Some full frame astrophotographers stick exclusively to ultrawide angle lenses such as those in the 20-14mm range. What are the best Canon RF lenses for astrophotography, and how do you choose between the different options? This works pretty well as far as such systems go. You do, natch, get autofocus, albeit of the Stepper Motor Variety rather than Canons all-beating Ultra Sonic Motor autofocus. If you shoot RAW, applying the lens profile in your software will have the same effect, but it also gives you the chance to turn it off to see whats happening behind the scenes. This is because using a very wide aperture is fine when photographing everything on the same plane, billions of miles away, but as soon as other elements enter the frame, nearer the camera, the narrow depth of field created by a wide aperture will throw your foreground elements totally out of focus. At such a wide focal length, neither optical image stabilization nor a lens hood would do you much good, so you dont get either. Canon RF 16mm f/2.8 STM review | TechRadar So if you do plan on shooting other genres, you can rest assured that its equipped for working in fast paced environments too. In terms of image quality, the only real issue of note is that images lack a little contrast and sharpness when focusing on very close subjects. Which doesnt mean that it isnt well suited to astrophotography. And a surprisingly large number maintain that sharpness most of the way into the corners too. Still, nobody wants their stars to become a blurry mess at the corners. Mike's Camera is your trusted local camera and photography superstore. To be sure, stars at the center are rendered as crisp pinpoints of light. Canons RF 24-70mm f/2.8L is part of the brands trilogy of workhorse zoom lenses for the R-series cameras. This latter issue is simply that the Anthy35 doesnt offer a particularly wide field of view, at least as far as astrophotography lenses go. This is a completely unstabilised clip as the lens doesnt have optical IS. The . But hopefully by reading through my guide to the best Canon RF lenses for astrophotography you are now fully equipped with the knowledge to choose the right tool for the job. I realize, however, that not every photographer with an interest in shooting the night sky will want to step away from the native Canon options. But those captured nearer the corners show a degree of smearing. Canon RF Lenses: 16mm f/2.8 STM $199, 50mm f/1.8 STM - Slickdeals Canon RF 16mm f/1.8 STM Your purchases support this site Thankfully the situation here is a lot better than it is for lens aperture. True, you might notice a little vignetting on a night sky. Add To Cart. And now for the EOS R with Enhanced movie stabilisation again a purely digital solution here, and as you saw on my clips, theres a significant crop. Above: And now for another, but this time at the closest focusing distance starting with the in-camera JPEG before switching to the uncorrected RAW version where youll also notice significant vignetting in the corners, and now back to the JPEG again. For a start, most astrophotography is done using wide if not ultrawide angle lenses. In its own right this is a superb lens. Controls on the body of the lens are also few and far between theres not so much as an AF/MF switch, so youll either need to be using back-button autofocus, or be familiar with your camera to be able to turn off autofocus via the menu. Related Products. I took this shot as close as the lens would focus to the star at the top of the ornament thats about 13cm away and despite the inherently broad depth-of-field of an ultra-wide lens, youll see it is possible for some blurring in the background. Heres those three clips side by side, with no stabilisation at all on the left, basic digital stabilisation in the middle and enhanced movie stabilisation on the right. Worse still, due to a quirk of the lens when working in tandem with Canons sensors, the vignette has a noticeable purple tinge to it. shooting astrophotography with Canon RF cameras, Top 6 Best Canon RF Lenses for Wildlife Photography, Top 7 Best Canon RF Lenses for Sports Photography, Top 8 Best Canon RF Lenses For Street Photography. Moving on to build quality, the lenss very sturdy construction means you can take this thing out on nocturnal expeditions in total confidence. Its been pleasing, though, since the launch of the R platform, to see a constant drip-drip of more affordable lenses, to go along with the likes of the RF 85mm f/1.2 and the RF 15-35mm f/2.8L IS USM. And thankfully this behaves a lot more like a mechanical lens; in feel, if not totally in effect. Above: A young Moon, not to mention light pollution in Brighton may have illuminated the sky, but zooming-in does reveal some stars, and taking a closer look in the middle of the image shows theyre points of light. Portable and Affordable: A Review of the Canon RF 16mm f/2. - Fstoppers Of course, even a badly coma-inflicted lens will tend to clear up once you shut down the diaphragm a few stops. And for precision focusing of this kid, a true manual focus lens will often be a better choice than an autofocus one. There is some heavy vignetting at the widest zoom setting, though. And if you also plan on using this lens for uses beyond night sky photography, youve got all that extra zoom range to play with, too. Above: Ok now for portraits, a subject you may not have considered for an ultra-wide lens, but the broad field of view makes it easy to capture someones surroundings even from close range or in tight interiors. