Canon 24-240mm f/4-6.3 IS USM RF Mount Lens

I purchased this lens in August of 2024 and wanted to ride it hard before submitting a review. I have used this lens as an all day carry on my R6 MkII, R5 and R3 and it is always in my bag when I travel. I try to treat my equipment well but this lens has been in the field a ton and just performs! The focus system performs well under almost all circumstances but it will be challenged in low light due to the speed of the lens. If this lens was an f2.8 it would be brilliant. The color rendition has been much better then I expect and the lens overall remains sharp across the entire zone range. For a lens at this price point it is a pretty good lens.

Excellent lens but does lose focus occasionally. During a flying duck track, it did lose focus and had a hard time refocusing.

THE ultimate ‘walking around lens.’ Shot this images in St. Augustine, FL. at the Alligator Zoological Park, many images in crop mode on my R5 mki.

I keep this lens on my camera at all times unless I need something specific that’s out of its wheelhouse. Lightroom had an issue with lens correction for a minute with the weird stretch lines but it seems to be fixed now.

This lens is tack sharp, extremely lightweight and a bargain. You can use it for portraits and landscapes.

I find this to be a good walk around lens as it is very adaptable for a wide variety of shots. It is significantly better than my old Canon EFS 18-200 that I used for years as a walk around lens. I've only been using it for a few weeks but am quite pleased with it's functionality so far.

Canon desperately needed a superzoom for their mirrorless cameras. I bought this new about 18 months ago. I didn't expect it to be very good, but it actually is! You have to use the digital corrections, files look wonky without it and I would be reluctant to use them without a lot of cropping. I do wish the lens went 24-300mm but OK. Yes the F/stops are slow but nowadays cameras like the R5, and R6 have no trouble focusing. If I lost this lens, I would buy another copy. Now, Canon, can we get some more wide angles?

Bought the 24-240mm about 18 months ago. Being a superzoom, I didn't think it would have very good optical quality, but I was surprised! It works great! Looks great! I started to use it on jobs and no complaints. You do have to use the digital correction, without it the files don't look good. I sure wish it was 24-300mm but as it is, it's a (heavy) useful travel zoom! If I lost this lens, I would buy it again. IMHO people who complain about its design are not using it correctly. thanks for listening to my Ted Talk!

I've been a Canon shooter forever and I can honestly say this is the lightest most versatile value of a lens I've ever owned. The AE-1 SLR in the example pics is mine from waaaayyyy back in the day (1979) so I'm speaking from a few years of experience. I purchased this lens as a refurb here on the Canon site. Over the years I've purchased plenty of refurbs from Canon to include the magnificent RF 100-500L recently so I can add that shaving another couple hundred off this RF 24-240 makes it a steal. I primarily shoot aviation and sailboat racing so I need lenses with reach that I pair with crop sensor bodies to squeak a little more out of them but this purchase was to top off a full frame R6 body to be that easy to grab backup for group shots, cockpit instrumentation, activities on the boat deck etc. What I can honestly tell you is that depending on what kind of shooter you are this may be the only lens you'll ever need. By now there's plenty of reviews that highlight the insane distortion if you don't use the in camera or lens profile correction in your favorite software but there's also more than enough reviews that point out why behind it and the true miracle of having enough in camera computational power to do the work of all the additional glass necessary to keep the photons straight along with all the weight and size of that glass. I'm thankfully not shooting with the AE-1 anymore so why be concerned whether the lens I lock onto the front of the body has to straighten the light to the specifications required 40 years ago or if it's getting some help from a huge brain behind the sensor. I'm essentially writing this review to tell you that if you're a DSLR or older shooter it is beyond time to move on and enjoy all the RF 'System' glory that's available. The RF lenses, sensor, and brain are a system that has impressed me with the speed and accuracy of the AF all packed into gear that is 30%+ smaller, lighter, and less expensive (relatively) than anything I've ever owned. This RF 24-240 is the pinnacle of the size, weight, cost advantages offered by the RF 'System'. The closest thing I own is the legendary EF 35-350L that is a heavy monster compared to this and it is not as sharp despite being L-series glass (although it's seen a lot of miles since 1993!). Yes I pulled out my RF 24-70L 2.8 for the holiday photos for the added low light benefits but I've included demo photos from the RF 24-240 that are relatively low light and would make me confident using it indoors for family when there wasn't lots of motion and I could take advantage of the remarkable in lens and body stabilization. I've been comfortably handholding shots of still subjects down to 1/8-1/13 sec with this lens in the 100-150mm range so I'm beyond impressed. Will I use the larger heavier L-glass for the high speed aviation and long distance sailing shots, yes, of course. Will I use this lens for everything else everywhere, absolutely! Where this lens will undoubtedly become your reliable friend is when you apply the age old adage that "the camera you use is the camera you carry..." and you will comfortably and conveniently carry this extremely versatile lens routinely. The only thing more comfortable in my kit is pairing an R7 with the featherweight RF 50 1.8 but where are those nearly 200 other millimeters when you need them? Thank you Canon for developing a lens/'System' that is this lightweight, small, capable, and smart enough to straighten out all those barreled and pincushioned photons!

