will the rf 24-105 F4 be useful for indoor poorly lit situations?

[phatgreatwall]

without going to the EF mount with 3rd party lens, looks like the RF F4 would my only reasonably priced choice for everyday lens, I have the rf 35 and sometimes find that it's still not wide enough for indoors. i also have the sigma 14 1.8 and find it too wide and distort the edge quite a bit, so seems like 20mm -24mm would be the sweet spot for me. however wondering what everyone's experience with it being F4 and for indoor and will it provide enough light to capture indoor kids activities?

 

[RDM5546]

without going to the EF mount with 3rd party lens, looks like the RF F4 would my only reasonably priced choice for everyday lens, I have the rf 35 and sometimes find that it's still not wide enough for indoors. i also have the sigma 14 1.8 and find it too wide and distort the edge quite a bit, so seems like 20mm -24mm would be the sweet spot for me. however wondering what everyone's experience with it being F4 and for indoor and will it provide enough light to capture indoor kids activities?

Sorry but the f4 is a not enough IMO for indoors except the extreme borderline between indoor and outdoor. I have the RF24-70f2.8 for that use. I carry a small flash to bounce fill flash off white ceilings for darker indoor shots as insurance for darker corners indoors of important indoor event.

How well the f4 works indoors will depend on how high of an ISO is acceptible to you and how much light your indoors have.

 

[starfly]

without going to the EF mount with 3rd party lens, looks like the RF F4 would my only reasonably priced choice for everyday lens, I have the rf 35 and sometimes find that it's still not wide enough for indoors. i also have the sigma 14 1.8 and find it too wide and distort the edge quite a bit, so seems like 20mm -24mm would be the sweet spot for me. however wondering what everyone's experience with it being F4 and for indoor and will it provide enough light to capture indoor kids activities?

Well, at F4 you'll need to be at higher ISO to offset higher shutter speeds. F4 is okay, but not ideal for low-light. Your pictures will be noisier. Not sure if that's an acceptable trade-off for you.

Canon is rumored to release a RF 24mm f/1.8 lens later this year, so you could always try waiting for that.

 

[Peter Kwok]

Depending on your subject, I can even stop down to 5.6 to get all the important subjects in focus. The trick is to press the shutter when everyone stops moving, usually at the peak of the action.

Here is an indoor shot from our trip to Jerusalem. I did not carry any fast lens on this trip. I don't know these people. I took 3 quick shots and moved on. This is the best of 3.

Armenian priest and pilgrims performing their ritual inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

--
Peter Kwok
Click here for my PBase gallery
WYSIWYG - If you don't like what you get, try to see differently.

 

[jwilliams]

without going to the EF mount with 3rd party lens, looks like the RF F4 would my only reasonably priced choice for everyday lens, I have the rf 35 and sometimes find that it's still not wide enough for indoors. i also have the sigma 14 1.8 and find it too wide and distort the edge quite a bit, so seems like 20mm -24mm would be the sweet spot for me. however wondering what everyone's experience with it being F4 and for indoor and will it provide enough light to capture indoor kids activities?

Poorly lit? That might vary quite a bit, but the F4 aperture is not as restrictive as one might imagine. With the very good in lens IS of the 24-105 (better than the 35 1.8 in my experience for whatever reason) and the high ISO capabilities of R cameras, a F4 zoom is a very viable option even if it isn't the ultimate setup to use inside.

All else aside, I'd argue to get the 24-105 4L IS as it is what I'd consider an essential lens of the system and a good mate to your 35 1.8. Between them you have a good FL range in the zoom and a f1.8 aperture in the prime. I think those 2 things will cover a lot of circumstances. I have both lenses and find I use the 35 very little, but that's just me.

--
Jonathan

 

[tkbslc]

. however wondering what everyone's experience with it being F4 and for indoor and will it provide enough light to capture indoor kids activities?

Kid's doing crafts at a table? Yes, that should be fine at 1/60-1/80

Kids running and dancing around? No. Not enough shutter speed at f4.

Bounce flash is a great solution, though. Then any lens is an indoor lens.

 

[thunder storm]

without going to the EF mount with 3rd party lens,

Why not?

looks like the RF F4 would my only reasonably priced choice for everyday lens, I have the rf 35 and sometimes find that it's still not wide enough for indoors. i also have the sigma 14 1.8 and find it too wide and distort the edge quite a bit, so seems like 20mm -24mm would be the sweet spot for me.

