CANON RF 24-50MM F/4.5-6.3 IS STM
A full-frame zoom lens in a surprisingly compact package
The Canon RF 24-50mm f/4.5-6.3 IS STM is designed to take a load off. One of the big attractions of many mirrorless cameras is that they’re small; but for travel and walkabout photography, that advantage is largely lost if you hang a hefty lens on the front of it. This not-so-standard zoom is fairly short on actual zoom range and has a modest aperture rating, but it packs wide-angle to standard focal range coverage, effective optical stabilisation and ultra-quiet autofocus into an amazingly compact package that weighs in at just one-fifth of a kilogram.
Although this configuration is new to the Canon lineup, it’s not unique: Nikon launched its Z 24-50mm f/46.3, which is even shorter and lighter, in 2020; and, just as that lens became a kit option for the Nikon Z 5, the RF 24-50mm has become a kit lens for the EOS R8. There’s also something to be said for using it on Canon’s APS-C format R-system bodies, such as the R10, on which it gives an effective zoom range of about 38-80mm; and if you don’t mind a drop in megapixel count, you can switch to APS-C crop mode in full-frame cameras and get the same extended zoom range.
Key features
This lens’s standout feature is its compactness. It has a retractable design that shrinks the stowage length to just 58mm, which isn’t much longer than the RF-S 18-45mm
f/4.5-6.3 IS STM for APS-C format Canon R-system cameras, which measures 44mm when retracted. And while the RF 24-50mm is more than 50 percent heavier, it’s still amazingly light for a full-frame compatible zoom at 210g; to put that into perspective, the Canon RF 24-105mm f/4-7.1 IS STM is 89mm long when retracted, and weighs
395g – getting on for twice as heavy.
One of the main drawbacks of this downsizing is the lens’s lack of telephoto reach. There’s nothing wrong with its wide-angle coverage, which stretches to an 84-degree viewing angle, but the lens runs out of stretch at the long end, topping out at a standard 50mm. For many, though, that’s not a problem: if you major in street, landscape or cityscape photography, you’re likely to find the zoom range adequate, and it also works well for vlogging.
Another plus point for both stills and video capture is that the stepping motor-based autofocus system is quick and snappy, while also enabling smooth, virtually silent focus transitions for shooting movies.
Given that the original EOS R and RP cameras had no in-body stabilisation, the optical stabiliser featured in this lens is a useful addition – and the advantage isn’t
limited to these two cameras. The stabiliser has 4.5-stop effectiveness in its own right, rising to a seven-stop advantage when you mount the lens on a body that features in-body image stabilisation.
In order to keep the size and weight down, the optical path features just eight elements in total, including two precision-moulded aspherical elements to enhance image quality. Canon’s heritage Super Spectra coating is applied to minimise ghosting and flare.
Build and handling
As is typical of Canon’s lower-budget RF lenses, the build quality feels pretty solid, but there are no weather seals. This one’s a little less solid than some, as it features a plastic rather than metal mounting plate, but that’s another design choice that helps to keep the weight to a minimum.
Although it’s fairly compact in
its retracted state, the lens almost doubles in length once extended for shooting. It’s physically longest at the 24mm end of the zoom range, with the inner barrel receding a little at mid-zoom settings and extending again towards the 50mm mark.
Two switches are fitted to enhance handling, which saves dipping into camera menus. One is a Stabiliser On/ Off switch, the other is a three-pole switch for AF/Control/MF. As well