Now that I have retired, I wanted an all-around lens for hiking and travel that would give me wonderful results. I sold my heavier, multiple lenses system and bought the RF24-240mm lens with a mirrorless camera. After adding some filters and a simple nodal rail in a small shoulder/hip bag, I now have a light weight solution for landscape and architectural photos that delivers superb images! Optical distortions and chromatic aberrations (all lens have these issues) are beautifully corrected by Canon's in-camera software for JPGs and Canon's desktop software for RAW images. I enjoy shooting RAW and post processing. For those pixel-peepers out there, Lightroom and DXO Photolab automatically correct optical distortions and chromatic aberrations for the RF 24-240mm lens. With a 10x zoom range, light weight, image stabilization and comfortable ergonomics, the RF 24-240mm is fun to shoot. What's not to love?

WARNING: Between distortion and unavoidable cropping, this is NOT a 24mm-240mm lens! It’s probably the worst lens Canon’s ever made, at least in my 50+ years of Canon experience. OVERVIEW: Previous reviews pointed out two things: Horrible barrel distortion particularly at the wide angle range, and then that the updated software “corrected” this problem and made this a good lens with good IQ. The former is still quite true, while the latter does make some progress towards a better IQ. While current software does compensate for terrible barrel distortion, however, the result is a cropping of the image that reduces the overall effective focal range of the lens to - what in a rough personal calculation - is about a 35mm - 210mm lens. Furthermore, with complete edge distortion (see example images) this further reduces the effective range of this lens. This is definitely not 24-240mm range lens!! DETAILS: 1) Horrible barrel distortion problem: To easily envision the problem, imagine the following situation: You are taking a group photo of your family with everyone sitting on a couch with Uncle Bob and Aunt Martha sitting on either end on the arm rests. You are shooting at 24mm with this lens and it’s tight but everyone’s in the frame. The RAW file will show everyone from end to end, but with terrible distortion. The software used to render the JPG version in the camera will show a nice, relatively distortion-free image, but, unfortunately, Uncle Bob and Aunt Martha will no longer be in the picture. This same photo, taken with a 24-105mm ƒ4 lens, will show Uncle Bob and Aunt Martha happily sitting on the ends of the sofa (probably with their eyes closed or looking away from the camera, but that’s not the camera’s fault!) Therefore, you really can’t use this lens at the 24mm setting. Further precise measurements can be made to understand exactly to the degree how much is cut off, but for the sake of this review, you get the picture (or not) of Uncle Bob and Aunt Martha. 2) Now, if you are, like many photographers, shooting in RAW and using Photoshop to edit images, you’re in for a real surprise. Photoshop will show you exactly what Canon is cutting off. There is complete edge distortion rendering the pixels into bars that appear all along the edges. (See attached images) Again, a more scientific and precise measurement can be done, but eyeballing it, the usable area of the photograph is reduced by about 20%. (See images of the ocean, with distortion on the left and right sides. Similar distortion can be found on the top and bottom (not shown.)) Using Canon’s very slow, quirky and clunky DPP software is no help. The export to Photoshop takes nearly 5 minutes per CR3 image. Who has time for that? Transferring a day’s shoot would take weeks at that rate! Besides, the standard everyone uses is Photoshop, not DPP. These “edge bars” are likely the result of barrel distortion in the RAW image. 