market that runs from amateurs with minimal budgets to working professionals requires. One of my primary complains has been that in many cases the lenses for the EOS R cameras have been priced higher than the cameras themselves, with few lenses under $1000 USD and the majority over $2000. Canon has slowly been addressing this with a new spate of lens releases including some more affordable options, though while there are currently 11 Canon RF prime (fixed focal length) lenses, only about half of those can be had for under $1000…and only three for $500 or less. That list includes the Canon RF 35mm F1.8 Macro IS (my review here) – Canon RF 85mm F2 IS STM when it is on sale (my review here), and the Canon RF 50mm F1.8 STM. (my review here). Fortunately we can add one more very useful lens to that list, the lens we are here to review today, the Canon RF 16mm F2.8 STM.

I was very pleasantly surprised by the announcement of the RF 16mm because of the affordable price tag ($299 USD) and the utility of such a wide focal length (108° 10′) in a very compact package that is near identical in size to the “nifty fifty” (50mm F1.8):

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 of the RF 16mm, which is unquestionably a flawed lens. But its price point and utility have proven to be significant enough for many people to overlook those flaws and still give it a hearty endorsement. Will that also be true for you? You can read this text review or watch my video review to help make that decision.

Thanks to Camera Canada for getting me a loaner of the RF 16mm 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.

Canon RF 16mm F2.8 STM Build and Handling

If you are familiar with the RF 50mm F1.8 STM, then you basically are already familiar with the build of the RF 16mm F2.8. The RF 16mm is a fraction of a millimeter wider and longer than the 50mm, measuring in at 1.6 (D) x 2.7″ (L) / 40.1 x 69.2 mm. It weighs 165g (5.8oz), which is only 5g heavier than the 50mm. That definitely puts these two lenses in a slightly smaller class from the other “twins” in the RF 35mm F1.8 IS Macro and the new RF 24mm F1.8 IS Macro. You can see that breakdown in this comparison:

I have to confess to a certain degree of frustration every time I review a non-L series lens from Canon, though I’m more tolerant when reviewing a truly inexpensive lens like this one. Canon persists in the pettiest forms of “nickel and diming” with their consumer grade lenses. They never include a lens hood. The EW-65C lens hood will set you back an additional $35 so I suspect that 90% of purchasers will never bother with a lens hood. 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. These days a similarly priced Samyang lens for Sony would come with weather sealing, a hood, and a case, so I continue to think that Canon can do better.

The RF 16mm follows a very similar design language to the 50mm, with several accent rings 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. I find that the look of the lens stays consistent (it doesn’t look one way when cleaned and unused and another if you actually take it out of the box and use it!)

One minor negative that I noticed is that there are several visible seams in the outer shell of the lens. You can see one of them right above the switch on the left side of the lens barrel:

Not a big thing, but a reminder of the budget origins even if the lens itself feels bit more upscale.

We have a metal lens mount around back and you can also see the 12 communication pins that the RF lens mount has which enable Canon to have more flexibility in lens design.

One advantage of those pins is the control ring, a new addition to RF lenses. The control ring can be programmed to several different functions in the camera body. Popular applications are for aperture control and exposure compensation.

Like the RF 50mm F1.8, Canon has a much smaller lens to work with, so instead of a simple AF/MF switch, Canon elected to go with a switch that changes the function of the control ring between whatever function you have set for the control ring (I have exposure compensation, myself) and focus. In theory this is good, but in practice the execution could be better. I would prefer that if you switched to the focus setting, the lens would automatically engage manual focus. As it stands, you have to switch over to manual focus in the camera body, and, since most lenses have an AF/MF switch, there is little reason to program one of your valuable programmable buttons to that function (though the new EOS R7 does now have a physical AF/MF switch on the front of the camera). That means jumping into the menus to make the switch, a more time-consuming process. It seems to me that having the “focus” setting always be manual focus would be the more elegant solution. You could then simply engage “control” if you want normal autofocus function.

The nice diamond pattern texture on the ring makes for nice grip and feel, however, and unlike most control rings, there is no feeling of “detents” here, so video shooters might enjoy setting the control to aperture and having a reasonable “declicked” aperture experience.

Manual focus is far from being a “Zeiss” experience. If you make a major focus change, you will experience a feeling a bit like “drag” as the focus motor provides a some resistance as it makes the focus change. Manual focus feels a little crude by modern standards, though I was able to focus with precision using Canon’s excellent “focus guide”.

Up front we have a very small 43mm filter thread which is shared with the RF 50mm F1.8.

Clearly Canon has basically leveraged the existing physical design of the RF 50mm F1.8 as a housing for this new lens. That means that we get all of the quirks of that design, but it also means we get all of its strengths.

The RF 16mm F1.8 is wonderfully compact. It really transforms even a larger camera like the EOS R5 into a highly portable platform. It is rare that a focal length as wide as 16mm is going to be your primary lens choice, so being able to bring along that wonderfully wide angle of view as an additional lens option is what is going to make this lens so attractive to many (including myself).

The aperture iris is made up of 7 rounded aperture blades which help keep bokeh circular but when stopped down provides interesting sunstars:

Canon has equipped the RF 16mm with a very close minimum focus distance of just 5.1″ / 13 cm. Since that figure is measured from the sensor of the camera (about mid-frame in the body), that means that you are VERY close to your subject about 6cm by the time you reach minimum focus:

Up close performance is pretty good, but you won’t get a very flat plane of focus. You can get up to 0.26x magnification, but with only a small part of the frame in focus.

This is definitely a useful addition, however, and allows you to get some reasonably blurred out backgrounds if you are close to your subject and background is a little further away:

The lens doesn’t have image stabilization, but I found that I was able to get very stable handheld video results using the IBIS in my Canon EOS R5 that I used for the tests. Handholding 16mm for photos has never been a problem in most situations as the wide focal length shows little motion blur. I did use a bit of motion blur creatively by dragging the shutter and capturing some sparklers in motion.

Overall I’m satisfied with the build and handling of the Canon RF 16mm F2.8 STM. There’s nothing exceptional about the build, but there isn’t anything hugely objectionable, either.

Autofocus and Video Performance

Canon has given the RF 16mm an STM motor, but frankly that doesn’t mean a whole lot anymore. I have found that the performance of STM motors varies widely in almost every facet, but most obviously in focus speed and sound. Some STM lenses are very quick and quiet and have a fairly sophisticated performance, while others feel somewhat slow and crude. The 16mm falls somewhere in the middle of the pack, with reasonably good speed, great accuracy, and some focus sound that isn’t excessively loud. I most noticed the more sedate focus speed when doing video focus pulls which are not particularly quick and have a noticeable lag from when you select a new focus area to the time that focus actually takes place. If you watch the AF section in the video review you can definitely see the lag when I take my hand away from covering the camera and it locks back to my face.

On a positive note, however, 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.

Like RF 50mm F1.8, the RF 16mm is a front focusing lens (the front group of elements moves forward and back). It is not internally focusing and will extend about 1 cm when focused to it’s minimum (macro) limit. You will probably want to enable the setting on your camera that will retract the lens when powering down the camera, as the extended barrel feels a bit vulnerable.

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 after dark with the lens and found that focus continued to be confident.

General purpose/walkaround results proved to accurately focus and deliver very good results.

Canon’s best focus results come from their linear style Nano USM motors, which this lens doesn’t have. There are little glimpses of the budget nature of the focus system here and there, but for the most part the lens got the job done.

Canon RF 16mm F2.8 STM Image Quality

On paper, the MTF charts from the RF 16mm F2.8 STM don’t look incredibly good, with a very sharp center but a strong drop off as move towards the periphery of the frame.

A lot of this can probably be attributed to the impact of having to correct A LOT of barrel distortion and vignette, though good profile support helps the corners to look a little better in real world use. For most things, however, I felt that real world results where stronger than what the MTF chart suggests, with nice detail in many of my “big” images.

But we’ll take a closer look at performance, starting with the elephant in the room – the vignette and distortion.

Without correction, this is basically a fisheye lens! I had to dial in a +70!!! To correct the barrel distortion bulge, and, even then, there is an obvious mustache pattern left to the distortion. This is close to being the highest figure I’ve ever had to use for a manual correction. Likewise I had to max out the vignette slider in Lightroom to correct for the vignette. 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.

Now, another interesting thing. I frame my chart in the viewfinder to square up with the outer lines of the test, as you can see from the JPEG result here on the right:

But if you compare it to the profile corrected RAW file you see on the left you’ll see that it is considerably wider even though the distortion appears to be corrected just fine. For some reason the Canon crop is really aggressive. RAW shooters are going to get a much wider angle of view, for some reason. I wonder if Canon crops off part of the edges of the frame to help corner quality on the image?