Get an EF-mount 24mm f/1.4 prime.

however wondering what everyone's experience with it being F4 and for indoor and will it provide enough light to capture indoor kids activities?

f/4.0 is f/4.0. Nobody knows your situation. You can shoot with your current lenses at f/4.0 and see what happens.

 

[diness]

without going to the EF mount with 3rd party lens, looks like the RF F4 would my only reasonably priced choice for everyday lens, I have the rf 35 and sometimes find that it's still not wide enough for indoors. i also have the sigma 14 1.8 and find it too wide and distort the edge quite a bit, so seems like 20mm -24mm would be the sweet spot for me. however wondering what everyone's experience with it being F4 and for indoor and will it provide enough light to capture indoor kids activities?

I own the RF 24-105 and the RF 35mm f1.8 and I have kids. For poorly lit indoor activities, I generally use the 35mm f1.8 and I find that it's wide enough most of the time. If I want the flexibility of the 24-105, then I use it with a bounced flash. F4 is pretty dark for indoor activities if there is very much movement at all. That being said, I used to have an f2.8 zoom and that was often not enough either. An f2 or brighter lens is often what's needed, or in many cases a bounced flash can be preferable as sometimes f2 or wider doesn't give enough DOF for the scene. Good luck!

 

[thunder storm]

. however wondering what everyone's experience with it being F4 and for indoor and will it provide enough light to capture indoor kids activities?

Kid's doing crafts at a table? Yes, that should be fine at 1/60-1/80

Kids running and dancing around? No. Not enough shutter speed at f4.

Bounce flash is a great solution, though. Then any lens is an indoor lens.

A flash has it's own downsides, as it can destroy the mood the ambient light gives. I'm often using a flash indoors (sooo flexible, as you can even make pictures of kids with a very bright window behind it), but the lesser power I need from it the better it is. First I will trade some ISO, up to 1250, then - depending on the situation - I will trade some DOF, up to f/2.0 or f/1.8, maybe even a little slower shutter speed (never slower than 1/100th), and well, the rest is for the speedlight. Needing a large DOF is always a problem in low light, not only for the narrower aperture, but also even a bounced flash will illuminate subjects closer to the camera brighter than subjects further away. At some point needing a larger DOF is ruling out 2 (aperture and speedlite) of the 3 solutions. A higher ISO is all what's left.

The best reason to use a bright lens: it gathers more light for your AF, for both low light and back lit situations. Even when you're shooting stopped down the camera will focus with the aperture wide open. So if you know your focal length is 24mm, just get an f/1.4 prime to do the job for you. It's three stops more light for your AF. Mind you, if those kids are running in low light, you're gonna need that. Stopping down is a good way to get a bit more margin for the AF-system, and a speedlite can compensate for the stopping down a bit. Use 2nd shutter curtain sync as it's better in case the shutter speed turns out to be a bit on the slow side. It can actually give a cool effect too.

 

[Dave Lasker]

I was thinking you would be OK until I read the last 2 words of your post "kids activities". If the kids aren't moving and the room isn't too dark and you don't mind a bit of noise, then you may be OK. Otherwise you will want to use a flash and/or faster lens.

 

[sportyaccordy]

Too slow. Unfortunately the only decent fast and affordable wider option than the 35 1.8 I can think of is an EF 24 ART. There's a rumored 24 1.8 IS Macro on the way if you can wait.

 

[JackHa2006]

You can set your 35mm to f4 and see if that is acceptable to you.

For me, I still need a flash for 50mm f1.2. I never shot above f2.8 for kids indoors.

--
https://www.instagram.com/JackHa2006/

 

[Andy01]

That lens with it's solid IS is fast enough for poorly lit situations where there isn't much movement. I have a EF 24-105L ii on my 6D ii and it works pretty well handheld in low light and I think the RF version has an extra stop of IS.

If the kids are running around then 5 stops of IS isn't going to help you at f4, and probably 1 stop faster at f2.8 probably isn't going to cut it either. You probably need at least f1.8 or preferably f1.4/1.2 - the question then becomes - can you + R focus accurately/reliably on movement when at such a wide aperture ?

Colin

 

[Kevin_G]

I shot indoor volleyball last Saturday with my new R5. Kids, moving fast, poor gym lighting.

I was in Fv mode, with the shutter locked at 1/640, aperture locked at F4 to give a wider depth of field, and I let the ISO vary with the composition.

I find that 50mm is about perfect for shooting from the sidelines, especially with the ability to crop in with tons of pixels to spare if need be.

