Canon officially announced its sixth new RF mount lens, and the first telephoto zoom lens in the lineup—the RF 24-240mm f/4-6.3 IS USM. With a powerful 10x optical zoom, this all-in-one lens will save you weight and space in your camera bag.
Compact, Lightweight 10x Optical Zoom
The RF 24-240mm lens is designed to give you the freedom and flexibility to shoot in a variety of situations, making it the perfect travel companion. The 10x optical zoom covers a wide focal range, from wide-angle to telephoto, with ease and quality. A true jack of all trades, this lens does everything, and it does it well. With its small size and lightweight (26.4 oz) you can take this lens anywhere and never have to take it off your camera.
Below you can see how much ground you can cover with just one lens:
24mm
50mm
100mm
240mm
High Image Quality and Bright f/4-6.3 Lens Aperture
Even with its compact size, the RF 24-240mm lens has an impressive bright focal length that gives it the ability to maintain beautiful image quality, edge to edge, even at its maximum aperture of F4-6.3. Like other RF lenses, the combination of the mirrorless EOS R series cameras and the RF lenses technology allows the RF 24-240mm lens to produce sharp and detailed images with a smooth background blur.
Despite the aperture limitations of a super zoom lens, you can still shoot beautiful portraits with this lens. The image below was taken at 240mm at f/6.3 with the subject about 8-10 feet from the background. The lens is very sharp wide open, and the 7-blade aperture gives a nice smooth look to the bokeh.
Optimal Image Stabilization
The RF 24-240mm is the first full-frame Canon lens to offer Dynamic IS, a 5-stop image stabilization system that allows photographers to capture images and video in low light with minimal hand-held shake. In the Canon RF 24-240mm video announcement with Rudy Winston, he states that you can safely take hand-held shots of stationary objects at shutter speeds down to 1/15th of a second or even slower at 240mm. We were excited to put this to the test. Much to our surprise, as seen in the example below, we were able to get tack sharp images at 1/15 of a second at 240mm.
High Speed, Smooth Auto Focus
In addition to the exceptional DYNAMIC IS system, the RF 24-240mm lens is designed with Canon’s NANO USM focusing system. This system combines a conventional ring USM AF and a diminutive chip-shaped ultrasonic motor that, as we experienced during our testing, delivers high-speed, smooth, precise and quiet performance.
Convenient Control Ring Settings
The RF 24-240mm is designed with a control ring on the lens barrel that can directly adjust various settings; such as the shutter speed, exposure compensation, aperture, ISO and more. By looking through the Canon EOS R viewfinder and using the control ring, we were able to receive real-time, tangible feedback to help us find the correct exposure for every shot.
The control ring on the RF 24-240mm is located much closer to the body of the camera than other RF lenses, which makes it easy to use. It also doubles as a manual focus ring, which can be selected using the switch on the side of the lens and offers full-time manual focus. This allows the photographer to make focus adjustments even while in autofocus mode.
Minimum Focusing Distance of 1.64 ft./0.50m (Wide), 2.56 ft./0.78m (Tele.)
Another great feature that adds to the versatility of this lens is a minimum focusing distance of just 1.64 ft. (Wide) and 2.56 ft. (Telephoto) with a maximum magnification of approximately 0.26x. This allows you to capture sharp images from almost any distance. Whether you are capturing detailed images of flowers, scenic images of landscapes, new experiences while traveling, or memorable moments with family, the Canon RF 24-240mm will perform in any situation.
Sharp, fast, versatile and stable are just a few words we would use to describe this lens. It will provide pro quality at a great price and replaces a bag full of lenses for times when you need to travel light. You can purchase yours this September for $899 or as the kit lens with the EOS RP for $2199.