Because of so much correction you are going to want to be very careful about putting people near the edge of the frame. They will get stretched in very strange ways…and they won’t thank you for it. See how stretched the young man is in the foreground of this photo.

Composing with this boy nearer the middle of the frame produces a much more natural looking result.

I also found that interior lines corrected fairly well, but you will definitely get some stretching of objects near the edges after correction, which means that this isn’t necessarily a top choice for shooting interiors.

Because the correction works well, however, it will do in a pinch.

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) which is VERY reliant on profile corrections to make it usable.

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. I didn’t notice any significant issue with LoCA on the RF 16mm.

Lateral chromatic aberrations (LaCA) are a different story, however. 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 fairly strong amount of Lateral CA near the edges of the frame which don’t fully correct even with the “remove CA” option. You can see in the crop comparison that while the “remove CA” box helps, some fringing remains.

So yes, there are some optical flaws here. If you were expecting a compact L series prime for $300…you’ll have to keep looking! There are some very redeeming features to come, however, so don’t give up quite yet.

There are 9 elements in 6 groups here including an aspherical lens. 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 may be helped by the fact that the JPEG in camera crop is much tighter (and is reflective of how it looked when I framed in the viewfinder:

That leaves a lot of room in the RAW image for the worst of the corners to be left out.

That bears out in real world samples, too, as detail at F2.8 is great in the center, good in the midframe, but if you get into those extreme corners things look much worse.

Still, I find a real world F2.8 landscape like this looks pretty credible. You can find flaws, but that’s pretty nice IQ for the money.

Stopping down to F4 produces some improvement across the frame with the corners getting more evenly illuminated, though corner sharpness never reaches the excellent levels of the center or mid-frame.

Sharpness peaks near F5.6, but even if we go to F8 to give the corners a better chance, you can see that they never get quite as crips as the center:

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.

Here’s a crop of a flower from a wider shot, which shows nice sharpness and contrast.

While this isn’t really a “bokeh” lens due to the wide angle of view and only moderately large maximum aperture, the good close focus ability will give you a chance to play with putting backgrounds out of focus a bit, like in this mushroom shot.

You’ll note the bokeh circles have a “clipped” look to them on the edges, but through most of the frame the bokeh circles have a pretty decent quality to them. The transition zone after the mushroom looks fairly busy, though.

Canon claims that the lens has received Super Specta coatings that improve the resistance to flare. In this case, the marketing is pretty accurate, as I consider flare resistance a real strength for the lens. It gave up very little even when panning across the very bright midday sun.

I was able to shoot the night sky on a pretty good night, and the RF 16mm gets a passing grade for astrophotography. There is some comatic distortion along the edges of the frame, but I also found that the heavy vignette made it a little difficult to correct for while retaining even illumination in the dark sky.

There are better astro options out there, but the RF 16mm will certainly work in a pinch.

I would recommend that you check out the image galleries to see a greater variety of photos and get a sense of the lens performance for yourself. There are some real strengths like flare resistance, color, and sharpness across most of the frame, but the distortion, vignette, and lateral chromatic aberrations are pretty rough. I liked the lens just fine for landscape work, where I felt it delivered beautiful results for a budget lens.

I wouldn’t like it nearly as well for environmental portraiture, interiors, or architectural. Even casual group shots will need to be shot with some care so that you don’t lose friends when they get stretched to obscene proportions!

Conclusion

The title to my video review is that the Canon RF 16mm F2.8 STM is fun, flawed, and useful. It does have some severe flaws, but I love the flexibility of the focal length and the compact size of the lens. It does something that no other lens is really doing on the Canon RF platform right now, and does it at a truly reasonable price point.

The RF 16mm is not going to compete with L series lenses optically, but I also found that images had a certain pop to them that stood out when I compared them to images I was taking on the Canon EOS R7 and EF-S 18-150mm STM that I was reviewing at the same time. This image, for example, is pretty lovely.

So, in conclusion, the Canon RF 16mm F2.8 STM is not only worth buying because it is cheap, but also worth buying because it is competent. It will go anywhere with you and provides a nicely wide alternative to something like the 24-105mm or 24-70mm lenses. It would also be a great focal length counterpart if your primary lens on an outing is a telephoto, offering the option to get a wider angle of view but with a minimum of additional size and weight. It is for this reason that I’m considering a purchase even despite the RF 16mm’s many flaws.

Pros:

Beautifully compact for such a wide angle lens
Excellent price point
Focus accuracy is very high
Stable AF tracking on eyes for vlogging
High level of magnification
Good center and mid-frame sharpness even wide open
Excellent flare resistance
Good color

Cons:

Extreme distortion
Very heavy vignette
Strong lateral chromatic aberrations
Corners aren’t sharp at wide apertures

Gear Used:

Purchase a Canon RF 16mm F2.8 STM @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | eBay

Purchase a Canon RF 50mm F1.8 STM @ B&H Photo | Camera Canada | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Purchase a Canon RF 85mm F2 Macro IS STM @ B&H Photo | Camera Canada | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Purchase a Canon EOS R5 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Purchase a Canon EOS R6 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

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Keywords: Canon 16mm F2.8 STM, 16mm, RF 16, RF 16mm, Canon RF 50mm Review, STM, F2.8, RF, F/2.8, Canon RF 16 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.

Canon RF 16mm F2.8 STM Gallery

Dustin Abbott

September 8th, 2022

Canon has been a new roll in the mirrorless space since with a run of amazing cameras that began with the EOS R5 (my review here) and EOS R6 (my review here), and then carrying on to the high end sports model EOS R3 (my review here) and its APS-C counterpart, the EOS R7 (my review is in the process). I’ve had a bit of a love-hate relationship with Canon in the mirrorless space, though, as while I love some of these new cameras, the RF mount remains closed to third party development, which really limits lens choice. I think Canon is making a mistake here, personally, but as of September 2022 when I am working on this review, this remains status quo. That means that (for now) we are wholly dependent on Canon to provide us a variety of necessary lenses at the various price points and performance levels that a market that runs from amateurs with minimal budgets to working professionals requires. One of my primary complains has been that in many cases the lenses for the EOS R cameras have been priced higher than the cameras themselves, with few lenses under $1000 USD and the majority over $2000. Canon has slowly been addressing this with a new spate of lens releases including some more affordable options, though while there are currently 11 Canon RF prime (fixed focal length) lenses, only about half of those can be had for under $1000…and only three for $500 or less. That list includes the Canon RF 35mm F1.8 Macro IS (my review here) – Canon RF 85mm F2 IS STM when it is on sale (my review here), and the Canon RF 50mm F1.8 STM. (my review here). Fortunately we can add one more very useful lens to that list, the lens we are here to review today, the Canon RF 16mm F2.8 STM.

I was very pleasantly surprised by the announcement of the RF 16mm because of the affordable price tag ($299 USD) and the utility of such a wide focal length (108° 10′) in a very compact package that is near identical in size to the “nifty fifty” (50mm F1.8):

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 of the RF 16mm, which is unquestionably a flawed lens. But its price point and utility have proven to be significant enough for many people to overlook those flaws and still give it a hearty endorsement. Will that also be true for you? You can read this text review or watch my video review to help make that decision.

Thanks to Camera Canada for getting me a loaner of the RF 16mm 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.

Photos of the Canon RF 16mm F2.8 STM

Photos Taken with the Canon RF 16mm F2.8 STM

Gear Used:

Purchase a Canon RF 16mm F2.8 STM @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | eBay

Purchase a Canon RF 50mm F1.8 STM @ B&H Photo | Camera Canada | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Purchase a Canon RF 85mm F2 Macro IS STM @ B&H Photo | Camera Canada | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Purchase a Canon EOS R5 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Purchase a Canon EOS R6 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Want to support this channel? Use these affiliate links to shop at: B&H Photo | Amazon | | Camera Canada | Ebay | Make a donation via Paypal

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Peak Design Leash Strap: Peak Design Store | B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK

Adobe Photoshop Creative Cloud 1-Year Subscription
Get a discount off all Skylum Editing Software (Luminar, Aurora HDR, AirMagic) by using code DUSTINHDR at checkout:
Visit Dustin’s Amazon Storefront and see his favorite gear

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!

Use Code “DUSTINHDR” to get $10 off ($15 CDN) any Skylum product: Luminar, Aurora, or AirMagic

Keywords: Canon 16mm F2.8 STM, 16mm, RF 16, RF 16mm, Canon RF 50mm Review, STM, F2.8, RF, F/2.8, Canon RF 16 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.

