CANON RF 50MM F1.8 STM

As inexpensive as it is lightweight, the Canon delivers portraiture on a shoestring budget

The smallest lens in the group, the Canon weighs in at a mere 160g. It’s the new and improved RF mirrorless version of Canon’s big-selling EF 50mm f/1.8 lens for DSLRs, various editions of which have been popular over the years. Naturally, it can’t compete with Canon’s pro-grade RF 50mm F1.2L USM for its tight depth of field, but that lens is no budget option at over 12 times the price.

Despite its featherweight design, the lens feels pretty solid and is nicely finished too. As usual with Canon lenses that aren’t in the L-series club, you need to buy the hood separately as an ‘optional’ extra. The Canon ES-65B is pricey at around £38/$40 but you can reduce your budget with a relatively cheap independent hood.

The design is minimalist and features a small control ring at the forward end of the lens. It’s nominally for manual focus but is coupled to a Control/Focus switch. This enables you to assign other functions to the control ring when in autofocus mode, via an in-camera menu. Options include adjusting aperture, exposure compensation and ISO. Unlike many up-market Canon lenses that feature a separate customisable control ring, this one is naturally ‘de-clicked’ for manual focusing duty, allowing stepless aperture control during movie capture. The stepping motor-based autofocus system is video-friendly, delivering smooth focus transitions.

Optically straightforward, the lens has the same total of six elements as the Nikon lens on test, but arranged in five rather than four groups. It’s not overly basic though, featuring a precision-moulded aspherical element that’s engineered to improve sharpness and reduce spherical aberrations and distortion. Canon’s Super Spectra Coating is also applied to reduce ghosting and flare.

The lens punches above its weight in terms of image quality, combining good sharpness across the entire frame with minimal colour fringing and barrel distortion, while bokeh is pretty smooth for a 50mm f/1.8 lens.

HEPTAGONAL APERTURE WITH JUST SEVEN CURVED DIAPHRAGM BLADES, THE APERTURE DOESN’T REMAIN ESPECIALLY WELL-ROUNDED WHEN STOPPING DOWN. CONTROL RING TYPICAL OF STEPPING MOTOR AUTOFOCUS LENSES, THE CONTROL RING IS ELECTRONICALLY-COUPLED AND ENABLES SMOOTH AND PRECISE MANUAL FOCUSING. CONTROL/FOCUS SWITCH DELVE INTO CAMERA MENUS AND YOU CAN ASSIGN A VARIETY OF DIFFERENT FUNCTIONS TO THE CONTROL RING WHEN IN AUTOFOCUS MODE.