3) Another surprising frustration: No simple manual focus! The weird switch on the barrel that in all other lenses is an “auto focus/manual focus” switch, is NOT an “auto focus/manual focus” switch on this baby! That fact is inexplicably not highlighted or explained anywhere on the tech specs or marketing materials, but only described in the instruction manual (which most people don’t read until after they’ve purchased it.) In order to manually focus this lens, you have to dive into the settings on the camera - as well as moving the switch to a mysteriously-worded “Control” position - to activate manual focus. Now, if you don’t change BOTH the lens switch AND the camera settings, no manual focus! What a ridiculous, confusing, time-consuming, time-wasting system! Under tough lighting conditions (more so on this lens with a higher minimum aperture) you realize this lens is not focusing, and now have to find the manual focus on the camera, switch it, go back to the lens, focus manually, and then remember to put it back again so you won’t mess up shots the next time you are using the camera with a normal lens. Fiddling with the minutia of in-camera settings while you are trying to photograph on the move or in the dark is a recipe to miss a lot of shots. 4) After all the above problems, this one is “minor” but it does also contribute to the fact that you cannot take photographs at 24mm. Even with a “low-rise” filter on this lens, the edges of the image are clipped slightly. Use a standard filter, and there is noticeable clipping. If you happen to just add, say, a polarizer on top of the filter, expect a significant amount of clipping at the edges. While this is also problems on other lenses, it is more so on this one. 5) This lens has trouble focusing in low-light conditions. Perhaps due to the higher minimum aperture, perhaps due to quality of construction and components I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter as the result is the same. 6) And finally, to add insult to injury, whatever weird configuration on the back of this lens is, it is extremely difficult to put the lens cap on the back of this lens! In changing lenses and putting a Canon RF back lens cap off my other RF lens and putting it on this one, it simply won’t go on easily, so that I waste time figuring out what the “magic formula” is - and even then it’s difficult. Not so the other way around to another RF lens. As users by now are aware, Canon changed the RF lens caps as the EF lens caps won’t fit on an RF lens but an RF lens cap will fit on an EF lens. While that was clever, it really takes some doing to get these lens caps on either lens now. The old EF lens caps you could just drop on, turn and done. The RF lens caps have a special placement you have to get just right in order to go on. This particular lens just doesn’t like rear lens caps! In conclusion, this would be a great travel lens. (I did recently take it on a trip along with my 24-105mm ƒ4 L lens. I’m really glad I had the ƒ4L! I was also able to shoot under identical conditions and compare results. There was absolutely no distortion or other problems with the R5 camera +24-105mm ƒ4 L.) The ability to go from wide angle to a good telephoto zoom range in one reasonably light weight lens would make this 24-240mm an ideal travel lens. However, there are too many big negatives: 1) signifiant barrel distortion at the wide end, 2) digital distortion at the edges, 3) loss of a signifiant amount of wide angle due to lens correction, 4) no simple manual focus mechanism, and 5) undependable auto-focus in low light, make this an overall loser of a lens. I’ll miss the extended zoom range, but I’ll be leaving this one home (or trying to sell it) and go back to the reliable, well-made 24-105 L f4 lens. Heck, I might even try a 3rd party lens at this point. Couldn’t be any worse!

This lens is an alternative to the Tamron 28-300 for EF mount for when you want a wide range of zoom options. It works on R5, has built in lens-correction and allows HS+. It seems to have less geometric distortion too.