Canon RF 100-400mm F5.6-8 IS USM Review

Dustin Abbott

April 18th, 2022

I recently finished up my review of the L (luxury) series Canon RF 100-500mm F4.5-7.1L IS – a lens that is thoroughly premium in both performance and price (retailing for about $2900 USD!). That price point is a prohibitively high bar for many photographers, however. Fortunately Canon has already created a much less expensive alternative in the form of the Canon RF 100-400mm F5.6-8 IS USM. This lens retails at a much more palatable $650 USD, and while it is short on features relative to its big brother and has some real limitations, it is surprisingly competent alternative with a few advantages of its own. The RF 100-400 IS (as we’ll call it for brevity in this review) is compact, has good autofocus, and has quite strong image quality while covering a very important telephoto zoom range that spans from 100mm:

to an impressive 400mm:

There’s a lot of subjects you can fit into a focal range like that, and the weight of only 635g means that you will be able to bring along the lens on your treks even if you aren’t a photography Hercules.

There are some unique strengths of the RF 100-400 IS even relative to its much more expensive big brother. These include:

Much lower price
Much smaller and lighter (700g lighter!)
Higher magnification level (0.41x vs 0.33x)
Fuller compatibility with 1.4x/2x extenders
Slightly higher stabilization rating (5.5 stops vs 5 stops)

That’s not to say that the L-series is outclassed in some way, as it has a long list of its own strengths, including:

Bigger zoom ratio (5x vs 4x)
Faster maximum aperture throughout zoom range
Weather sealing and pro grade build
Dual Nano-USM motors vs 1 Nano-USM
More stabilizer modes
Focus limiter
Tripod collar
Friction ring
Included lens hood and case
Much stronger image quality

I don’t think that anyone is going to argue that the consumer grade lens is a better lens than the professional lens, but I do think that those who have a tight budget can be reassured that they are actually getting a very nice lens even if you could buy 4!!! of the RF 100-400 IS lenses and still pocket $300 for the price of the L-series lens! And as a consolation, you can still get images like this!

Our goal here is to give a comprehensive review of the strengths and weaknesses of this lens, but I think that it is important to acknowledge that this the kind of lens of that Canon has desperately needed – less expensive alternatives to their premium offerings. There have been more Canon RF lenses costing more than $2000 than those in the under $1000 range. Lenses like the RF 100-400 IS help to fill out the catalog with lenses that average photographers can actually afford…and that’s important. To help you determine if this is a lens for you, check out my video review below…or just keep reading.

Thanks to Camera Canada for getting me a loaner of the RF 100-400 IS. If you’re in Canada, check them out for a reliable online retailer. *The tests and the photos shown in this review have been taken on my 45 MP Canon EOS R5.

Canon RF 100-400 IS Build and Handling

I have to confess to a certain degree of frustration every time I review a non-L series lens from Canon. Canon persists in the pettiest forms of “nickel and diming” with their consumer grade lenses. The packaging of the lenses is often a bubble-wrapped lens inside a box and they never include a lens hood. The ET-74B lens hood will set you back an additional $45, despite the fact that almost every other lens maker includes a lens hood no matter how inexpensive the lens. I’ve reviewed $100 lenses with nice lens hoods included. I’d recommend checking out this Vello lens hood alternative that retails for only $15, as I hate to reward this kind of pettiness. As things stand, this is what you get – a lens with front and rear caps…and that’s it.

Weather sealing isn’t even on the table with non-L lenses, despite the reality that weather sealing is available in many less expensive lenses. While I can appreciate Canon’s desire to create market separation between its premium and consumer grades lenses, the market has shifted on both lens hoods and (to a lesser degree) weather sealing.

Now that I’ve vented, let’s take a look at what IS here. The biggest thing here is how small the lens is. When I unwrapped the package I found a lens that is more like a 70-300mm lens in size than a 100-400mm lens. The lens is only 79.5mm in diameter and right under 165mm in length. As noted, the weight is only 635g compared to the 1365g of the 100-500L, and that lens had shaved several hundred grams off the Canon EF 100-400mm F4.5-5.6L IS II. Even the Canon EF 70-300mm F4.5-5.6 IS II weighed in at 710g, so that shows you just how svelte the new RF 100-400 IS really is. If you really want to see an extreme, look what happens when I put it next to my Sony 200-600mm G OSS lens:

Canon achieves this size and weight package primarily by giving this lens a smaller maximum aperture throughout the zoom range than competing lenses. The EF 100-400L II that I referenced began at F4.5 at 100mm and was F5.6 at its smallest maximum aperture (beginning at 312mm). The RF 100-400 IS starts at F5.6 as its largest aperture and quickly closes down to smaller apertures as you zoom through the range.

100-122mm = F5.6
123-155mm = F6.3
156-258mm = F7.1
259-400mm = F8

This is not a “bright” lens. As noted, I own the Sony 200-600mm F5-6.3 G lens, and that lens still has a maximum aperture of F6.3 at 600mm; you lose that amount of brightness on the Canon RF 100-400 IS at only 156mm! Compromising on the maximum aperture allowed Canon to engineer a smaller, lighter lens while not compromising too much on the image quality. This is probably a tradeoff that many are willing to accept. What it means, though, is that you are going to need to use the lens in reasonable lighting conditions. F8 requires twice as much light as F5.6, so you’ve got to get that extra light gathering either through the lighting conditions of your scene or through boosting ISO. Many of your telephoto subjects (like birds) are going to need fast shutter speeds to freeze their action (typically 1/500th of a second is the minimum you want). That means that in lighting conditions where an F5.6 lens would require ISO 800, this lens will require ISO 1600, or where the F5.6 lens needed ISO 1600, the F8 lens will need ISO 3200, etc… Bottom line: think of this as a daylight lens, not a dusk or dark kind of lens. The only real compensation here is that modern cameras are increasingly good at higher ISO values, though, let’s not kid ourselves – you’re going to end up using this lens at higher ISO values than what you would prefer at times, and there will be some hit to the image quality as a byproduct.

I also noted when out hiking with the lens that I came home to much more images impacted by motion blur than what I expected. Forest light can vary, as can the exposure relative to the subject. I was shooting in AV mode, and, since I was shooting stationary subjects for the most part, I had set my ISO at 800, thinking that would be plenty. And, with shots like this one (1/100th of a second at 335mm), I would think that it should have been enough, but I found a fair percentage (at least 25%) of my images affected by motion blur.

The bottom line was that though I am a very experienced photographer, thinking with F8 as my minimum aperture is new to me. I probably should have been shooting at ISO 1600 instead…but that was odd considering I was shooting at ISO 100 with my second camera (Sony Alpha 1 with the Sony FE 35mm F1.4 GM attached). A word to the wise – if you’re out hiking with the lens, it might be better to use Manual mode, set your desired (safe) shutter and aperture, and then use auto ISO to ensure you get enough exposure to eliminate motion blur.

There’s a secondary factor to consider here. A lens with a small maximum aperture doesn’t leave much room to stop it down further (to increase sharpness or depth of field) before diffraction starts to become a problem. Diffraction is when rays of light enter through a small opening (like a small aperture opening) and the rays of light become bent or deflected. This results in less sharpness and contrast, and typically the smaller the aperture the greater chance that image quality will be negatively impacted by diffraction. It’s also worth noting that higher resolution bodies show the effects of diffraction at an increased rate, so a higher resolution body (45MP) like my Canon EOS R5 test camera (and its ability to resolve finer details) is going to show that blurring more at, say F11, than the EOS R6 and its 20MP of resolution. My point is that traditionally you can stop a lens down one or two stops to improve image quality (I often find that lenses perform best across the frame at about two stops smaller than their maximum aperture), but starting at F8 really limits your potential for doing that.

The IS system is rated at 5.5 stops (one half stop better than the 100-500L). If you have a body with IBIS (like my R5), the combined system will achieve a rated 6 stops at 400mm. This is the best of seven attempts at 1/6th second shutter speed, showing that you can potentially get the full six stops of stabilization…but probably not with any kind of reliability.

The other six shots show varying effects of camera shake/motion blur. Ironically the lighter weight of the lens makes it a little harder to handhold…which may have accounted for some of my motion blur out in the forest.

Image stabilization is pretty much a must on a lens with a longer focal length like this one, and Canon’s system is mannerly and quiet. There aren’t bells and whistles in terms of modes, but the system gets the job done. Here’s a real world 1/40th shot from out in the forest where IS saved the photo.

But I also found that there were some images where I thought that IS should have saved an image but didn’t. We’ll call the performance somewhat inconsistent.

