Bryan at The Digital Picture has completed his review of the Canon RF 50mm f/1.8 STM, the new “nifty fifty” for the RF mount. Canon has a long history of making these inexpensive 50mm lenses that provide good optics and great value, and the RF 50mm f/1.8 STM continues this tradition.
Compared to its EF brother:
In the image quality comparison at f/1.8, the RF lens has a slight advantage, primarily in the image circle periphery. By f/2.8, the EF lens may be slightly sharper in the center of the frame, and the RF lens is very slightly sharper deep in the corners. The EF lens has less peripheral shading, and the RF lens has less geometric distortion. Overall, the image quality difference between these lenses is only slight. Read the full review
Canon RF 50mm f/1.8 STM at Adorama
This is some genius writing!
Edit: I still don't understand why Canon introduces a new lens with so many obvious flaws.
I couldn't get this info from the review.
Still a good decent lens for a decent price.
You also have to factor in the cost of an EF-RF adapter if you don't have one yet.
Just check on TDP the midframe results at f1,8, for instance.
So, presently, if you want an excellent Canon 50mm, there's only the heavy and expensive f 1,2 left.:confused:
Or Tamron, Sigma, Zeiss.
No manufactured component ever hits all of its ideal design parameters exactly. Even optical surfaces--which have to be accurate to within a fraction of a wavelength in order to be "diffraction limited"--have tolerances and variations. Separating the fundamental performance of each design from the effects of its manufacturing process would require testing many many copies of each (maybe hundreds!) from different production runs.
My takeaway from this review is that the RF and EF versions have basically identical optical performance. If you're trying to choose between one or the other, use other criteria that are important to you (price, EF compatibility vs. adapter, control ring, MFD, etc.).
Hopefully not right in the middle price-wise, that would be a little hefty at ~ $1250. If they can make it sealed and optically good, for maybe 800-1000, that would be better. The Nikon Z primes are really appealing with their quality, size, and good to borderline-decent prices. Currently, Canon is still winning with their RF 24-105F4 L for what I would want.
You could get a Nikon Z body and the 50mm for the same or less than the price of the RF 50 1.2. So even if you have a R5 yo could have a wee portable 50mm ’point and shoot’.