Canon EF-S 24mm: Brilliantly high image quality affordable APS-C lens

neil holmes wrote:

Miki Nemeth wrote:

I was looking for a small, high quality, modern (vs legacy), 20 - 30mm (APS-C), auto-focus prime lens for my Sony A5100. Despite I am a (Sony) mirrorless fanboy, I decided to pick a Canon EOS lens. I have a nice collection of Canon FD lenses, including the FD24mm/f1.4L, but I've always wanted to own a Canon EOS lens, too. I ordered a Viltrox EF-NEX (electronic) adapter and I visited a local shop and I tried the EF-S 24mm (adapted) on my A5100. The adapter worked fine, but I immediately found that the AF is very slow, very accurate/precise, though. I was a bit hesitant but eventually I bought the lens.

The EFS 24mm is a perfect fit on a small mirrorless camera.

Another shocking experience was the lag in the manual focus-by-wire. It's really frustrating at first, it took me a some time to learn. Huh, focus-by-wire is really bad on Sony lenses, too. Now I know that manual focusing Canon's STM lenses is not fun, either. Eventually, the brilliant focus peaking with touch-to-magnify of the A5100 made MF quite doable/applicable.

After the shocking experiences (very slow AF on the Voltrox adapter, and laggy focus-by-wire) came the good news: the image quality on the 24M Sony A5100 was exceptional. So sharp that I immediately fell in love with this lens. I have the lens on my A5100 since then.

The exceptional dynamic range of the A5100's state of the art APS-C sensor with the brilliantly sharp (still affordable) Canon EFS 24mm produces terrific images.

I love so much the EFS 24mm, that I started thinking of buying a Canon APS-C camera just for this lens in order to get normal speed AF. Maybe Canon's EOS-M4 (if ever made) could be such a body; I am not in a rush.

The Canon EFS 24mm is capable to deliver excellent image to the 24M high-quality sensor of Sony A5100

I use my Sony A5100 + EFS24mm combo these days as slow AF and tricky-to-MF fixed-lens camera.

I tried the EFS 24mm on my daughter's full-frame Sony A7, too. Zoom in to 100% to see/pixel peep how sharp the image is.

As far as I know EFS lenses cannot be used on Canon full-frame cameras, but they can be used on Sony FF bodies.

Maybe next time I'll buy a 40mm or 50mm STM. I expect that adapter makers will improve the AF, too. If not, I may buy a (mirrorless) Canon body in the future when they will have 4K video.

I gave 4.5 stars because of the laggy focus-by-wire, which, of course, is not an issue for AF-only photographers.

Miki

Good stuff Miki,

I highly recommend the 40 2.8 STM (don't let your daughter near it or she will have that too for the A7).

The other thing is see if you can try the lens on M4/3.

There are fast AF adapters available (AF-S at least) from Kipon and Metabones......I have the Kipon and the 40 2.8 is really nice on that with pretty much native AF speed.

I still love the lens on my A7s/A7 with slower AF too.

Have you tried face detect AF? It works great with the 40 2.8 STM on both my Sony's and my M4/3 GX7.

Neil, I have the EF 40/2.8 and the EFS 55-250 f/4-5.6 IS lens. I was planning to adapt these, either to my NEX-7/ NEX-5R,  or my E-M10, and need to keep the price of the adapter at a reasonable level.  I realize that the 40/2.8 is an STM lens, causing some difficulties perhaps. I don't mind slow AF.

Steve