That leads us to an aspect of this lens design that I frankly found surprising. The bigger RF 100-500L is a bit disappointing in its compatibility with Canon’s RF 1.4x and 2x extenders, as they will only physically mount from 300-500mm, meaning that you can’t travel with the zoom retracted and the extender in place. This was a concession to making the lens more compact. With that in mind, I didn’t anticipate any kind of compatibility with extenders for the RF 100-400 IS. I was wrong! The lens is fully compatible with both extenders, with sufficient room at the rear of the lens to mount them even with the lens fully retracted. That’s great, though that aperture is going to be a factor. Add the 1.4x extender, and your maximum aperture at 560mm is F11, and the 2x extender will result in a maximum aperture of F16 at 800mm. My rule of thumb with most lenses is that introducing a 2x extender involves more compromises to the optical performance than I’m comfortable with (which I believe is true here), and while autofocus does work at an aperture of F16 (cameras like the R5, R6, and R3 can focus at F22), autofocus is going to be compromised in many lighting conditions and you will have a smaller autofocus zone available to you. If you want 800mm of reach and have a tight budget, you would probably be better served with the unique Canon RF 800mm F11 IS lens, which I reviewed here. It will give you better image quality and a better autofocus experience. It’s certainly a positive to have extender compatibility in a budget lens like this, though, and is rare in my extended Canon experience.

The outer shell is made of Canon’s typical engineered plastics, and feels durable, resistant to marking or scratching. The matte finish is also resistant to finger prints, so I find that the look of the lens stays consistent (it doesn’t look one way when cleaned and unused and another if you actually take it out of the box and use it!)

There are two switches on the left hand side of the barrel, including an AF/MF switch and a simple ON/OFF button for the IS. Canon states that the IS system will automatically switch to a panning-type stabilization when a panning motion is detected. You can see in this shot of a loon in rapid flight (a crop from a burst of 70+ images) that panning stabilization seems to have worked properly.

There are three rings on the lens, starting with the zoom ring, which is wide, ribbed, and has a nice bevel in it that is ergonomically pleasing and makes it easy to find by touch. The zoom action is nicely damped, and I found the amount of throw easily manageable for quick focal length changes. The length of the lens grows by about 77mm with the lens fully zoomed to 400mm.

There is a zoom lock on the right side of the barrel that will only lock at the 100mm position. This will help to prevent zoom creep, though I have found that the quality damping on the zoom ring has prevented most casual creeping while hiking with the lens.

The middle ring is the manual focus ring, which is nicely damped and has reasonably good focus feel. It works best for fine tuning focus as opposed to quick, major focus changes. You have to make more than three full rotations to go from minimum focus to infinity, but the focus throw is great for fine tuning focus and has good weight for those types of adjustments.

Near the front of the lens barrel is the unique control ring that Canon RF lenses have. The control ring can be programmed to several different functions in the camera body. Popular applications are for aperture control and exposure compensation. The control ring has the typical diamond pattern texture that sets it apart from the tighter ribs of the manual focus ring and wider, deeper ribs of the zoom ring, so each ring has a unique texture to set it apart by feel.

Up front we have filter threads in the very common 67mm size.

Inside we have a 9 bladed aperture iris that serves to help maintain a circular shape with the lens stopped down. The RF 100-400 IS shows fairly good geometry in the bokeh.

Minimum focus distance is 88cm, and the resulting magnification is an impressive 0.41x, a figure which I think is class-leading. Here’s what that looks like:

What’s interesting is that I found the RF 100-500L to be significantly improved over the EF 100-400L II in terms of focus breathing (where the focal length behaves shorter at close focus distances), but clearly the 100-400 IS is better still. It achieves the 0.41x at 88cm and 400mm, while the RF 100-500L achieves a 0.33x magnification at 90cm…and at 500mm. The great news is that at close focus distances even a lens with a maximum aperture of F8 can obliterate backgrounds.

My typical criticisms of Canon’s cost cutting measures aside, I think Canon has delivered an interesting package here. This is a truly lightweight, compact lens for this focal range, and, while there are certainly drawbacks to the slower maximum aperture, in good light the lens is mostly a joy to use.

Canon RF 100-400mm F5.6-F8 IS Autofocus

The Canon RF 100-400mm IS utilizes Canon’s Nano-USM focus motors to help achieve fast, quiet autofocus. This is incredibly important in a lens designed for telephoto use, as many of the subjects that people want to use such a lens for (birds, for example) are fast moving. Nano USM remains my favorite of Canon’s current focus motors, and I’m really glad to see it employed here on a lens where focus speed is going to be important.

If you are new to the genre, there are a few tips worthy of consideration. The first and most important will be shutter speed. If you are tracking birds, for example, you’ll want to keep that shutter speed up near 1/500^th second or faster. Going underneath that threshold will result in motion blur in some shots. That will often mean moving up to higher ISO values to achieve that. You’ll probably also want to set Eye AF to animal priority, though I do find Canon more forgiving than Sony in this regard. Sony is fairly rigid, and I’ve had a few videos where I mistakenly left Eye AF in Animal mode and had a video with the wrong focus for the whole segment even though I was the obviously primary subject in the frame.

The RF 100-400 IS didn’t feel significantly different in the field than the premium 100-500L, though that lens employs due Nano-USM motors to give it optimal speed. The elements are smaller and lighter in the 100-400, though, so the single motor seems plenty fast. Due to the season, I struggled to find birds that I could reliably get close to for BIF work. There is melting ice near the shoreline that prevented me from getting close, as most of the birds are further out near the open water. Geese have returned, but they are mostly keeping their distance because they are nesting and getting ready for their young. I saw enough to convince me that this would be a capable lens for tracking birds in flight and staying focused during erratic movement even during sustained 20 FPS bursts on my Canon EOS R5.

Eye AF seemed to work fine, with good and reliable detection and tracking of eyes, either human, animal, or bird.

Focus speed was generally excellent, and I actually felt like it might have been a bit quicker in making major focus changes than the RF 100-500L. Even big changes were near instantaneous. To get this shot, for example, I had to react very quickly, as I and the chipmunk arrived on the scene at pretty much the same time, and I only had a few seconds to grab the shot before my presence scared him away. Focus grabbed immediately on his eye, though, and focus results were impeccable.

You can even see that Eye AF worked perfectly even though Ferrari was turned away from me and his eye was hooded by his brow. Focus still detected properly and delivered a well focused result:

I heard little focus noise during standard use, and I didn’t feel there is enough noise to be picked up by the on board mics in video applications.

Nano USM allows the lens to be competitive in terms of focus speed and noise. The disadvantage here is the smaller aperture of the lens, so expect some focus speed slowdown in poorer light. The improved autofocus systems in the modern mirrorless cameras will help with this, though, so the lens will remain usable in more situations than we would have expected in the past. It is important to keep your expectations realistic, however: this lens isn’t going to focus like the RF 400mm F2.8L IS at dusk; there’s a reason why pros will pay $12,000 for a lens like that!

Canon RF 100-400 IS Image Quality

It would unreasonable to expect the RF 100-400 IS to perform at the level of the L series lens (and it doesn’t), but in many ways the RF 100-400 IS delivers quite a strong performance (particularly in the center of the frame), and, even at its weakest point (400mm), it can deliver extremely sharp results under the right conditions.

That looks pretty great!

One of the things I praised about the RF 100-500L was how consistent it was across the zoom range. There was very little rise and fall in sharpness at different focal lengths, and I also found that it delivered very close to peak performance at maximum aperture. The RF 100-400 IS is a little more inconsistent. There are strong points and weaker points in the zoom range, and there is almost always some improvement to be found when stopping down a bit (though usually only a stop, as often by two stops you are getting some negative impact from diffraction that defeats whatever optical gains might otherwise exist.

So let’s break it down. You can get an even deeper dive by watching the image quality section of the video review.

First, a look at vignette and distortion. This is a lens that has some pincushion distortion through the zoom range and increasing vignette, though neither is a significant problem. Here’s 100mm:

There is some apparent pincushion distortion (-7 to correct for it) and barely a stop of vignette in the corners (+32 to correct). This is probably about the best I’ve seen from an RF lens for vignette.

At 400mm the distortion slightly diminishes and the vignette slightly increases.

Pincushion distortion reduces (+5 to correct), and while the vignette is up, it’s still only a +46 to correct for it. The Canon correction profiles clear everything up nicely, so you probably won’t have to manually correct like I have for demonstration purposes.

I was likewise happy with what I saw for chromatic aberration control. In real world images I didn’t see much of an issue with fringing though I did see a very slight “blooming” effect in high contrast transition areas, like the white of the seagulls here.

I looked for lateral chromatic aberrations along the edge of the frame in this shot and didn’t really see anything worth mentioning.

All good!

So how about resolution and contrast? Because of the length of the lens, I use a slightly different test chart from my typical one. It is smaller to allow me to continue to frame it in my basement testing space. Here’s a look at the whole chart that we will be looking at crops from.

