Canon RF 24-105mm 4.0 L IS USM

The RF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM is a professional standard zoom lens for Canon's new full-frame mirrorless camera system. Featuring a Nano Ultrasonic Motor for smooth, precise and quiet continuous auto-focusing, Fluorine coatings on the front and rear lens elements, 9 rounded diaphragm blades for smoother bokeh, a zoom lock switch to prevent lens creep, and image stabilisation offering a claimed 5-stop advantage, the weather-resistant Canon RF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM is a capable all-rounder. The Canon RF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM officially retails for £1,119 / €1,319.99 / $1,099.99 in the UK, Europe and the USA respectively.

The Canon RF 24-105mm f/4 USM L IS is a natural choice for EOS R users - at this point in time anyway. Just like other standard zoom lenses, it has its flaws but it is clearly one of the better, if not the best lens in this specific class. Canon emphasized the performance at the wide-end of the range with an evenly high - in fact very high - sharpness across the image field. The broader center quality remains excellent at other focal lengths whereas the outer image region deteriorates slightly. You probably won't notice that in real life at 40mm and 70mm though. At 105mm f/4 the corners soften a bit more but stay within "good" limits (just) and stopping down helps to overcome this little weakness. Lateral CAs are a little high for a modern lens but that's easily corrected either in-camera or via a RAW converter. The amount of vignetting is clearly visible at f/4, especially at 24mm, but that's rather typical in this lens class. Image distortions are always present and most pronounced at 24mm. However, we've seen a lot worse in other lenses for mirrorless cameras. The most obvious weakness is probably the quality of the bokeh but standard zoom lenses are almost never good in this respect. The build quality is very high but then we expected no less from a Canon L class lens. Some may think that the used materials are inferior but that's probably more related to the reduced weight rather than objective criteria. Conversely, we do certainly appreciate a more light-weight approach compared to similar DSLR offerings. The Nano USM AF continues to impress - it's both very fast and silent and it can let you forget about your old DSLR combo. Canon's image stabilizer is proven tech by now. Whether you can really achieve the claimed efficiency of 5 f-stops may depend on your personal saturation with coffee but we didn't reach that in real life. However, it's very good nonetheless. There is certainly still some potential for improvements. However, standard zoom lenses are very difficult beasts but Canon did a great job here.

The Canon RF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM is a very versatile lens with a very impressive performance.