Having owned this lens for a couple years now, this one spends quite a bit of time on my camera. It’s awesome for live music and artist portraits, and doubles as a near-fisheye lens when uncorrected! But the biggest factor for me is that it weighs a fraction of my wide 2.8 zoom. I love this size, and I bring this lens with me everywhere.
You may want to check out the review of this lens by Todd Dominey in addition to Christopher’s review. Mitch Lilly also does an insightful review on this lens. As a result of this review and the two others mentioned I’m going to pass on this lens. I can get a used Canon 17-40 or 16-35 or a Tamron 17-35 that will be more versatile without all of the optical compromises Canon made on this lens. I’ll pass on this lens. I had such high hopes.
@@justesmond I think you are right for shots where good across the frame quality is needed. I use the 16-35 f4 EF and it is very sharp right into the corners (I used to have the 17-40 which wasn't too bad either). But I think the attractions of this 16mm are its size and weight as a carry anywhere lens for trips where photography is perhaps not the main aim.
Hi Christopher, I really like your unbiased and thorough lense reviews. I would very must love to see a reveiw of the RF 16mm 2.8 on one of the new APS-C R series cameras.
This is a great lens for me. I shoot wildlife and when I’m out sometimes I’ve got beautiful landscape around and just want to take a snapshot. It’s so small I can just throw it in the bag and it’s there if I need it. I’m not looking for L glass quality or pro landscape images just shots showing the environment I’m in looking for wildlife.
Agreed. This lens actually is incredible, especially at the price. The lack of flaring, attractive sunstars, buttery bokeh, tiny size, and great close-ups are more important for me than corner sharpness. Considering that I had a 16-35mm f/2.8 and only used it as an oversized 16mm f/2.8, this is a no-brainer for me.
Thank you for the wonderful review! It is worth noting that the test was done on a 45MP camera which puts higher demand on resolution. On a EOS R or R6 the resulting resolution obtained by the lower MP sensor will be sharper due to lower spatial sampling.
@@elenderKnecht I have been playing with this lens for about ten days now - I think it is very good on the R6. I didn't notice any issues on an RP, either. I shoot RAW images and the Canon DPP4 editing software corrects the distortion very well.
This lens was sharp and nice from 2.8 on my RP. Stop it down and it gets really friggin great. One of the best pieces of glass and the must fun I have ever used.
Just got this lens today. I think it is becoming my favorite lens! Its so tiny! It's also razor sharp! Great for real estate photos, landscapes, and any other wise angle needs! I highly recommend purchasing this lens if you haven't already!
Canon which was the old librarian of the camera world is lately releasing some super innovative and interesting new gear. Yeah it's not perfect but nothing is ever perfect at 300$, especially with such a small package. Might buy one myself some day!
This is actually a pretty good thing, since distortion can be corrected absolutely perfectly, introducing at most the cost of averaging two neighboring pixels together (which at 45MP is practically no cost at all, given how many pros argue how 22MP is "enough"). Everything about a lens, just about, can be traded off against everything else, and it's an obvious move to trade off things you CAN'T correct automatically, such as size weight cost and sharpness, for those you can.
Just picked one up today for my R6. Interesting that they reused the same outer plastics as the RF50mm 1.8. Very happy with it - opens up some new photographic possibilities and some fun exaggerated pics at the close focusing distance. The corner softness does not bother me, and it's really not so bad. I'm only a hobby photographer and for the price, this is an essential lens for anyone with an RF camera.
Watching Chris's lens reviews is entertaining on its own right---even tho I don't have the $$ to get that full frame lens or an R5 body. 😅 I mean it's oddly satisfying seeing that picture at 4:27 and the results of the distortion grid at 5:42.
Thanks for your honest reviews unlike other reviewers, I've cancelled my pre-order after watching the distortion in raw files and focus breathing! I can't stand crap glass which need a lot of software correction
I Pre-ordered this lens in mid September. But when it came time for stores to have them in stock, it was backordered with no arrival date known. I have the Tamron 15-30 2.8 G2 and it does a great job for images but I needed an ultra wide for video on a gimbal. The 15-30 2.8 G2 is a relatively heavy lens.. and with the EF adapter it becomes even more front heavy. Plus the auto focusing in video is a bit jerky. I ended up canceling the lens order and I went in a different direction. I went for the higher end RF 14-35mm F4 L that recently was released and just arrived in stock. While the F4 doesn't open up as wide as an F/2.8. It's a fast focusing sharp ultrawide lens. I personally am loving it. I very much enjoy the range of Zoom from 14-35mm.. plus it's easy to balance on my gimbal. It's lightweight while having solid construction. I think it's probably a better match for my R5 & R6.
I think its worth to look at corners without distortion corrections to understand what amount of softness we get from this warping. I thing in this pure half-fish eye form lens can be not so bad.