All of these tests have been done with the Canon EOS R5 (45MP), a very solid tripod (Robus RC8860), and using a 2 second delay to eliminate any vibration. Here’s a look at nearly 200% crops from the center, mid-frame, and bottom right corner (100mm, F5.6):

We can see a much more uneven sharpness profile than the premium L lens. Center sharpness and contrast is excellent, but we can see it fall off into the midframe and in a pronounced way in the corners. Stopping down to F8 makes for a significant improvement in the midframe (to very good levels):

The corners are improved, but not exceptional. We find the best corner performance at F11. But it in this metric that the L-series lens really demonstrates its superiority. It is vastly sharper at F4.5 in the corners than the 100-400 IS can deliver even at F11:

It’s sharper in the center, too, though the margin is slightly closer there. The old adage, “You get what you pay for…” comes to mind. I found real world images fairly decent, but I also largely treated the lens as an F8 lens (and shot most wider shots at F8, like this one):

That’s good, but not exceptional, obviously. One of Canon’s lower resolution sensors would be a little more forgiving at pixel level than what you see here, though I will point out that the overall image looks nice. Perhaps this is a lens better suited to those who aren’t “pixel-peepers”.

Minimum aperture is very small with this lens. At 100mm it is F32 but as small as F45 by 400mm. I would avoid anything beyond F16 at all costs (particularly on a high resolution body like the R5), as diffraction causes a tremendous amount of image softness. Look at maximum aperture (F4.5) vs minimum aperture (F32):

Ouch! This isn’t actually the lens’ fault; you can blame this one on physics!

The next marked spot on the zoom dial is 135mm, where maximum aperture has already closed to F6.3. Center performance is essentially the same, as are corners, but there is a slight improvement in the midframe. Nothing too exciting to report here.

Moving on to 200mm we find a maximum aperture of F7.1, but I would recommend shooting at F8. It’s only one-third stop darker, but the optical performance is significantly improved, with better detail and much improved contrast across the frame:

Real world results at F7.1 show that reduced contrast and the “blooming” effect on edge transitions:

As I’ve said, you’re best served just treating this lens as a 100-400mm F8 lens. This landscape shot at F8 looks much more compelling.

By 300mm our maximum aperture is F8, and, other than the corners, performance is fairly good across the frame at F8. There is still performance to be gained by stopping down to F11, though.

Detail in shot of wild turkeys at F8 is quite good (those are some strange looking birds!):

Moving on to 400mm I see a fairly similar performance to 300mm, with good performance in the center, fairly good mid-frames, and softer corners. The most obvious advantage in stopping down is found in the mid-frame, which sharpens up very nicely at F11.

There’s some debate over how important corner performance is at a long focal length like this, though you’d rather have it than not, obviously. Composing slightly off-center at F8 produces fairly sharp results, though as always you can see that the contrast isn’t exceptional.

Here’s another shot that I feel has held up well at 400mm, F8. I’m happy with this result:

One factor that can be disconcerting with long lenses is that they can be strongly impacted by thermal pockets in a way that wider focal lengths aren’t. This will be particularly true when shooting over water, hot pavement, or other environments factors that cause temperature variations or where heat rises. One way to easily pick up on this is that textures will almost have the appearance of painted brush strokes – you can see the distortion of the thermal waves. This shot, for example:

This is typically most likely to occur with a distant subject. It’s not an optical flaw of the lens; it’s the reality of physics. You can avoid this by avoiding those thermal variations.

The bokeh from the RF 100-400 IS is a mixed bag. Any long focal length like this has the ability to really compress backgrounds and deliver a strongly defocused background when you are close to your subject, and that’s particularly true of a lens with such a close minimum focus distance. Get close to your subject, and you will have a beautiful looking out of focus area:

This scene was a little more complicated, with more textures remaining in focus due to the F8 aperture.

It still looks fairly good, but busier.

But when your ratio of distance to subject to background isn’t as favorable, however, things aren’t nearly as pleasing. I see a lot of “nervousness” in the textures of this shot.

You can see it in this shot, too, where the out of focus area feels fairly busy.

There are moments that you are reminded that this is a budget telephoto, and the bokeh rendering in some situations is certainly one of them. Your best bet for bokeh is to get close enough where the background is obliterated, as happened with this shot I took on my Sony 35mm F1.4 GM:

I didn’t shoot into the sun much, but from what I did see flare was handled fairly well. You probably still will want to invest in a lens hood to help cope with bright light, though.

In short, the performance of the RF 100-400 IS is roughly what you would expect from, say, a Canon 70-300mm (non L) lens. Fairly good when put in situations where it can thrive, but not top tier when placed in more challenging ones. If you would like to see more images, check out my image gallery here.

Conclusion

I loved the performance of the RF 100-500mm F4.5-7.1L IS USM, but its exorbitant price ($2900 USD!!!) will either scare potential buyers off or make them hold their noses and try to quickly forget what they paid for their shiny new toy. The Canon RF 100-400mm F5.6-8 IS USM is a much more affordable ($650 USD) proposition, and, as such, I suspect there will be a healthy market of those who are willing to accept its limitations. Most photographers simply can’t afford to drop nearly $3000 on a new lens, so it doesn’t matter how good its performance might be. The performance of the RF 100-400 IS is more pedestrian, but, at its best, it can produce lovely images.

A lens with such a small maximum aperture is going to have situations that it struggles in, and I was often surprised by how low my shutter speed was in certain familiar situations because I am so used to have more aperture to work with. But the tradeoff is a truly portable lens that brings this incredible focal range into the kind of size and weight combination that many more photographers can cope with. That makes it a compelling lens for, say, landscape photographers who have figured out that telephoto landscapes are often very compelling.

It will also work fine for those that shoot action, birds, or wildlife in reasonably good light. The autofocus is quick and quiet, and I had no problem locking onto subjects. Just be realistic about the kinds of lighting situations that you’ll be able to get enough shutter speed to stop action, and you’ll be fine. I can see this lens being a “bridge” lens for many – the telephoto option they can afford now while they save (or hope) for a more premium option in the future. For the money, this is a solid lens. It definitely has its limitations, but it pulls off this challenging focal range in a pretty convincing faction…and that small size might mean that even those with deeper pockets might pick one up just for the sake of its portability. This is a solid move for Canon, and the RF 100-400 IS is a lens I suspect will sell very well for them. The only potential fly in the ointment? If (when) Sigma and Tamron arrive on the RF scene, they will almost certainly bring 100-400 options with far fewer compromises. Until that day, though, the RF 100-400 IS is the only reasonably priced game in town.

Pros:

Lowest priced 100-400mm lens I’ve ever tested
Wonderfully compact
Excellent autofocus – quick and quiet
Lens handles nicely in the field
Good center sharpness over most of the zoom range
Good control of aberrations
Class leading magnification
Compatibility with extenders
Low vignette

Cons:

Very slow maximum aperture
No weather sealing or lens hood included
Corner performance fairly weak
Bokeh can get busy
IS system delivers inconsistent results

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Keywords: Canon RF 100-400mm, Canon RF 100-400, 100-500, 100-400 IS, RF, 100-500L, L, IS, Canon RF 100-400mm F5.6-8 Is USM, USM, Canon RF 100-400 Review Canon EOS R5, EOS, R5, EOS R5, EOS R6, mirrorless, full frame, EOS R5 Review, Canon R5 Review, Canon 100-500 Review, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Handling, Tracking, Focus, Burst Rate, Tracking, Sports, Portraits, Resolution, High ISO, Image Quality, Sample Images, Real World, Macro, 45Mp, Canon, Letthelightin

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Canon RF 100-400mm F5.6-8 IS USM Image Gallery

Dustin Abbott

April 10th, 2022

I recently finished up my review of the L (luxury) series Canon RF 100-500mm F4.5-7.1L IS – a lens that is thoroughly premium in both performance and price (retailing for about $2900 USD!). That price point is a prohibitively high bar for many photographers, however. Fortunately Canon has already created a much less expensive alternative in the form of the Canon RF 100-400mm F5.6-8 IS USM. This lens retails at a much more palatable $650 USD, and while it is short on features relative to its big brother and has some real limitations, it is surprisingly competent alternative with a few advantages of its own. The RF 100-400mm IS is compact, has good autofocus, and has fairly good image quality while covering a very important telephoto zoom range that spans from 100mm:

to an impressive 400mm:

There’s a lot of subjects you can fit into a focal range like that, and the weight of only 635g means that you will be able to bring along the lens on your treks even if you aren’t a photography Hercules.

