Canon Adds Two RF Lenses to Lineup Extremes

2023.11.03

Along with the surprise-announcement of the Canon RF 24-105mm F/2.8L IS USM Z, the company unveiled two more lenses that extend its focal-range coverage. One is an ultra-wide zoom for their crop-sensor mirrorless, the other is the most extreme telephoto zoom available for Full-Frame.

Canon introduced cropped-sensor RF-mount mirrorless cameras while also supporting the EF-M mount too. Now that EF-M cameras are done, the pace must accelerate for RF-S which so far included only three lenses. A fourth was just released today. The new Canon RF-S 10-18mm F/4.5-6.3 IS STM is the widest in the series. This lens is equivalent to a 15-27mm lens on Full-Frame, giving it a very wide 107° maximum angle-of-view. Like all other current RF-S lenses, this is a highly compact offering with a really dim aperture.

The Canon RF-S 10-18mm F/4.5-6.3 has a collapsible design, allowing it to be just 4.5cm long when closed. It measures 7cm at its widest to match the width of the RF-mount. With such small size and optics, the lens weighs in a mere 150g. Impressively, it can focus down to 8.6cm for a maximum magnification of 0.5X yet only for MF mode. Autofocus can only take it down to 0.23X, for some unknown reason. Despite its light weight, Canon did manage to include a 4-stop optical image-stabilization mechanism inside this lens. When mounted on a camera with IBIS, this can be extended to 6-stops. This is rather strange as the only stabilized cropped-sensor RF-S camera, the Canon EOS R7, delivers 7-stop efficiency IBIS, so it manages to be less capable when this lens is mounted.

Completely at the other extreme, the Canon RF 200-800mm F/6.3-9 IS USM, now the longest RF zoom lens on the market. This super-telephoto zoom with Full-Frame coverage, captures 3-12° angle-of-view. To manage this in a reasonable 2kg lens, Canon had to make this one of the dimmest modern lenses. With a maximum aperture of F/9 at the telephoto end, this lens needs plenty of light. With such narrow maximum aperture, it stops down to a minuscule F/54 which is probably not of any practical application.

The RF 200-800mm F/6.3-9 IS USM sports image-stabilization which delivers 5½ stops of shake reduction. This unfortunately does not extend when combined with IBIS. While stabilization helps when capturing images using a long lens, long and relatively light lenses are generally used for wildlife photography where a fast shutter must be used anyway. Stabilization does nothing against subject movements.

This lens is quite a bit smaller than super-telephoto zoom lenses normally are. It measures just over 34cm long. The front of the lens support unusually large 95mm screw-on folders. At its widest end, the RF 200-800mm has a minimum focus-distance of 80cm which provides 0.25X magnification and is very useful for photos of detail on nature or architecture.

Both these new lenses will be available in December. The Canon RF-S 10-18mm F/4.5-6.3 will launch for $330 USD or $450 CAD and the Canon RF 200-800mm F/6.3-9 IS USM will go for $1900 USD or $2600 CAD.

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