Canon RF 15-30mm F4.5-6.3 IS STM Assessment

Introduction

Ease of Use

Weighing in at simply 390g / 13.75 ounces and measuring 8.8cm / 3.46 inches in size, the RF 15-30mm F4.5-6.3 IS STM is a small and really mild ultra-wide-angle zoom lens.

It is barely noticeable when used with a mid-sized digicam physique just like the Canon EOS R5 physique that we examined it with, as proven within the product pictures.

Construct high quality is nice for such an inexpensive lens. Regardless of its largely plastic building, the RF 15-30mm F4.5-6.3 IS STM feels strong sufficient in your hand, and it commendably has a metallic mount.

The lens barrel extends by a further 1cm when the focal size is ready to 15mm, being shortest on the 30mm focal size.

Be aware that this lens doesn’t have a weather-resistant design to assist shield it towards mud and moisture.

There may be an optical picture stabilizer built-in to this lens, although, which may switched On and Off utilizing the devoted change on the aspect of the lens barrel.

This presents as much as 5.5-stops of safety towards blur from digicam shake, rising to 7 stops when paired with an EOS R digicam physique that has IBIS, just like the EOS R5 that we examined the lens with.

In case you’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 change on the aspect of the lens barrel.

On this Management setting, the ring can be utilized to regulate sure key digicam settings (TV, AV, ISO and publicity settings) as an alternative of the focusing.

The Canon RF 15-30mm F4.5-6.3 IS STM lens has a reasonably slim fly-by-wire focus ring with a ridged grip band.

There aren’t any laborious stops at both ends of the vary, making it tougher to set focus at infinity.

Be aware that this lens usefully presents full-time handbook focusing even when AF is chosen.

In use the handbook focusing system is just about silent, which makes it appropriate for each recording video and taking pictures stills.

Polariser customers needs to be happy that the smart 67mm filter thread would not rotate on focus.

On the subject of auto-focusing, the RF 15-30mm F4.5-6.3 IS STM is a quick performer due to the STM motor, taking round 0.10 seconds to lock onto the topic when mounted on the Canon EOS R5 digicam.

We did not expertise very a lot “searching” in any respect, both in good or unhealthy mild, with the lens precisely focusing just about all the time, due to the excellent low-light capabilities of the EOS R cameras.

The STM motor can be just about silent in AF mode, which makes this lens well-suited to auto-focusing throughout video recording.

There’s a petal formed lens hood (EW-73E) and a gentle case (LP1116) out there for this lens, however disappointingly each are slightly dear non-obligatory extras that are not included within the field.

Focal Vary

The Canon RF 15-30mm F4.5-6.3 IS STM’s focal size of 15mm gives an angle of view of 110° 30′.

15mm

The focal size of 30mm gives an angle of view of 71° 35′.

30mm

Chromatic Aberrations

Chromatic aberrations, sometimes seen as blue or purple fringes alongside contrasty edges, weren’t particularly obvious in our take a look at pictures, solely showing in very excessive distinction areas.

15mm

30mm

Vignetting

When taking pictures JPEGs, with the lens set to its most aperture, there’s some apparent mild fall-off within the corners, requiring you to cease down by no less than 2 f-stops to forestall it.

There’s much more vignetting evident within the RAW information, although, with virtually pure black within the excessive corners of the 15mm focal size picture – fortunately the Canon EOS R5 digicam routinely and efficiently applies corrections to the JPEG information, leading to an appropriate out-of-camera picture.

15mm – JPEG

15mm – RAW

30mm – JPEG

30mm – RAW

Distortion

There’s an enormous quantity of barrel distortion evident within the RAW information on the 15mm focal size – fortunately the Canon EOS R5 digicam routinely and efficiently applies corrections to the JPEG information, leading to an appropriate out-of-camera picture. The opposite finish of the zoom vary reveals a lot much less distortion.

Be aware that you simply can’t truly flip off distortion correction in an EOS R digicam physique when this lens is used – the menu possibility is definitely greyed out and unavailable – which supplies you a good suggestion of simply how a lot correction the digicam is making use of!

You have to to make use of Canon’s Digital Picture Skilled 4 software program to post-process the Uncooked information, no less than till Adobe releases an RF 15-30mm lens profile for Digital camera Uncooked / Lightroom.

15mm – JPEG

15mm – RAW

30mm – JPEG

30mm – RAW

Sunstars and Flare

The Canon RF 15-30mm F4.5-6.3 IS STM is able to creating pretty good sunstars when stopped-down to f/22/32, as proven under, though it’s fairly vulnerable to flare when taking pictures straight into the solar.

Macro

The Canon RF 15-30mm F4.5-6.3 IS STM presents a helpful minimal focusing distance of 28cm / 11″, with a powerful half life-size most magnification of 0.52x out there when the focal size is ready to 15mm and handbook focus is used.

Bokeh

Bokeh is a phrase used for the out-of-focus areas of {a photograph}, and is normally described in qualitative phrases, comparable to easy / creamy / harsh and so on.

Within the RF 15-30mm F4.5-6.3 IS 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, nevertheless, that bokeh analysis is subjective, so we have included plenty of examples under on your perusal.

Sharpness

So as to present you the way sharp the Canon RF 15-30mm F4.5-6.3 IS STM lens is, we’re offering 100% crops on the next pages.