There are some unique strengths of the RF 100-400 IS even relative to its much more expensive big brother. These include:

Much lower price
Much smaller and lighter (700g lighter!)
Higher magnification level (0.41x vs 0.33x)
Fuller compatibility with 1.4x/2x extenders
Slightly higher stabilization rating (5.5 stops vs 5 stops)

That’s not to say that the L-series is outclassed in some way, as it has a long list of its own strengths, including:

Bigger zoom ratio (5x vs 4x)
Faster maximum aperture throughout zoom range
Weather sealing and pro grade build
Dual Nano-USM motors vs 1 Nano-USM
More stabilizer modes
Focus limiter
Tripod collar
Friction ring
Included lens hood and case
Much stronger image quality

I don’t think that anyone is going to argue that the consumer grade lens is a better lens than the professional lens, but I do think that those who have a tight budget can be reassured that they are actually getting a very nice lens even if you could buy 4!!! of the RF 100-400 IS lenses and still pocket $300 for the price of the L-series lens! And as a consolation, you can still get images like this!

Our goal here is to give a comprehensive review of the strengths and weaknesses of this lens, but I think that it is important to acknowledge that this the kind of lens of that Canon has desperately needed – less expensive alternatives to their premium offerings. There have been more Canon RF lenses costing more than $2000 than those in the under $1000 range. Lenses like the RF 100-400 IS help to fill out the catalog with lenses that average photographers can actually afford…and that’s important. You can find my full thoughts in either the text review or video review.

Thanks to Camera Canada for getting me a loaner of the RF 100-400 IS. If you’re in Canada, check them out for a reliable online retailer. *The tests and the photos shown in this review have been taken on my 45 MP Canon EOS R5.

Photos of the Canon RF 100-400mm F5.6-8 IS

Photos Taken with the Canon RF 100-400mm F5.6-8 IS

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Keywords: Canon RF 100-400mm, Canon RF 100-400, 100-500, 100-400 IS, RF, 100-500L, L, IS, Canon RF 100-400mm F5.6-8 Is USM, USM, Canon RF 100-400 Review Canon EOS R5, EOS, R5, EOS R5, EOS R6, mirrorless, full frame, EOS R5 Review, Canon R5 Review, Canon 100-500 Review, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Handling, Tracking, Focus, Burst Rate, Tracking, Sports, Portraits, Resolution, High ISO, Image Quality, Sample Images, Real World, Macro, 45Mp, Canon, Letthelightin

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Laowa 20mm F4 Shift Lens Review

Dustin Abbott

March 28th, 2022

Laowa (Venus Optics) has never been afraid to take on challenging lens designs. It is hard to find a “conventional” lens in their lineup, as every lens has some kind of unique twist to it. Macro at very wide angles or extremely high magnification levels, a design that emphasizes zero distortion in a very wide focal length, a ridiculously wide reticular zoom lens, a smooth trans focus telephoto, and, perhaps strangest of all, a probe lens that looks more like a rifle. None of these are easy lenses to design and engineer, and yet Laowa has built its brand on taking on difficult challenges and largely pulling them off. I admire them for this. One of those challenges they have tackled is the building of shift lenses. It started several years ago when I reviewed their Magic Shift Converter, a unique device which leveraged the space provided in an adapter from a Canon EF or Nikon F mount to a Sony full frame mirrorless mount to incorporate ten degrees of shift into the lens. I actually purchase a Laowa 12mm F2.8 Zero D lens to pair with the MSC for shooting interiors and architecture on Sony, as it allows you to get amazing results with the resulting 17mm F4 Shift lens. They followed that up with a dedicated wide angle shift lens – the Laowa 15mm F4.5 W-Dreamer Shift lens, which I reviewed here. About a year later they are now launching a second dedicated shift lens in the form of the new Laowa 20mm F4 C-Dreamer Shift, which features the ability to shift ten millimeters (1 millimeter less than the 15mm F4.5) in either direction. The Laowa 20S (as we’ll call it for brevity) will be available in even more mounts, including Canon EF/ RF, Nikon Z/F, Sony E, Pentax PK, Fuji GFX, and Leica L mount. I’m doing my review on a Sony E-mount copy, and on Sony there are very few shift options. I suspect that’s true on most other platforms, but obviously the value relative to the competition (if there is any!) is going to vary from platform to platform, so you may need to draw some of your own conclusions depending on your camera system of choice.

Shift lenses are very useful in a number of settings. One significant one is that they allow one to adjust the lens in such a way to offset the inevitable “keystoning” effect that comes when you try to compose images to include the details you want. Things like trees and buildings lean towards the center, and often your resulting image looks little like the scene did when you viewed it. I took this image on a South Carolina plantation and wanted to capture the amazing oak with the Spanish moss hanging from it, but the byproduct of tilting up the camera with the wide angle lens that I happened to have along resulted in a comical amount of lean on the kitchen building on the right side of the frame.

A shift lens like the Laowa 20S overcomes this by allowing you to physically move (shift) a section of the lens up to 10mm in either direction (with 360° of rotation) to allow you much more control in properly aligning lines. I was documenting part of our construction project on our new church building, and, though I was pointing the camera up in a similar fashion, I used the shift function of the lens to produce straight lines even with the upward tilt of the camera sensor.

One of the chief advantages of these dedicated shift lenses from Laowa is that (unlike the MSC and 12mm combination), you can get the lens in the native mount of your camera (more on that in a moment). The second advantage is in size and weight. The MSC weighs 360g, so, when combined with the Laowa 12mm F2.8 (609g), you end up with a combination that weighs nearly a kilogram. The Laowa 15S weighs in at 597g (1.3 lb), and the new 20mm F4 shift is a little heavier at 743g by my measurement in the FE mount. Heavier, but still lighter than the combination package…and smaller.

Obviously the 20mm focal length is less extreme (94.4°) than the 15mm focal length of the previous lens, as that lens achieved a very wide 110° angle of view. Both lenses have slightly different purposes. 20mm is a more natural focal length for getting wide angle shots but without the extreme sense of empty space/exaggeration that the wider focal length provides, though 15mm will obviously be very useful when trying to frame either tall buildings or interior spaces where a greater sense of space is desirable. Let’s illustrate the point…and give the workaround.

Here’s a look at a bathroom shot that real estate agent might take to use in a listing for a house. Here it is at 20mm from the new Laowa 20S:

I shot the same space with the 15mm Shift lens a year ago:

The 15mm obviously gives a wider perspective with more context of the room. But because I have the ability to shift the lens, I could also have the option of taking multiple shots and combining them in post. This actually gives me 117° of perspective…and arguably the nicest looking result.

Yes, I could do the same thing with the 15mm lens and get an even wider perspective, but some people may prefer the 20mm angle of view, and the shifting ability allows one to still capture very wide images. You could take this a step further, in fact, and also shift up and down at various angles and end up with a shot like this that includes both the width and the height of the room:

I think this really illustrates the options that a shift lens opens up to a photographer, and this is the kind of lens that should be considered indispensable for someone who focuses on architecture and interiors. It’s also worth noting that you get a little brighter maximum aperture here relative to the 15mm lens (F4 vs F4.5).

Laowa has priced the 20mm F4 shift at $100 less than the 15mm F4.5. You’ll pay $1099 USD for the lens, which is expensive, but first party shift (or tilt/shift) lenses are typically at least $1000 more. Unless your job is real estate or architectural photography, however, there’s a good chance that a shift lens is going to be a niche item for you. Getting a competent shift lens at half the price is very likely to be appealing to many.

So should you consider this new lens from Laowa? You can answer that question by checking out my detailed video review or reading on below:

Thanks to Laowa for sending me a loaner of the lens. As always, my review is done without any external bias or pressure. The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle of the 20mm F4 Shift have been done with the Sony Alpha 1 which will serve as my benchmark camera for the foreseeable future (my review here).

Laowa 20S Build and Handling

Laowa lenses have always had a very high grade of build, and the 20mm Shift lens is no exception. As noted, the construction is all metal and glass, and it has a satisfyingly dense feel to it.

I’ve reviewed a third party Tilt/Shift lens before (Samyang 24mm F3.5) and was less than wowed by its construction. Shift (or Tilt/Shift lenses) have a lot of additional knobs and levers, and some of the ones on the Samyang felt plasticky and didn’t inspire confidence that they would hold up for the long haul. There’s no such issue here, as everything is made of high grade materials and feels like it has decades of usability built in.

