Here is the Canon RF 16mm f/2.8 STM

[InchMetric]

IBIS is not so great on the wide end.

...because a given angular movement results in a larger image shift away from center than at the center. Even perfect IBIS that tracks the image center will be inherently unable to simultaneously track the corners.

 

[entoman]

I doubt that there will be much, if any weather-sealing, but I'm also not that concerned. Just don't use it in wet conditions without covering the camera and if it does get damaged, it's not a major loss.

If it looks likely that a lens (or camera) might get exposed to rain or water splashes, then wise users would take precautions to protect it. I usually keep a polythene bag in my pocket for precisely that eventuality.

But it's likely that some camera users will over-estimate the degree of weather-sealing provided by camera and lens manufacturers. Also I think it's pretty safe to say that *all* of us have at some time found ourselves caught out in a shower with an unprotected camera.

Virtually any camera or lens will survive a few spots of rain, but it's important for users to understand the *degree* of weather-sealing, and to choose gear accordingly.

Also bear in mind that weather-sealing isn't just about protecting gear from direct contact with water, it's also about protecting the internals from humidity. "Covering the camera" won't protect it from humidity. A budget lens is unlikely to last long if regularly exposed to high humidity, but a weather-sealed L lens will last for years in such conditions.

 

[Aussie shooter]

Regarding astrophotography, I fear that vignetting will be a big problem with the 16 mm. The pancake EF-S 24mm and EF 40 mm, as well as even the RF 35mm, have pretty severe vignetting, so I suspect that even if coma is well controlled (and that's a pretty big 'if'), there will be significant vignetting with this 16 mm. I'd like to be wrong, but I doubt this will be a good lens for astro. Personally, I don't really care whether distortion is corrected with software if the end result is still sharp, as seems to be the case with the 14-35, but software correction for vignetting is nothing but a radial (or reverse radial) exposure boost and increases noise, one of the main issues for astro.

That is my fear but hopefully I am wrong. I would make for a great light astro lens if the IQ is good enough. And if it is there is no question that I will get it.

 

[David - Sydney]

Weren't all the low end EF-S kit zooms 18-55?

True but I guess I was comparing to the EF-s 10-18/10-21mm UWA zooms

 

[David - Sydney]

Hey, a guy can dream, right? Yes, 14mm would be better for astro but I'd MUCH rather carry around this 16mm lens than my awkward-sized 14mm Rokinon.

You mean dream that Canon will release a UWA astro landscape prime with great coma/corner sharpness at a reasonable price and size? Hard to what niche is buying the 14mm/2.8L ii

 

[Traveler]

So why couldn’t the same low handheld shutter speeds be attainable with a Canon body with IBIS and this 16 mm non IS lens?

Maybe not every R body has an IBIS

 

[M. D. Vaden of Oregon]

LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY

This would be an excellent lightweight option to store in a bag for landscape photography rather than the 16-35mm. I usually carry a 24-70 and sold my 16-35 because I don't use the wide zoom much. But around $299 and featherweight, I would certainly stow a tiny prime 16mm.

 

[Bennymiata]

I wonder how it compares to the Samyang 14mm RF AF 2.8?
I was lucky enough to get one and it's really very good.
If this 16mm is any good, I'll get that too as 14mm is sometimes just too wide.

 

[Chig]

Nice to see the possibility of another low cost RF lens. If the price is that low it's unlikely to have IS, which seems consistent with earlier information regarding the lens description. At such a low price, the lens is also unlikely to have a separate control ring.

So another lens along the same lines as the RF 50mm f/1.8. If the lens lacks both IS and a dedicated control ring, I'll likely pass.

Why do your need IS in a very wide angle lens , do you have very shaky hands ?

 

[Jethro]

I wonder how it compares to the Samyang 14mm RF AF 2.8?
I was lucky enough to get one and it's really very good.
If this 16mm is any good, I'll get that too as 14mm is sometimes just too wide.

The Samyang 14mm 2.8 is excellent, but it's pretty big (gigantic front element!), and it's no walk-around lens.

 

[aceflibble]

I think Canon and Nikon had 21mm wide-angles that required the mirror to be locked up for using them, mainly for architecture use, in order to take advantage of the simple solutions possible when you don't have a mirror in the way.