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Posted November 8, 2021 Quote In-depth review of the new Canon RF 16mm f/2.8 STM ultra wide prime lens for Canon EOS R series cameras. Stop down to f4 and both aspects improve, while at f5.6 the little 16mm is beginning to look pretty good across the frame. This professional-grade lens is the perfect choice for a wide variety of uses, and the image quality it creates is impressive. There are many legitimate reasons why Chinese products dont currently enjoy a fantastic international reputation. But theres a difference! Perfect for when you don't want to take a chunkier, and much more expensive, zoom with you. In terms of the focal lengths covered, Canons new RF 14-35mm f/4L IS USM lens perhaps represents the ultimate in astrophotography zoom lenses. For APS-C lenses, the equivalent focal length is roughly 9-16mm, while for Micro Four Thirds you're looking at something between 7-12mm. I'm going to use mine for video on a ronin-sc (my 16-35 with a converter is too large and . And finally with the R5s enhanced movie stabilisation, again applied on top of existing IBIS. The lens body of the 16mm f/2.8 itself is the same as the RF 50mm f/1.8, taking advantage of the economies of scale of that so-called standard lens's mass production. Above: So that means just one ring on the barrel with a single switch to set it between custom control and focus. SERVICE & REPAIR. But its not you moving the lens elements through mechanical force, but rather the autofocus motors moving them for you. Both zooms are clearly wider than the 16 prime, but I wouldnt say theres much to choose between the two zooms in coverage.. ), and throughout the zoom range. Your mileage will of course vary. On long landscape trips, that's a big advantage over alternative lenses. But given the importance of fast aperture for astrophotography, this will be a far from ideal solution most of the time. The best astrophotography lenses for your mirrorless camera Table of contents Above: to illustrate that, Ive superimposed a red frame where the outer edge represents the coverage from the 16mm. Judging from these magnified crops, their quality in the middle of the frame at their maximum apertures is actually pretty similar, and this is with the 16mm operating one stop brighter too. In fact Ill say it right now: despite some inevitable shortcomings, the RF 16 2.8 is a no-brainer for any EOS R owner. But its a task thats made a lot easier simply by having access to the right knowledge. Assessing their respective pros and cons, so that you can decide which solution will work best for you. Above: Zooming-in on the skyline of London across the Thames shows some nice crisp details and even some diffraction spikes on the lights shining directly into the lens Ill talk more about them in a moment. Indeed, as long as you keep the Digital Lens Optimizer and Chromatic Aberration Correction controls on, you shouldnt see much in the way of unpleasant artifacts at all. Find Out More. The lens also suffers from some very noticeable vignetting when used at its wider zoom settings; precisely where most astrophotographers will want to spend the majority of their time using it. The effect is a slight smearing of fine detail. Apart from weighing under 200g, it measures just over 4cm from end to end in its retracted state. But if astrophotography is your thing, I say mount this pony and ride! However, image quality is a lot better once the lens has been stopped down a little; something of a disappointment to those of us hoping to make use of its f/1.8 maximum aperture on a regular basis. Canon RF 16mm f2.8 IN-DEPTH review: NO-BRAINER for EOS R! A fast-aperture 35mm f/1.8 MACRO lens for wide-angle perspective, close focusing and Hybrid IS. Canon EOS R6 Firmware Update Version 1.8.2 Released. The lens is well built and includes weather sealing. But in keeping with its retro build, it displays some similarly old-school corner softness at the widest aperture settings. Vignetting was present in our test images up to f/11, and was particularly horrible at f/2.8, with the furthers corners of our images virtually black. One of my favourite lens reviewers Christopher Frost has completed his review of the brand new Canon RF 16mm f/2.8 STM. The trouble is that fast lenses tend to be more expensive. The one time that you might want to shut your aperture down to a smaller opening is when also including something in the foreground of the shot buildings, geographical features, or other environmental elements. Heres the three stabilised clips side-by-side with IBIS alone on the left, IBIS with digital stabilisation in the middle, and IBIS with enhanced digital stabilisation on the right. Wouldn't be as significant with an APS-C crop, though the only RF mount camera Canon currently offers with a crop sensor is the C70, which seems an unlikely pairing for the new 16mm f/2.8 lens. Canon RF 16mm F2.8 STM - RF Lenses - Canon Europe Meanwhile, many but not all of the third party lenses available for Canon mirrorless cameras perform every bit as well as the native Canon ones. Adorama Amazon (UK) Amazon (US) CANON RF 24-70MM F/2.8L IS USM LENS These are the Canon L-Series lenses, I don't have first hand experience with these or reviews in terms of their aberrations yet as they are relatively