To this point Laowa has developed only manual focus lenses, and while that’s true here, too, it’s not much of a liability as Tilt/Shift lenses are by nature manual focus only (the lens literally moves apart!). There’s a rumor that Canon is bringing autofocus T/S lenses to RF, but as of the moment, manual focus is the only game in town. One typically doesn’t use shift lenses in a rush anyway; I view these as being lenses one uses deliberately and most often from a tripod. The focus ring is closest to the front of the lens, and in the spirit of most all Laowa focus rings, it moves beautifully with excellent damping. There is about a 115° of focus throw (less than the 15mm). Focus can be a little bit challenging on a DSLR, so I recommend using Live View focus and magnifying the image. On mirrorless it is a bit easier, but I still prefer to magnify the image as much as possible to verify accurate focus. I found focusing a little more challenging than usual here, mostly because focus overlays tend to show everything in focus…even when it really isn’t. Magnifying the image in the viewfinder also doesn’t increase the detail high enough to make fine determinations of what it is and is not quite in focus, so I did end up with some results that weren’t well focused, like this:

This is a lens that familiarity will help a lot with. For landscape images, like above, it will be easy to prefocus before taking the shot when you know from experience where focus should be set.

While the 15S did not have a lens hood or the ability to use traditional filters, the less extreme focal length of the Laowa 20S allows for both. Traditional screw in filters can be used in a large but common 82mm size.

The unique thing here is the lens hood. It is made of metal and finished to match the lens. Rather than bayonetting on, it has a locking knob on the side that you tighten after mounting it on the lens (align the red dot of the lens hood with a corresponding red dot on the lens barrel).

What’s unique, though, is that once the hood is mounted, you can grasp the front portion and rotate it. The need for this becomes apparent when you realize that the lens hood will cause some mechanical vignette in certain shift positions if you don’t rotate the lens hood, like this:

The ability to rotate the hood means that you can always find a position where it isn’t blocking the image and causing vignette. I appreciate having the protection, however, as the 15mm has an exposed bulbous front element that felt very vulnerable.

The other area of vulnerability of the 15S is shared by the 20s, namely the lack of weather sealing in the lens. This is an area that Laowa has yet to develop, and a lens like this could use some internal seals as there are so many moving parts and areas of vulnerability on it. The plus side (for this purpose) is that the lens doesn’t have any electronics, so there are perhaps fewer things that could be damaged by water or dust intrusion. Still, this is a lens that feels like it could really benefit from advanced weather sealing.

While I appreciate the fact that Laowa is supporting so many mounts in this lens, there is an element of compromise that comes with that move. This mix of mounts includes both traditional DLSR mounts like Canon EF and Nikon F along with a variety of mirrorless lens mounts. The problem is that DSLR’s have mirrors while mirrorless cameras…don’t. That means that their optical paths start at different places. It is this difference that has allowed for Canon EF mount lenses (for example) to be easily adapted to many mirrorless cameras via adapter. One of the purposes of the adapter is to move the optical path further away from the sensor so that the optical design of the lens continues to function properly (and you can focus to infinity still). A lens designed directly for mirrorless can put the optics close to the back of the lens (like normal) because it purposefully designed for a shorter “flange distance” to the sensor. Because this lens is designed for both types of mounts this means that it really has to be designed for a camera with a mirror, so in the mirrorless mount versions (like the Sony FE version I’m reviewing) there’s essentially a built in “spacer” to move the optics further away. You can see this not only in the physical design from the outside, but if you look in the back of the lens, you’ll find there is a full 40mm of space between the rear of the lens and the beginning of the optics. In short, that makes the lens larger and heavier than what it would be if it were purpose designed for mirrorless mounts only.

There are three different rings on the lens, and middle one is devoted to aperture. The aperture ring is pretty straightforward, with mild detents at the full stop points. They took a very different approach to the aperture iris, as the 15S had a low blade count of only 5, while the 20S has a very high blade count of 14 (rounded blades). I was pleasantly surprised that I continued to get very nice looking 14 pointed sunstars with nice definition.

My criticism of the aperture ring lies in the fact that it is positioned very, very close to the shift ring.

I’ve found on a number of occasions that my rotations of the shift ring have inadvertently resulted in the aperture being shifted as well…a fact I’ve sometimes not discovered until too late and had a few shots at an aperture value I didn’t want at all. This is heightened by doing this review in winter; wearing gloves is an imperative in subzero temperatures…particularly when you are handling a metal lens!

The front-most ring is the focus ring, as mentioned, and I have no complaints there. Laowa has long done a great job in creating excellent focus rings.

Shift lenses are going to seem a bit complicated to the uninitiated (T/S lenses are worse still!). There are about four different parts here that you won’t find on a traditional lens. The first is the third ring, which allows you to smoothly shift the lens 10mm in either direction. The shift action is smooth and precise, with just about the perfect amount of damping to it, though the weight will (obviously) be a little heavier when you are shifting the lens up. There are two metal plates on either side of the section that moves that allow you do see the scale of how much shift is being employed. There is a satisfying detent at 0 to help you know when you have returned to “normal” and no shift.

As you rotate that ring, the further portion of the lens will shift to the left or the right (or up or down, as we’ll see in a moment), to move the optical path in such a way that the keystoning effect (vertical lines leaning in) is removed.

You’ll see that there is also a locking knob there to help to hold a desired shift position. I found that I often didn’t have to employ that step, as there was enough damping on the shift ring to hold my desired position without need to lock things down.

The fourth ingredient here is a small metal lever near the base of the lens.

This allows you to rotate the entire lens 360°. This allows you the ability to use your shift capabilities for images composed in either portrait or landscape orientations. You can even shift on a diagonal axis for those rare occasions when that is needed.

The mechanical action of the lens is top-notch.

While it is was not a part of the package of my pre-release sample of the lens, it does seem that Laowa is producing a tripod support for these lenses that will be an additional accessory and attached near the plate shown above. Without having used it, I can’t say whether or not it will be an improvement to function, though function feels fine to me without it.

The Laowa 20S has a minimum focus distance of 25cm and delivers a maximum magnification of 0.17x, which is useful. You can see from my test shot above that the lens delivers fairly good performance up close as well (Laowa’s experience with wide angle macro serves them well).

The lens is 95mm in diameter at its widest point (front filter thread), though most of the lens is much slimmer), and is 91mm in length. 103mm in length (4.1″). The lens isn’t light at 743g (as tested), but feels very substantial and well made. What’s here is very nice and well executed, though I would like to have seen weather sealing on the lens, and, because there are no electronics in the lens, you also miss out on all the typical EXIF information you would ordinarily get about the lens designation, the aperture of the shot, etc… I feel like both of these are areas that Laowa needs to develop, as they aren’t developing cheap lenses where the lack of these things is easily excused. This is a $1100 USD lens, which certainly qualifies as premium in price.

Using the Laowa 20mm F4 Shift Lens

Using the Laowa 20S is fairly straightforward. With a typical lens, you cannot really avoid getting the typical “leaning” (keystoning) effect of aiming the camera up at a subject above you, like this:

Typically the only way you could avoid this is by moving up to a height where the sensor of the camera can level out and still get your composition. You can rarely do this, however, so your only option if you want things to be straight is to compose with the camera leveled out, like this:

At this point nothing is leaning (the point of this composition), but this isn’t the shot you wanted. The main point of the shot (the beautiful pine forest) is barely in the frame, and mostly what we have is just a lot of snow in the foreground. With a typical lens, we would just live with the lean. But a shift lens means that you don’t have to settle.

The shot above is the composition we would want before we employ shift. Your composition is about eliminating perspective distortion, and that means getting everything level (both the horizon and the tilt of the camera). Now that everything is level, you can use the shift function to move the lens up or down to include what you want in the frame. If you are below your subject (most typical), this will mean shifting up. If you are above your subject, this means shifting down. All of sudden you can have both the straight, upright lines that you want plus the desired composition, too!

This result is much more pleasing, as it has eliminated the “lean” while also giving me my desired composition. If I had tried to do that through software, I would have lost a good portion of the image due to trying to correct the keystoning, but, as you can see by comparing our final result with the original above, we’ve actually lost very little width to the image.

When photographing buildings from the street level, you will often have a problem with them “leaning away” from you, like this:

Shift works very well to restore the proper angle to buildings, however, allowing them to look more natural and imposing:

The Laowa 20S works equally well in portrait orientation, too. You can choose just how you would like the composition to be while preserving beautifully straight geometry.

As we saw earlier, a shift lens is really useful for capturing interiors as it gives you the ability to not only eliminate the keystoning (or distortion common to wide angle lenses) but also some flexibility as to how to capture the interior space.

