Canon RF 16mm 2.8 STM

The Canon RF 16mm f2.8 is that rarest of things: an exotic lens at an accessible price. The ultra-wide coverage delivers photos and videos packed with drama, but from a compact, light and affordable lens that won’t break the bank or your back. You don’t get anything for free in the World of optics though and the RF 16 not only suffers from visible focus breathing, but relies on substantial digital corrections. If you shoot video or JPEGs though, these are applied automatically in-camera, so you may not even notice, while RAW shooters can apply lens profiles during processing to perform the same task. The absence of optical stabilisation may also seem like a downfall for a lens partly aimed at vloggers, but in my tests, the footage could be effectively stabilised by cameras with IBIS or even just digital compensation. If you want optical stabilisation, less breathing and lower distortion, not to mention weather sealing, Canon’s 14-35 f4L and 15-35 f2.8L will give you it all, along with the flexibility of zooming to 35mm and, in the case of the 15-35, sharper corners too. But both are larger, heavier and considerably more expensive. Ultimately you’re not going to get optical perfection from a $299 lens, but the results from the RF 16 remain sufficiently compelling that almost all EOS R owners will want it even if they already have one of the L-zooms.