I think part of the beauty of RF and the lack of 3rd party options is the almost perfect adaption of EF lenses from Canon or 3rd parties. That opens up an equal if not greater set of choices vs other mirrorless lens mounts with E or L mount. I still use Tamron G2 f2.8 zooms which work phenomenally great on my Canon R6. You can even get an adapter from Canon that adds the bonus control ring. So maybe not specifically RF mount but we do have a ton of 3rd party options.
@@digitaldevigner4080 but it’s huge. Especially when compared to say a A7M4 with sigma 28-70DN. I’m a r5 user but the kit usually don’t go out unless some serious weather or some free environment where they don’t care for a pro-looking set up
You *want* this lens? It is an affordable ultra wide, but there are barely any good qualities! I’m all for compact, but not at the expense of IQ, WR, not amazing coma, distortion, etc
I got this one a couple of days ago and have tested it for vlogging on my R5, R6, and EOS - R. For vlogging the R5 did pretty well but the other 2 didn't do so well with the stabilization. I haven't had a chance to use it for photos yet thanks for the review!
@@guogegreat I'm not really sure to be honest. I am going to watch them side by side and see. It's not the that R6 is terrible I just think the R5 looks better.
I will be buying this to complement my “kit” lens, an RF 28-70 f/2! This lens is the perfect pairing to standard zooms, since I usually don’t go wider than 16mm and most of the ultrawide zoom range is overlapped by the standard zooms. Plus it is so small there’s always room to throw it in.
@@john_casey I forgot to mention that i also own an EF 11-24L, RF15-35L/2.8, and an RF70-200 2.8L. But since I shoot the 28-70 for 95% of my shots, I’m looking for something ultrawide that is compact enough to fit in my 10L daily carry bag holding my R5, speedlight and 28-70. For the size and weight, this looks like the lens for me.
@@mxilplict My problem is I also have the Rf28-70 , RF70-200 F2.8 , the RF100-500 and now the RF100 Macro and a Tamron 15-35 f 2.8 which I would like to swap for either the RF15-35 f2.8 or the RF14-35 F4 which ever Christopher says is sharper lol I am hoping the F4 is just as sharp as the F2.8 as Less weight the 70-200 has found it been left out to save weight I can not bring myself to leave the 28-70 yet as I just love it like the 100-500
@@Tainted-Soul Yup - 1st world problems. When I bring all of lenses, I literally roll with a pelican case. If i were in your situation I would go with the 16 too, or just turn that 28-70 90 degrees and shoot a pano of 3-5 shots for stitching, if there isn’t any fast movement in your scene.
Wish i had the money for an R5 body, but i choose the R5 to go with a lense (70-200 f2.8 to replace my old IS ii 2.8 which is rather heavy and long) My next aim is the 100-500 once it becomes available... i had my eye on the 16mm as the 85mm was a bit dissapointing with its STM AF being what it is (very slow when the barrel is long) and... ... if they didnt overcompensate the corners so hard, this lense would be a definite carry with me in my bag.
You can shoot raw, but it's not ideal - afaik you can't avoid the corrections in video, and you don't get preview the image until you get it off the camera
@@robertm3951 It depends on the raw processor. On Photoshop Elements you cannot turn the corrections off, at least with PowerShot G9X II, but the comment as hopefully a joke.
Hello and thank you for this video. I had this RF 16mm f2.9 stm lens for two days of testing with my Canon RP. It is really for very particular Photos and it has too many deformations ! ... Finally I did not keep it and bring it back to the store, I prefer my RF 50 f1.8 stm which I find more versatile ! I would wait for the cannon to release a 24 or 28 mm RF for the Landscapes ! ... Sincerely, Philgood ...
@@PHILGOODOK1 Yes, I really did not like the distortion and blur in the corners. I handed over the lens to the store, although it was fully functional. and 50 1.8 I already had before
@@manukello Well, thank you for your answer, that reassures me a bit, so I am not the only one to have made this observation! Another thing, with my Canon RP, I therefore use the RF 50mm f1.8, but also the EF 4omm f2.8 stm lenses, and the EF 35 f2 is usm with the RF-EF adapter ring. I noticed that the image rendering is more natural and less contrasted with EF lenses than with RF 50mm, what do you think ???
Please do a 50mm f/1.2 comparison between Sony, Nikon, and Canon! I love your reviews, made a lot of my lens choices based on them. Keep up the good work! God bless!
