Canon RF 24-105 F4-71. IS STM Review

PhotographyBlog has completed its review of the new economical kit lens for the Canon RF mount, the Canon RF 24-105 F4-7.1.

Measuring in at much smaller and lighter than the other zoom lens options for the RF mount, it's easy to see why Canon may just want a lens like this for the EOS RP.

• Some of the features of the Canon RF 24-105 include;
• Standard zoom covers wide-angle to short-telephoto focal lengths to suit working in a variety of situations.
• An Optical Image Stabilizer helps to minimize the appearance of camera shake by up to five stops to better enable working in low-light conditions and with slower shutter speeds.
• STM stepping motor offers fast, quiet, smooth, and accurate autofocus performance that is ideal for video recording as well as still shooting.
• Specialized Center Macro Focus setting enables working with a 1:2 maximum magnification and a 5.2" minimum focusing distance to suit photographing close-up subjects.
• Configurable Control Ring can be used to adjust a variety of exposure settings, including aperture, ISO, and exposure compensation.
• Rounded seven-blade diaphragm contributes to a pleasing bokeh quality.

So what did PhotographyBlog think about it? They gave it a solid 4 out of 5 stars, which for a $399 4x zoom is actually, well, pretty good.

The Canon RF 24-105mm F4-7.1 IS STM is a very good standard zoom lens that certainly punches above its weight in terms of the features and performance to price ratio.

The main drawback of this lens is the very slow maximum aperture of F7.1 which kicks in between 83-105mm, limiting the shallow depth-of-field effects that you can achieve and affecting the overall performance in low-light situations where you'll need to bump up the ISO speed to compensate. Otherwise, there are a lot of things to like.

The RF 24-105mm F4-7.1 offers a very versatile focal range whilst being sharp in the centre from 24mm to 85mm, although performance drops off the edges of the frame. Sharpness at the far end of the telephoto range isn't quite as good when shooting wide-open at f/7.1.

Overall the Canon RF 24-105mm F4-7.1 IS STM delivers good sharpness across the frame at most apertures. There's noticeable vignetting at wide-open apertures and some barrel distortion at 24mm, but they are largely removed by using the dedicated DLO profile.

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Overall, despite that off-putting F7.1 maximum aperture, we can still strongly recommend the new Canon RF 24-105mm F4-7.1 IS STM as a surprisingly versatile partner for the EOS R and especially the EOS RP camera.

So there you have it.  If you want to read more, visit the full review here.

• PhotographyBlog