Canon's was/is a 19mm, the FL 19mm f/3.5, and it is a huge pain to use, utterly terrible optically, and architecture is the last thing you'd want to use it for thanks to its extremely heavy and non-linear distortion. It came with a hotshoe viewfinder attachment to shoot with the mirror up.
They later made a retrofocus version which could be used with the mirror down, but it's a much larger and heavier lens, and the optics are no better.
A particular problem with the original 19mm's design with digital (and some colour film) is having the rear elements so close to the sensor/film means the angle the light has to exit at is really severe and nothing really lines up well. Not only does this mean the mid-frame to the edges are very soft and very dark, but on most digital sensors it causes very strong purple vignette. (On some colour films it can be green.)
Obviously a lot of time has passed since 1964 and manufacturing techniques have improved immensely, but the laws of physics do not change and designs like that lens (and potentially this one) still face most of the same troubles. Being bale to put big elements closer to the sensor helps in getting the wide angle of view, but geting that wide angle with good quality is another matter.

They should make some extension tubes, or another vendor should. a tiny extension has a huge effect for wide-angles.

Many third-parties already do make RF tubes. For essome bizarre reason Kenko's tubes are priced at something stupid like £200 for a couple of tubes, while you're looking at £40 or so for brands like Meike and JJC. Canon probably are holding off making official ones until they feel sales of their macro and semi-macro RF lenses have already dropped off; it's hard to keep selling macro lenses when many people feel they can get the same results with a standard lens and a tube. Once Canon do, inevitably, put out their own tubes, you'll see more companies copying them and prices on RF tubes will come down.

and IBIS is there for owners of everything other than R and RP.

Sure, but the RP is the highest-selling RF body to date and the R is second. For all the headlines they get, the R6 and R5 are still new, high-priced, low-availability products. And of course we have no idea if Canon will put IBIS in every other body going forward; it would be a very Canon thing to reserve IBIS only for bodies above the £2000 mark.

Is the corner sharpness good enough for landscapes?
Is the weather-sealing adequate for use in showery conditions?
Does it suffer from unacceptable levels of flare?
Does it suffer from unacceptable levels of CA?
Does it suffer from unacceptable levels of barrel or pincushion distortion?

1) Will probably depend on how much of the image someone defines as the "corner". Given how the other non-L RF lenses have been, and the size of this lens, it's a safe bet there's going to be a lot of distortion and vignetting to correct.
2) It's categorically not weather sealed, as is the case for all of Canon's non-L lenses, since Canon think it's still 1986 and sealing and lens hoods are a "luxury" addition. If someone wants weather sealed, cheap, compact lenses, they need to move to Fuji's f/2 and f/2.8 primes, or Tamron's on Sony.
3) It's an ultra wide with apparently backwards optics, so flaring should be very common but not particularly strong.
4) Yes but I'm willing to bet the camera will burn opcodes into the files to correct it so we never see the fringing outside of RawTherapee.
5) See #1.

IBIS is not so great on the wide end.

IBIS isn't quite as effective as you go wider than it is in the middle range, but this lens being so small will help a lot (IBIS being more effective the nearer to the sensor the largest optics are), and really it's telephotos where IBIS is basically useless. (Keeping the sensor still doesn't matter when a giant front element is swinging around two feet away!)

I wonder how it compares to the Samyang 14mm RF AF 2.8?

Given the size difference, I think it's safe to assume this lens will be relying more on software and the Samyang will remain the better 'pure' optic. However, as the 24-240 shows Canon have gotten opcodes down to a fine art (or they've copy&pasted from Fuji, who are the real masters of software correction) and the actual end result from the Canon may be superior, regardless of how it gets there.
But the Samyang will surely have better autofocus (not that AF really varies much with UWAs, but even so, these STM motors have been consistently terrible), is weather sealed, and you didn't have to pay extra to get a hood. So it's not like the Samyang (or Rokinon/Bower, whatever branding of it someone buys) will suddenly become pointless or outright replaced.

Cards on the table, my gut instinct is the Canon will be better for jpg and video while the Samyang/Rokinon/Bower will be better for raw stills, and both will have their place in a lot of peoples' bags.

 

[gruhl28]

...because a given angular movement results in a larger image shift away from center than at the center. Even perfect IBIS that tracks the image center will be inherently unable to simultaneously track the corners.

Interesting, I’d never thought of that.

 

[scyrene]

Why do your need IS in a very wide angle lens , do you have very shaky hands ?

Shooting in dimly-lit interiors? Or after dark?