Again thank you for your great reviews. I just played this video next to the Irix 15mm f/2.4 that I own the Firefly version of (about 450€ back then). The RF 16mm f/2.8 is about 340€ (without lens hood of course, sigh Canon) here. It is a difference like night and day. Canon should be ashamed to sell such a piece of garbage, no matter the price. They should just charge 400-500€ and make an usable lens. This thing here is good for one thing: vlogging. I really was interested in this lens because the Irix plus the EF-RF-adapter is a huge combo and I watched out for a smaller lens. I don't need high end quality, I didn't expect a L lens, obviously. But man, this here... I'll wait for some reviews with Lightroom correction, but I don't have any more hope. 340€ is just too much for worst picture quality on the market. Thanks again for destroying my dream of a lightweight lens, Christopher, really, thanks ;)
I bought this lens to keep as a spare for those times I needed something wider than my 24-105mm f4 could provide. But now I look forward to using it as my landscape lens on my R7.
I feel like Canon overprioritized the small size here. This lens could have probably cost the same while having more optical correction and better performance. Very similar to the RF 50 1.8 in concept which is not a good thing IMO.
I like the way you judge lenses! Very British though… I am German and have been living in England for some years and I had to learn to not pixel peep and understand that “you shouldn’t fix things unless they’re broken” etc.. In Germany, a lot of people quite liked the RF16 when it appeared in the market and when the German reviewers destroyed it because of corner sharpness missing and distortion, they didn’t like the lens anymore…. In England imo there is more common sense in that respect and good enough is for many - good enough😉 makes life easier and more enjoyable. Best regards to fantastic England - not perfect, but for sure much, much more than good enough, just a great place to live…👋🏴🇩🇪
I assume the RF100-400 is in the pipeline. What a lot of people want to know is how the RF16f2.8 compares to the RF14-35f4 and RF15-35f2.8. Similarly, they want to know how the RF100-400 compares to the RF100-500 and EF100-400IS mk.2.
yeah, this reviewer royally sucks for his failure to actually give the side-by-side comparisons. The questions for cost may be an absolute, but practically everything else (corner sharpness, bokeh, size, weight) is relative. Or would be, if he'd give us anything to measure it relative to...
I agree the corner sharpness is very bad. My copy isn’t all very sharp in the center either. I correct the fisheye look in LR. ALMOST EVEY IMAGE I SHOT HAD TO BE CORRECTED.
It's a great lens, all in all, It can even do macro shots, I figured the trick when using nd filter to avoid hazing, just use 2-3 stop of nd then adjust aperture to 4.5-5.6 tops and that's a harsh sunny day. To avoid warping the edges, I shot it in Cropped mode for details, then for long shot I go f4 - 4.5 so that it has a balance sharpness. Its also very light, Before I get aches doing Glide shot with the Ronin S all day during weddings, but with the 16mm and R6, damn It was a breeze the beauty of it, is I only drain battery for like 25% out of the 100% of ronin and that's like 9-12 hours of shooting non-stop. I do videographer though. But for this lens, its great at its price and can probably compete to other pancake lens. R6 is also an amazing Camera.
Hey Chris, great review as always! :) At what distance did you shoot the pictures with the test chart? I got the lens 10 days ago and realized that the corner sharpness really depends on the focus distance.
@@okaro6595 not really. plenty of low budget wide angle lenses have this problem with or without correction. This is an R5 even if the stretching was causing half the pixels to vanish the lens still wouldnt look this bad if it was better designed
Regarding the distortion... I have a feeling they took a 10/11mm fish eye lens element design and let the in-camera correction zoom in & stretch out the living daylight out of it. I hope they get their heads round this quick & dirty lens design principle these last 2 years for pumping out high quantity of RF lenses
on a UWA i would trade a bit of corner softness for good flair control any day ..i have ruined more UWA photos with flair when the sun is in/near the frame than corner softness. .also it looked to be in the extreme corners. chances are if you were focused on the rule of 1/3eds the corners would most probably be out of focus anyway
Great review as usual! I received mine a few days ago and did not high hopes based on low price and small size. However, it turns out it is actually quite usable. I plan on taking it with me on trips when landscape is not the primary goal but I still want a wide angle option.
2:58 Is it only me getting seasick watching how quick the background is changing its shape? I just got how strong the barrel distortion should be by watching this! I kindda like a lens to be able to be an option as a wider fisheye lens in raw files, but this problem by itself makes a serious problem in videography. Even more important than the focus breathing. What ever you shoot with it just avoid panning quicky! And the effect comes from the delay in the lens correction to be applied for the new scene.
In the canon RF world it's the super cheap noise small lenses or the great heavy expensive L lenses , no middle ground like in the Nikon Z and Sony E mount 😐
I honestly don't mind it. You can have great images with really expensive lenses, or you can have really reasonably good images with cheap lenses. FE mount launched with a $798 35mm f/2.8 lens and I'm glad that we haven't had to pay prices like that for midrange glass on RF mount.
well they do have midrange...its the f4 variants. 70-200 24-105 15-35 etc....those are like 1k less than the f4 variants and their prices arent even that much different than nikons. None of the rf lenses are bad so idk what people expect from Canon lol
@@romancotton8536 many RF lenses is bad. 16/2,8, 50/1,8, 24-105/4-7,1 are the worst. But also at a nice price..but look at the 1,8 Nikon Z primes , in terms of picture quality it's on the same level as the Canon RF L primes at a low price 😃
I think this lens is showing that canon is preparing for an RF aps-c camera, 16 mm makes more sense on crop cameras, is very small an relatively cheap, and is not the best quality, it reminds me a lot of the 24 mm 2.8
16mm is the standard for ultra wide angle lenses on full frame since decades. I think, they will bring out a new very cheap RP and therefore need extremely cheap lenses like this one here. This has nothing to do with aps-c.