new lenses. For a start, 14mm is extremely wide. For the time being the Canon RF line doesnt offer a huge range of choices in the astrophotography department, compared with canon ef mount options or nikon lenses. Build quality aside, the main draw here for astrophotography enthusiasts is the Laowas enticing combination of a very wide angle of view with a fast maximum aperture and true manual focus. Travel vlogger Chloe Gunning shoots a city day trip with the Canon RF 16mm F2.8 STM. In theory I have no problem with this on a compact budget lens with no room for a separate RF control ring, but annoyingly like the RF 50 1.8, Canon continues to force you to also select MF in the menus (or assign it to a function button) if you want to use the ring to manually focus. You may be wondering what the he Zero D part of the name stands for. But thankfully the exact same products can still be found marketed as Rokinon. Canon Rumors is reporting that an RF 14-21mm f/1.4L USM lens is currently being tested by photographers, after a patent emerged for such a lens early last year. As should be quite clear to readers by now, fast glass is king when it comes to astrophotography. Choosing a lens is always a question of balancing compromises, and here we just have to accept that the range of truly well suited lenses is rather limited. And while the lens is certainly not tiny, it can be looked upon as fairly compact and lightweight when you consider just how wide and fast this thing is. Aperture range: f/2.8 - f/22. And one that is in many ways very well suited to astrophotography as long as you dont mind dealing with its quite evident quirks. Just be aware, however, that lack of electronics also means that your photo files will not come with any metadata regarding your lens settings. On top of which, the barrel features a super smooth manual focus ring, making operation a real pleasure. But nothing that will worry astrophotographers too much. What do you think guys? Hope you find them helpful, dont hesitate to leave a comment! Theres a similar principle at play with focal length in astrophotography too. Indeed, for those with their cameras permanently pointed at the night sky, this is a truly fantastic piece of kit. Sadly, though, on closer inspection some of this lenss appeal turns out to be a little misleading. Presumably, though, most of them have yet to experience the greater degree of control afforded by a truly mechanical manual focus lens. Above: Heres another example of a shed door looking fairly normal in the corrected JPEG, but now in the RAW version with lens compensation disabled where again the barrel distortion is significant. You dont like moving your feet And the better defined those points of light are when they are captured, the better theyll tend to look once edited. So its probably a good idea to adjust our expectations a little. The reason for this is that focusing on infinity can be harder than you might imagine. Although f/1.8 isnt earth-shatteringly fast when speaking of camera lenses in general, its as fast as you can get for the Canon RF system right now. Canon RF 16mm f2.8 - Cloudy Nights One of the best available for the R series. Indeed, in terms of a fast wide angle, only Canons much more expensive RF 35mm f/1.8 MACRO can match the Anthy. Used wide open, the lens is fairly sharp. So dont expect it to also double up and serve you for, say, focus-tracked action sports and the like when youre not shooting the stars. You can have a faster lens than the Rokinon 14mm if you want, but youll lose many of the advantages that this great piece of glass offers for night sky photography. Review: The Canon RF 16mm f/2.8 STM Lens - CosmoQuest Effectively the holy trinity for stargazing photographers. This way you can keep exposure times short and freeze that celestial display as ultra sharp pinpoints of light. True, autofocus works brilliantly. But f/4 just seems like a stop too far in the direction of sensorial gloom for this ultra wide angle lens to deserve a spot anywhere too high up my list despite offering astrophotographers some otherwise quite attractive specs. Above: Comparing the corner sharpness of both lenses wide open at f2.8 though shows a clear lead from the 15-35 on the right which has maintained its performance from the middle, leaving the little 16 looking quite soft in comparison. Heres how it works. But the end result is arguably what counts, so to help you decide if this is the lens for you, Ive tested the RF 16 2.8 for distant landscape sharpness, closeups with potential for background blur, diffraction sunstars, handheld vlogging on bodies with and without IBIS, and even some astro-photography too. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Thankfully a number of true manual focus RF lenses are available from third party brands. If youre after something wide, sharp and bright you are simply not going to do better on the RF mount for this kind of cash. Feeling a bit lazy? Canons series of RF-mount cameras beginning with the Canon EOS R and Canon EOS RP back in 2018 were greeted enthusiastically by photographers. In actual fact, 'corners' doesnt quite describe just how far into an image we saw chromatic aberration in some of our worst affected images we saw purple fringing as far as a fifth of the way into the frame. 