 

[FrenchFry]

Some more information from Nokishita:

 

[CaMeRa QuEsT]

I get the mirth but I think it is related to the "officially killing the EF-M mount off" part of your comment which has no basis.

Is has been suggested that a low cost wide angle lens would be needed if a APS-C sensor is introduced to RF mount for a R7. This could certainly be part of that stra

I get the mirth but I think it is related to the "officially killing the EF-M mount off" part of your comment which has no basis.

Is has been suggested that a low cost wide angle lens would be needed if a APS-C sensor is introduced to RF mount for a R7. This could certainly be part of that strategy.

My hope was that Canon's next APS-C lens would be a fast portrait prime in EF-M mount, instead we get this 16mm RF mount lens. The EF-M mount is going to be 10 years old next year and still no portrait prime for it from Canon. How is this mount not already dead for Canon? Also, look at all the great APS-C lenses that Tamron has brought to market in the last couple of years for the E mount, none of which are offered in EF-M mount, even though Tamron was the first (and for a long time the only) 3rd party lens maker doing a native AF EF-M mount lens with their 18-200mm that is also available in E mount. I had to settle for a low quality yet still expensive Sigma 56mm f/1.4 because why would Canon bring to market a portrait lens 8 or more years after the mount was first introduced? EF-M is dead and this 16mm f/2.8 is the mount's tombstone.

What I find really amusing is all the people in this forum believing that Canon is currently capable of making a FF 16mm f/2.8 UWA prime the size of their own nifty fifty (look ma, a tiny 43mm filter thread on a FF UWA!) AND that Canon is currently willing to sell such a lens at the same price as said nifty fifty. Hope, indeed, springs eternal.

 

[FrenchFry]

What I find really amusing is all the people in this forum believing that Canon is currently capable of making a FF 16mm f/2.8 UWA prime the size of their own nifty fifty (look ma, a tiny 43mm filter thread on a FF UWA!) AND that Canon is currently willing to sell such a lens at the same price as said nifty fifty. Hope, indeed, springs eternal.

Am I understanding correctly that you believe this 16mm lens will be an APSC RF lens, not a full-frame RC lens?
If so, would you care to elaborate on the reasons?

If it were an APSC lens, would we expect to see some sort of designation for that on the lens? I don't see any indication of APSC on the lettering in the image from Nokishita.

 

[neuroanatomist]

What I find really amusing is all the people in this forum believing that Canon is currently capable of making a FF 16mm f/2.8 UWA prime the size of their own nifty fifty (look ma, a tiny 43mm filter thread on a FF UWA!) AND that Canon is currently willing to sell such a lens at the same price as said nifty fifty. Hope, indeed, springs eternal.

Really not sure what you’re on about… Clearly Canon IS currently capable of making a FF 16/2.8 UWA the same size as the RF 50/1.8, those specs have leaked and the lenses are close to identical (40mm long, 43mm filter thread).

I don’t recall many suggestions that the RF 16/2.8 would cost the same as the RF 50/1.8, rather surprise and pleasure that it will be $300 compared to $200 for the 50. Most people were expecting a much higher price for an RF 16/2.8.

 

[FrenchFry]

At 16 mm shooting daylight landscapes or Astro or real estate from a tripod, I’m not sure how important image stabilization really is for this lens.

By the old rule of thumb, shouldn’t one be able to handhold down the 1/25th or even 1/15th pretty well with this focal length?

As far as macro, that was me. When the listing was live there was a paragraph or so descriptor. I recall seeing the word in there. I could be mistaken, but I’ve also seen that description used for reproduction ratios as little as 0.25x - so who knows what it’s worth even if it said that.

Per the latest Nokishita release, we are looking at 0.26x, which is really good for a wide angle!

It's not 0.5x, but at this price point it might still be worth it!

 

[JustUs7]

Per the latest Nokishita release, we are looking at 0.26x, which is really good for a wide angle!

It's not 0.5x, but at this price point it might still be worth it!
View attachment 200123

Seems generous to call that, ‘macro’, but I know I saw the word in Amazon’s description. I suspect copy and paste with editing from another lens description, but still. This will be in the bag the next hiking vacation we take. Should have plenty of time to see reviews and samples before them. No real ultra wide angle needs before that.

 

[petitBogueBogue]

Is it really a ff 16mm lens? The hood just doesn't seem to make sense for such an ultra-wide angle!