Introduction
The Canon RF 28mm F2.8 STM is a super-compact wide-angle pancake prime lens for Canon RF-mount 35mm full-frame mirrorless cameras that will not break the financial institution.That is an especially compact and light-weight lens, but it nonetheless affords a brilliant most aperture of F2.8 for higher low-light efficiency and bokeh results.It options 8 components in 7 teams together with three aspherical PMo components to assist management distortion and a Tremendous Spectra Coating to assist cut back flare and ghosting, plus a 7 blade diaphragm which creates a gorgeous blur to the out-of-focus areas of the picture.An inner focusing mechanism means the lens barrel does not transfer, and it affords a minimal focusing distance of 23cm / 9.1″ and a most magnification ratio of 0.17x, while utilizing price efficient 55mm filters.Excellent for journey pictures, road and on a regular basis life, the Canon RF 28mm F2.8 STM lens is offered now priced at £325 / $299 within the UK and the US, respectively.
Ease of Use
Weighing in at 120g / 4.2oz and measuring practically 7cm / 2.7″ in size, the RF 28mm F2.8 STM is a super-lightweight, tiny wide-angle prime lens.
It is barely noticeable when used with a mid-sized digital camera physique just like the Canon EOS R8 physique that we examined it with, as proven within the product photographs.
Construct high quality is sweet for such an reasonably priced lens. Regardless of its largely plastic development, the RF 28mm F2.8 STM feels stable in your hand, and it commendably has a metallic mount.
Observe that this lens doesn’t have a weather-resistant design to assist shield it in opposition to mud and moisture.
There’s additionally no optical picture stabilizer built-in to this lens, although arguably you do not actually need this characteristic on such a small and lightweight wide-angle optic.
For those who’re not utilizing the focusing ring for handbook focusing, you may change its operation to be the Lens Management Ring as an alternative by way of the devoted Focus/Management swap on the facet of the lens barrel.
On this Management setting, the ring can be utilized to manage sure key digital camera settings (TV, AV, ISO and publicity settings) as an alternative of the focusing.
The Canon RF 28mm F2.8 STM lens has a really slender fly-by-wire focus ring with a ridged grip band.
There are not any arduous stops at both ends of the vary, making it harder to set focus at infinity.
Observe that this lens usefully affords full-time handbook focusing even when AF is chosen.
In use the handbook focusing system emits an audible “whining” noise that makes it much less appropriate for video than stills.
Polariser customers ought to be happy that the wise 55mm filter thread does not rotate on focus.
Relating to auto-focusing, the RF 28mm F2.8 STM is a quick performer because of the STM motor, taking round 0.10 seconds to lock onto the topic when mounted on the Canon EOS R8 digital camera that we examined it with.
We did not expertise very a lot “looking” in any respect, both in good or dangerous gentle, with the lens precisely focusing nearly all the time, because of the excellent low-light capabilities of the EOS R cameras.
The STM motor can also be fairly quiet in AF mode, emitting a a lot quieter “whirr” than when manually focusing, which makes this lens well-suited to auto-focusing throughout video recording.
There’s a petal formed lens hood (EW-55) and a gentle case (LP811) accessible for this lens, however disappointingly each are optionally available extras that are not included within the field.
Focal Vary
The Canon RF 28mm F2.8 STM’s focal size of 28mm gives an angle of view of 75°.
Chromatic Aberrations
Chromatic aberrations, usually seen as blue or purple fringes alongside contrasty edges, weren’t particularly obvious in our check photographs, solely showing in very excessive distinction areas.
Vignetting
When capturing JPEGs, with the lens set to its most aperture of f/2.8, there’s some apparent gentle fall-off within the corners, requiring you to cease down by no less than 2 f-stops to forestall it.
There’s a considerable amount of vignetting evident within the RAW information, although, however fortunately the Canon EOS R8 digital camera routinely and efficiently applies corrections to the JPEG information, leading to a suitable out-of-camera picture.
JPEG
RAW
Distortion
You can’t really flip off distortion correction in an EOS R digital camera physique when this lens is used – the menu possibility is definitely greyed out and unavailable – which maybe provides you a good suggestion of simply how a lot correction the digital camera is making use of!
Nonetheless, distortion is properly managed within the ensuing pictures, so arguably the mix of digital camera and lens are doing job.
JPEG
RAW
Sunstars and Flare
The Canon RF 28mm F2.8 STM is able to creating some very good sunstars when stopped-down to f/22, as proven under, and flare can also be properly managed even when capturing instantly into the solar.
Macro
The Canon RF 28mm F2.8 STM affords a really helpful minimal focusing distance of simply 23cm / 9.1″, with a most magnification of 0.17x.
Bokeh
Bokeh is a phrase used for the out-of-focus areas of {a photograph}, and is normally described in qualitative phrases, corresponding to easy / creamy / harsh and so on.
Within the RF 28mm F2.8 STM lens, Canon have employed an iris diaphragm with 7 rounded blades, which has resulted in fairly good bokeh in our view for such a wide-angle lens.
We do realise, nonetheless, that bokeh analysis is subjective, so we have included plenty of examples under to your perusal.
Sharpness
In an effort to present you ways sharp the Canon RF 28mm F2.8 STM lens is, we’re offering 100% crops on the next web page.