So, I started the day with my EF 50 1.8 plastic fantastic. Because I thought I'd need the 1.8. I switched to my RF 24-105 since I was at F4.0 anyway. It was *much* better (focused faster, shot at a much higher rate).

Yes, there's some noise in the higher ISO shots, but that noise was MUCH lower than it was with my previous cameras at the same ISO, and all of the shots were usable. I was extremely happy with the results. Any shots that were truly exceptional I'd just run through DxO, but for purposes of capturing the games, that wasn't necessary at all.

I *do* plan to get the RF 50 1.8 just because it is cheap, and certainly much better than my adapted EF 50. But, in this case, the RF 24-105 F4 was a great tool.

 

[thunder storm]

I shot indoor volleyball last Saturday with my new R5. Kids, moving fast, poor gym lighting.

I was in Fv mode, with the shutter locked at 1/640, aperture locked at F4 to give a wider depth of field, and I let the ISO vary with the composition.

I find that 50mm is about perfect for shooting from the sidelines, especially with the ability to crop in with tons of pixels to spare if need be.

So, I started the day with my EF 50 1.8 plastic fantastic. Because I thought I'd need the 1.8. I switched to my RF 24-105 since I was at F4.0 anyway. It was *much* better (focused faster, shot at a much higher rate).

Yes, there's some noise in the higher ISO shots, but that noise was MUCH lower than it was with my previous cameras at the same ISO, and all of the shots were usable. I was extremely happy with the results. Any shots that were truly exceptional I'd just run through DxO, but for purposes of capturing the games, that wasn't necessary at all.

I *do* plan to get the RF 50 1.8 just because it is cheap, and certainly much better than my adapted EF 50. But, in this case, the RF 24-105 F4 was a great tool.

Actually you are describing the problem with the current RF lens line up. No fast focusing primes. You get either slow stm implementations or big f/1.2 glass elements.

For these kind of jobs you would need fast focusing f/1.4 USM primes. Is Canon protecting sales of the EF 35mm f/1.4 L mkII and the EF 85mm f/1.4 L IS USM?

To be fair: the stm implementations of the RF primes aren't the weakest, but it's definitely not the best technology available either.

 

[logan ross]

without going to the EF mount with 3rd party lens, looks like the RF F4 would my only reasonably priced choice for everyday lens, I have the rf 35 and sometimes find that it's still not wide enough for indoors. i also have the sigma 14 1.8 and find it too wide and distort the edge quite a bit, so seems like 20mm -24mm would be the sweet spot for me. however wondering what everyone's experience with it being F4 and for indoor and will it provide enough light to capture indoor kids activities?

I agree that a small bounce flash like the Canon EL 100 is the way to go. Note that even with RF 1.2 glass, I use flash for good pictures indoors any anything remotely close to low lighting. This is because subject movement and “too thin” depth of field are too problematic otherwise.

 

[tkbslc]

To be fair: the stm implementations of the RF primes aren't the weakest, but it's definitely not the best technology available either.

I moved from m4/3 to Canon R. It's nice having the bigger sensor, but paying $500-600 for budget lenses with noisy extending focus motors is painful. With M4/3 any lens released in the past 5 years, even cheap, has fast, dead silent, internal focusing. I have to buy L glass to get the same AF motors that Panasonic puts in a $300 prime.

At least Canon figured out how to make them quiet for Video, so I'll give the Camera engineers some credit.

 

[Kevin_G]

It sounds like you are saying I wouldn't be happy with the RF 50mm 1.8 because it will focus slower than my RF 24-105 F4L?

Is that really the case? If so, yuck.

 

[diness]

It sounds like you are saying I wouldn't be happy with the RF 50mm 1.8 because it will focus slower than my RF 24-105 F4L?

Is that really the case? If so, yuck.

I'm not sure if you would be happy with it or not, but it definitely focuses slower. The RF 24-105L is nano USM and is VERY quick to focus. I down on the 50mm but I have the 35mm f1.8 and it is STM and is slower. That being said, it's been plenty fast for me and I have not had issues with it.

 

[Alastair Norcross]

It sounds like you are saying I wouldn't be happy with the RF 50mm 1.8 because it will focus slower than my RF 24-105 F4L?

Is that really the case? If so, yuck.

I wouldn't call the RF 50 1.8 slow to focus at all. It's faster than the EF stm version, and it feels a bit faster than the RF 35 1.8 and RF 85 F2. But I think it's slower than the RF 24-105L. But the 24-105 is lightning fast.