I think the RF 16mm and RF 100-400mm lenses are the direct replacements for their 10-18mm and 55-250mm EF-S lenses, but in the full frame format. I think they're priming for Rebel priced FF R cameras, not an APS-C release. With auto-focus now being pixel based enabling high f-stop AF, APS-C simply doesn't make sense anymore for Canon.
@@garethgibson6500 answering two comment's, i don't say that canon is making this lens j because it will release an Apsc camera soon, i just say it because the Ef-M talk about if the line will continue or not, canon would not abandon Apsc territory, so any time soon or long canon will release another Apsc mirrorles camera, and it makes more sense to lock people in the RF ecosystem of lenses, instead of having two lines , and this lens gave me a lot of impressions that canon is adding a lot of lenses that match Apsc cameras
As a real state photographer, this is an ok budget lens. As a portrait photographer, this is a cool lens to have. How is the sharpness compared to the laowa 9mm f2.8? if you ever tested it.
I wonder if the edge sharpness is also bad. I don’t care much about the very corners but sometimes I place my subject to the lower edge (portrait oriented)
@@lb7144 It was superb for the aurora hunting. So easy to focus in the dark too. I've tried to reply with some links but it seems RU-vid didn't appreciate it. Hope you get this.
Thanks for the (as allways) great review! I have a question: I currently own the EOS RP and the Samyang manual focus EF 14mm f2.8 using it mainly for arcitacture photography. I am thinking about changing it for the RF 16mm because of it´s size, the auto focus and the fact that it´s a native RF-lens, so I wouldn´t need the adapter. The bad corner sharpness makes me doubt now. Would you recommend it for arcitecture photography over the Samyang?
I would personally go with the Samyang for its extra wideness and sharpness, but the in-camera correction with this lens and its autofocus appeal to my lazy side haha
@@christopherfrost Thanks so much for your quick answer!! :-) I guess I will stick with the Samyang for now and see if some day there will be more wide AF options for the RF mount.
@@djstuc I already suffer from that. We all suffer. Rf 35 mm 1.8 IS STM owners too. But, it seems like, that this is a software error and I hope that it will be fixed in firmware update.
I own the RF16 and it shines in many ways. Don't forget the R series have an option to crop movie.... on a R5 this is a nice 16mm and a very good 28mm in crop mode.
0:49 Where did the vowels go? XD Great review. Super nice lens, it is a pity that the APSC mirrorles Canon cameras dont have the same mount, this would make a nice 24mm lens.
I did some testing with mine and I think that this lens has much more distortion at close focus, if you increase focus distance going to infinity distortion get much lower. This cause less corner stretch and better IQ. I can think that Canon has preferred a better quality when focusing at infinity being mainly a landscape lens. I have a Flickr gallery with JPG / RAW examples where I compare Canon RF 16mm and Voigtländer 15mm Sony E not sure if I can post the link.
Yo Flickr, that Alain F. on RU-vid told my, you got photos of him. No, he didn't write his Flickr name nor did he post a link. Fuck him then, you say? Alright Flicker, ty.
I shoot profesionell with a couper of 5ds, but im really tempted to buy a r or rp and this lens just to have a fin Little setup to have with me ok vacaions, rosdtrips or just as a cheaper ever day camera. Alot smaller then my 5d4 with a 16-35 2.8 lens on
I have this lens in M42 mount , in a crop sensor it becomes 42mm normal focal lenght, very good for portrait , bokeh is nice and very good subject and background separation, 3D effect.
I use ultra wide only for astro and have a Samyang RF 14mm f2.8 MF lens. It is a huge chunk of glass in comparison and I am wondering if I would benefit from switching to this Canon's 16mm in picture quality? I know I would benefit in terms of size/weight + filter usage (as the Samyang is a fisheye and does not accept standard filters), but main question is - will the image quality be +/- the same?
PS. To add - the Samyang has the ugliest/worst mustache distortion I have ever seen that can't be corrected easily (it can be, but it is a pain in the arsey and only in post, obviously).
Slight correction here: it isn't only for full-frame RF mirrorless camera - you can also use it on APS-C RF mirrorless (I use it on my R7), but at 1.6x magnification so on a crop sensor it ends up being roughly 25mm.
