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OpticalLimits (formerly photozone.de) recently published their review on the Canon RF 24mm f/1.8 IS STM.
The RF STM lenses form the bang-for-the-buck prime framework for the RF mount. Also, these lenses are small and inexpensive enough to be suitable for use on Canon's RF-S (APS-C) camera line. The Canon RF 24mm f/1.8 on an APS-C camera comes pretty close to being a 35mm lens. I would argue that the lens is far more optimized for APS-C and center performance than it is for the corners.
Key descriptive features of the Canon RF 24mm F.18 IS STM include;
- RF-Mount Lens/Full-Frame Format
- Aperture Range: f/1.8 to f/22
- One UD Element, One Aspherical Element
- Super Spectra Coating
- STM Stepping AF Motor
- 1:2 Max. Magnification, 5.5″ Min. Focus
- Optical Image Stabilizer
- Customizable Control Ring
- Rounded 9-Blade Diaphragm
So how does the lens do? Well, we have to consider that this is a $600 prime lens that is regularly on sale down to $549 or lower, and as such, it's not going to rival Canon's legendary L lenses. We have discussed this in the past, but there are tradeoffs for cost, size, weight and optical quality and engineers work hard to balance all those criteria.
Center resolution is good, with resolution dropping off quickly in the deep corners. Chromatic aberration are decently controlled. LoCA or Bokeh fringing isn't especially problematic either.
If you are a JPEG shooter, I'd make sure to have Digital Lens Optimizer enabled on your camera to exact the best possible output from this lens. Usually, any lens that doesn't have a red ring, should have this enabled if you don't process your own RAW files.
So how did Klaus rate this lens? Well, he doesn't like in-camera correction of lenses including elements such as vignetting and distortion, so this lens does take a bit of a in terms of the view, but in a practical sense, I still think it passes the bang for the buck muster.
The Canon RF 24mm f/1.8 IS STM macro fills an interesting niche. It can be used for many applications from landscape-, architecture-, street- to some macro photography. Quality-wise, it's not fully convincing for a prime lens. That's most obvious at large aperture settings where the outer image field is (too) soft. This changes at medium apertures. While the dead center quality is superb, the borders and corners are “just” very decent without standing out. And prime lenses are supposed to stand out here. That's also because the lens relies heavily on image auto-correction to compensate the comparatively massive barrel distortion and vignetting. Lateral and axial CAs are about average for a lens in this class. A very positive aspect is the quality of the bokeh. Wide-angle lenses tend to suffer in this respect whereas the Canon lens renders out-of-focus areas quite nicely.
https://opticallimits.com/canon/canon-rf/canon-rf-24mm-f-1-8-is-stm-macro-review/
Optical limits give it a 7/10 overall score with the breakdown as follows;
| Optical Quality | 7/10 |
| Build Quality | 7/10 |
| Price / Performance | 7.5/10 |
You can read the entire review here.
Source: OpticalLimits
...but even regarding to image quality it failed to impress me: this is the only RF prime lens, out of those that I tried so far (I've had most of the RF system in my hands), with a price tag above €400 where I saw soft corners on my 20 megapixel R6, wide open. It sharpens-up nicely when stopped down, but I expected the same level of image quality as the RF 35mm f/1.8 (specially considering this 24mm is more expensive, as a wider field of view would usually be), and I didn't find it here.