129 reviews Authorized Dealer 0 36 Key Features RF-Mount Lens/Full-Frame Format Aperture Range: f/2.8 to f/22 One Aspherical Element Super Spectra Coating Show More Ultra-wide field of view mixed with a compact and portable design, the Canon RF 16mm f/2.8 STM is a sleek everyday wide-angle prime. Lets start by discussing the other optical defects first. Its hard when you need to repeat tests for multiple lenses not to mention needing consistent weather to make fresh comparisons, but I think its worth the effort. Id say here its a little smoother than IBIS alone, but with occasional stutters. And youll need to balance the light gathering abilities of any lens you choose with many of the following points too. Announced in September 2021 alongside the RF 100-400mm, the RF 16mm f2.8 costs around $299 or 319 pounds, making it not just the widest prime lens in the RF system to date, but also one of the smallest and cheapest too. Ok, now for video starting with a focus pulling test between the two bottles, with the nearest one being close to the minimum focusing distance. Above: As you saw before, the 16 improves a little in the corners at f4. Above: Now if this is your first time glimpsing behind the curtain, you may be shocked by whats going on behind the scenes, but again its not uncommon for compact and affordable lenses to rely on compensation, especially modern ones. And when it comes to astrophotography, thats usually a major advantage. The RF 16mm f/2.8 STM will be a welcome addition to the bags of wedding, landscape, astro and street photographers and probably more beside. 17% Off: Canon RF 16mm f/2.8 STM Lens MFR: 5051C002. That said, if youre not examining the far corners, the astro performance isnt bad at f2.8 considering the price of the lens. Above: but when both lenses are closed to f5.6, Id say the 14-35 is looking a little crisper if you have a high resolution body like the R5 to get the most out of it. Disappointingly from our point of view, however, the 15mm f/2 exhibits a degree of comatic aberration towards the edge of the frame. I did however find it an issue when manually focusing the lens in a magnified view, such as checking focus on the astro photos earlier. Canon RF 16mm f/2.8 STM Review - KenRockwell.com But not a lot. Long exposure times risk blurred stars, and so a wider aperture provides an opportunity to up the shutter speed while still gathering as much information as possible from the heavens. To be sure, images made with the 35mm f/1.8 display very good edge-to edge sharpness. Its not just a problem at large apertures, either we got problems at f/8. Meaning that any stars in this area will be unattractively blurred by the lens. Available 03/16/23. You can count on Canon's award-winning service and repair options to help keep your gear in peak operating condition. For example, heavy vignetting and barrel distortion will make this lens less of a hit with architectural and interiors photographers. Using Lightrooms built-in profile for this lens didnt help much we needed to resort to the manual Defringe tool, although this did successfully remove the problem. Vs 14-35mm vs 15-35mmCanon RF 16mm f2.8 STM at B&H: https://bhpho.to/2XfeZxT // WEX UK: https://tidd.ly/3k9l8E. Above: Astro-photography is another key subject for ultra-wide lenses, and here the broad coverage has allowed me to easily grab a nice landscape element of the South Downs facing North in this five second exposure on the EOS R6 at 1600 ISO and with the lens wide-open at f2.8. Above: Plus at the time I made this review, the profile wasnt yet available in Adobe Camera RAW, so all RAW files started off uncorrected. Aim to shoot between midnight and 5am, ideally on nights with a new moon. Effective optical image stabilization is undoubtedly one of the most exciting advances in camera technology of the last decade or so. In short, yes, be picky about lens sharpness. Finally, the lens comes with very effective image stabilization. My recommendation would be to avoid this as a dedicated astrophotography lens, only considering it as an option if you also intend to shoot other subjects alongside starscapes. All images published at lensguide.io are either ours, authorized by the photographer, or published under creative commons commercial use license. When it comes to shooting astrophotography, however, its not the best, but definitely one of the better options available all the same. Its not especially pretty. This months contestant: the RF 16mm f/2.8 STM a wide field-of-view prime lens that weighs only 165g and costs just $300 / 300. And some photographers may even prefer the more selective field of view provided here. If you shoot video or JPEGs in-camera, you wont notice a thing as the corrections take place automatically and youre left with a normal-looking image. Durable, high performing, and invariably expensive. Which to be clear is better than many comparable simulated manual focusing solutions, but a far cry from actual mechanical focus in terms of accuracy. To be honest I got quite excited when I read about it at launch, but it seems to VERY heavily rely on in-camera corrections to make up for optical performance which puts me off. Canon EOS R6 Mark II Firmware Update Version 1.1.2 Released. Despite its flaws. Above: Head out to the far corner and as youd expect for a lower-priced lens, the image gradually becomes a little softer when the aperture is wide-open and theres evidence of some soft fringing, but on the whole its not too bad.
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