Good but not great

RLight wrote:

thunder storm wrote:

wjan wrote:

Having recently acquired tiny Canon RP with an excellent 35/1.8 IS prime I was thinking about augmenting it with this 10x zoom. It would make a nice full-frame travel kit, so I could retire my old APS-C D5500 with its 18-140mm f/3.5-5.6 zoom (equivalent to 28-210mm f/5-8 on full frame). Dreams, dreams...

Quick unscientific test on brick walls and tree branches has shown no meaningful difference in terms of sharpness (both in center and on border of the frame), chromatic aberrations, bokeh quality or stabilization efficiency between Canon 24-240 and Nikon 18-140 on any shared focal length. I had a feeling though, the Canon focuses slightly faster. Considering 18-140 is waaaay cheeper and 260 g lighter, I decided to return 24-240 to the vendor and to keep using 18-140 as my travel zoom.

Some people on internet are moaning about huge unrecoverable vignetting, but it is not an issue at all! The thing is, the angle of view of this lens is de-facto wider than should be for e.g. 24mm focal length and vignetting if therefore just a part of this additional frame space left there intentionally.

But why is a lens giving you the option not using the whole sensor surface in the first place? Especially if it's not covering the whole sensor at the wide end: Just DON NOT let a lens go to 22.whatevermm if it's specified to go to 24mm.

I'm willing to bet if you look at the imaging circle of say the EF-M 18-150, it mechanically covers more of the imaging circle than 24mm and alot of glass is "wasted". My guess, Canon designed this lens with software corrections in mind from the get-go to maximize the potential of the lens design in the same way they do with point and shoot optics on the wide end. Canon couldn't do that at the time of the 18-150 with the DIGIC7, but, with the DIGIC8 which is much faster, they can. According to the tests, this lens is no slouch...

https://www.photoreview.com.au/reviews/mirrorless-lenses/mirrorless-lenses-full-frame/canon-rf-24-240mm-f-4-6-3-is-usm-lens/

Likewise, the real-world samples I've seen are impressive and seem to affirm these benchmarks.

I think this is a winner-lens, for what it is.

If you want a superzoom this will be the best option around.

We'll see later this week.
Btw, I may "go dark" because I've been on DPR too much lately. Forums are a nasty addiction. Time to scale back a bit, but I'll be back if so.

Hmmmm, that might be a wise thing to do for someone else too.

You just have to turn on the correction in camera or do it by yourself on computer and distortion correction will fix everything back to normal.

It is pity, by the way, there is currently (as of early 2020) no other consumer lens between 24-105 and 24-240 in the RF lineup. Something like 24-160/4-6.3 with a weight under 600g, compact dimensions and lower price would suit my needs much better.

Pros:
- very useful focal range for a travel zoom
- pretty good sharpness in the center
- quick and silent focusing
- effective stabilization (around 4-5 stops depending on focus distance)
- can focus as close as 50 cm

Cons:
- visible loss of sharpness on the edges of the frame
- expensive
- on the bulky side when mounted on Canon RP
- control ring w/o clicks is pretty much useless

A lens like this sells. So Canon has to make it.

For me: if there's wouldn't be enough space in my bag i would just leave the longer focal lengths at home. Why the need to picture anything that was just too far away to be really part of your traveling experience? And when you bring a sharp lens there's often that atmospheric haze....

A 24-70 or 24-105 and one prime 35/40/45/50mm.... wouldn't that be enough?