One of my absolute favorite aspects of a shift lens is in getting getting great panoramas and vertoramas. Typically you get panoramas by “panning” with the camera. If you do this handheld or even on a tripod, you are introducing a number of different angles into the composition because the sensor is recording different perspectives. Even shooting from a tripod will result in something like the following when the images are composited together:

A lot of the final image gets cut to square off the edges, leaving you with a really wide image that has little sky or foreground included. You can also see some curvature of the horizon in this image:

But a shift lens allows you to leave the camera in one position and instead shift the lens along a perfectly level access in either direction. In this case, I took three images: one shifted 10mm to the left, the second without shift, and the final image shifted 10mm to the right:

If I go to combine these images in Lightroom, you can see that there is essentially no waste to the three frames at all even without the auto crop setting on:

I now have an exceptionally clean panorama that has low distortion, good detail, and is seamless because of having such a clean way of getting the images.

You can do the same thing by rotating the lens and getting images to combine into a “vertorama”. Here I have shifted up and down to get the three images:

I can then combine those into a vertical panorama to get a very cool shoot with tons of detail in the image. That is a massive 8698 x 11030 pixels – large enough for some serious prints!

Here’s another place where I’ve employed this same technique to get a killer end result.

Put simply, a shift lens just gives you creative options that an ordinary lens cannot. They are more work to use, yes, but they are very rewarding.

Laowa 20S Image Quality

So does the new Laowa 20S hold up optically? I used a 50 MP Sony Alpha 1 for these tests, which is obviously a high resolution test for the performance of any lens.

A typical wide angle lens carries a lot of distortion, but this is one of Laowa’s “Zero D” lenses, which means that it has next to no barrel distortion. I didn’t find enough distortion to correct in my tests. Vignette is a more typical Laowa fault, and the Laowa 20S is not exempt, though it does fair a little better than usual.

It has about two stops of vignette in the corners and required a +47 to correct it and I pushed the midpoint slider all the way to zero to make the correction more linear. Still, nothing unusual here. This is a better performance than many wide angle lenses, and perhaps the fact that they are also making this lens for the larger Fuji GFX sensor is to be credited here.

I was also pleased about the control of chromatic aberrations, particularly in what I consider the crucial setting for a lens like this – light streaming through windows into an interior space. You will often see terrible fringing in these settings (even on home improvement shows!). I looked through my test photos and found almost no fringing even in those critical high contrast settings. This shot from our construction zone was probably the worse that I could find, and there’s almost nothing there.

That’s a very important feature on a lens like this.

So how about resolution? Here’s a look at the test chart I use for these tests:

Wide open performance is similar to the 15mm F4.5. I would categorize it as good but not great, with decent contrast and acuity, but some haze on textures and a drop-off in corner performance (though not a huge one.) I think the 20mm is probably sharper in the center of the frame, though. Here’s F4 crops from the center, mid-frame, and edge:

This is probably the best performance of the three Laowa shift options (15mm F4.5. 12mm F2.8 + MSC) in terms of resolution, though.

Wide open performance is somewhat irrelevant to the kind of way I use a lens like this, however, as I typically use it on a tripod and focus on smaller apertures where I can get good sharpness across the frame and deep depth of field. Stopping down to F8 produces excellent center results.

Corner results aren’t as satisfying, though, achieving only good levels.

Real world results are very good, however, if not the most exceptional that I’ve seen.

Here’s another shot, and the crop (from the bottom edge) shows a result that looks generally sharp but not bitingly so.

I think the Laowa 20S is sufficiently high resolution to get the job done (it will look even better on lower resolution sensors), but it doesn’t approach the top tier of wide angle performance.

I got some mixed results when it came to flare. Overall I felt like contrast held up well, but you can see a few random ghosting artifacts, like in this shot:

I can’t say that I felt like any of my images were destroyed by flare, however. This panorama has a lot of bright sun in it, and does have some flare artifacts, but it feels fairly stylistic to me.

So overall we have some good strengths here (low CA, vignette, and distortion) along with good but not great whole frame resolution and flare resistance. You can check out more images by visiting my image gallery here.

Conclusion

The Laowa 20mm F4 C-Dreamer Shift lens is targeted (like all shift lenses) at a somewhat specific audience. There are cheaper 20mm lenses that have even more sharpness and contrast, but the shift capabilities of the Laowa 20S are what make it intriguing. One can do many more things with a shift lens than you can with a conventional 20mm lens – like produce awesome vertoramas like this:

Those straight lines and low distortion make for very compelling architecture or interior shots, and that is one of my favorite applications for the lens. But even my forest work is enhanced by not having any of the trees leaning, and I can get killer panoramas like this.

The Laowa 20S has a less extreme focal length, which allows it to behave a little more conventionally. It has a lens hood and can take filters, which means that I could a long exposure like shot where I couldn’t with the 15mm F4.5.

Shift lens tend to be expensive and rare, and on many of these platforms they are simply non-existent in a native mount, so the Laowa 20S is a welcome addition. In some cases this may the first shift lens available in the mount you use, so that makes this lens important. There are few areas of disappointment, sure, but all in all this is a nicely made, highly functional lens that can genuinely help you get unique images in the challenging margins of photography. Shift lenses may not be for everyone, but I do enjoy the creative options that they afford. And for some people, a lens like this will become the most valuable tool in your kit.

Pros:

Very high grade build – all metal and glass
Good mechanical precision of the many moving parts
Shift ring is precise and moves well
Available in a huge variety of mounts
Considerably cheaper than any Canon Tilt/Shift lens
Low native distortion
Good chromatic aberration control
Excellent center sharpness
Can use traditional filters

Cons:

No weather sealing in a lens that moves in a lot of directions
No electronics complicates things
Corners aren’t particularly sharp at any aperture
Easy to inadvertently change settings on the aperture ring

Gear Used:

Purchase a Laowa 20mm F4 Shift lens @ B&H Photo | Amplis Foto (use code AMPLIS52018DA for 5% off)| Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

Purchase a Laowa 15mm F4.5 Shift lens @ B&H Photo | Camera Canada | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany

Purchase a Canon EOS R5 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Purchase a Canon EOS R6 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Peak Design Slide Lite: Peak Design Store | B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK
Peak Design Leash Strap: Peak Design Store | B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK
BenQ SW271 4K Photo Editing Monitor – B&H Photo | Amazon | Amazon.ca | Amazon UK
Adobe Photoshop Creative Cloud 1-Year Subscription
Exposure Software X6 (Use Code “dustinabbott” to get 10% anything and everything)
Visit Dustin’s Amazon Storefront and see his favorite gear

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.

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Keywords: Laowa 20mm, Shift, Laowa 20mm Shift Review, Laowa 20mm F4, Review, Laowa 20mm F4 C-Dreamer, Shift, Magic Shift Converter, 15mm F4.5, Laowa MSC Review, Magic Shift Converter Review, MSC Review, Dustin Abbott, letthelightin, Venus Optics, Sony FE, Demonstration, Review, How To, Sample Images, Video Test, Video Review, Canon EOS R5, EOS, R5, EOS R5, Canon EOS R6, Nikon Z, Nikon F, mirrorless, full frame, Comparison, Handling, Focus, Resolution, High ISO, Image Quality, Sample Images, Photography, Sony Alpha 1, 50MP

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Canon RF 28mm F2.8 STM Review

Dustin Abbott

November 4th, 2023

Conclusion

Pros:

Cons:

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

GEAR USED:

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Canon RF 24mm F1.8 Macro IS STM Review

Dustin Abbott

November 17th, 2022

Canon RF 24mm F1.8 Macro IS STM Build and Handling

Autofocus and Video Performance

Canon RF24M Image Quality

Conclusion

Pros:

Cons:

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Canon RF 24mm F1.8 Macro IS STM Gallery

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Photos of the Canon RF 24mm F1.8 Macro IS STM

Photos Taken with the Canon RF 24mm F1.8

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Canon RF 16mm F2.8 STM Review

Dustin Abbott

September 9th, 2022

Canon RF 16mm F2.8 STM Build and Handling

Autofocus and Video Performance

Canon RF 16mm F2.8 STM Image Quality

Conclusion

Pros:

Cons:

Purchase a Canon RF 16mm F2.8 STM @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | eBay

Purchase a Canon RF 50mm F1.8 STM @ B&H Photo | Camera Canada | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Purchase a Canon RF 85mm F2 Macro IS STM @ B&H Photo | Camera Canada | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Purchase a Canon EOS R5 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Purchase a Canon EOS R6 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

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Photos of the Canon RF 16mm F2.8 STM

Photos Taken with the Canon RF 16mm F2.8 STM

Purchase a Canon RF 16mm F2.8 STM @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | eBay

Purchase a Canon RF 50mm F1.8 STM @ B&H Photo | Camera Canada | Amazon | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

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Purchase a Canon EOS R5 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

Purchase a Canon EOS R6 @ B&H Photo | Amazon | Camera Canada | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK | Amazon Germany | Ebay

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Conclusion