Is there anything like this lens? A Full Frame, compact 10X modern zoom lens with fast stills and fast movie autofocus? The lens is a great walk around lens. Ignore the naysayers who aren't using the lens correctly. Load the proper lens profile and it's all good. This is not only an excellent lens but also another innovative lens from Canon. This lens, the compact 70-200 2.8 and 600/800 f11 lens made me realize Canon 'gets' mirrorless and was key to me switching from Nikon to Canon. Canon is just getting started!

I bought this for a walkabout lens to go with the R5 and was pleasantly surprised by its performance. No, it doesn't take full advantage of 45MP, but it has the best IQ of any wide range zoom I have used and the IS and AF are both very good. Bottom line, it will get you a picture you can keep and that is what a walkabout lens is meant to do.

I bought this lens in the summer of 2019 and it has been my go to camera and lens for traveling. It covers the bulk of needs giving great coverage with a 10x optical lens. It is not the 15-35 if you need the really wide angles or the 100-500 if you need the really long telephoto. I can put this in my backpack in a neoprene case and I'm ready to go. I used to travel with two camera bodies and four lenses but this was a bulky set-up. I am extremely pleased with the addition of this lens.

I wanted a lens to use with my EOS RP that didn't require the adapter. This lens seemed to fill the bill. It is ultra quiet and very sharp but the CA is terrible and not just at the wide end. Several photos taken at 50 & 55 mm show the same wicked aberration. I can remove about 90% through a multi-step process but who wants to do that for EVERY photo? I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Canon user going back to the early '70's. This has been a very disappointing experience for me.

I got this lens as part of the kit with an EOS RP and it is a fantastic lens for what it is, a wide focal length super zoom. You aren't going to get as razor sharp images during pixel peeking like a L glass lens, but it's darn impressive. Super fast AF, great automatic in camera (or, in canons DPP4 software) lens profiles that remove any issues regarding black edges, major distortion, and amazing chromatic aberration control. If you expect this to perform like a standard super zoom you will be blown away. It's the perfect all in one lens for canon mirrorless if you don't know exactly what the day might bring. At this price (especially in the kit with body), it's hard to recommend anything else.

I’m not crazy about this lens at all. I picked up this lens when I initially purchased the RP camera. Because there were no other available lens options under $2000 and the adapter ring was on backorder. Unfortunately this lens has have you been getting if you use it and it’s for frame state. And I don’t feel comfortable using the zoom option as the images do not come Out crisp. Typically I shoot on the canon 80 D and love that camera but this lens has made me question whether or not I actually enjoy shooting with the RP body.

Please ignore the reviews by people who bought or used the lens before the lens profiles were available. They are misrepresenting the lens. The lens is designed to have automatic corrections done in-camera or in software. The corrections are automatic - so you will never see those black corners that some reviewers mention - or the large amount of distortion. These reviewers did not understand that many mirrorless lenses are designed with in-camera auto correction. Sony, Olympus and others all have lenses that are designed in this way and experienced mirrorless users are aware of that fact. Users new to mirrorless were unaware, and thus this lens received many very poor reviews, including from a number of YouTubers. Once the lens profiles were made available to all the major softwares, these "issues" were gone. What you end up with is a lens with an extreme focal length that performs much better than any other similar lens I have tried. A bit soft in the corners at 24mm when wide open, it is fine when stepped down. At other focal lengths the lens is very sharp, even at the long end. If you are not a pixel peeper, there is very little difference between this lens and the RF 24-105 L lens at most focal lengths beyond 28 or so. If you are looking for one lens that you can keep on your R series camera for most of your photos, this is the lens.

Not the clarity of my other Canon zoom lenses and the real down side is the "black corners" at wide angle with even just polarizing lens and worse yet with a collapsible rubber hood (totally collapsed), yet this was designed for a full frame camera? It also doesn't do well in low light conditions. The only benefit is has the new Canon mount so I don't have to use the adapter ring as with my older lenses....but for image quality my older lenses with the adapter give a far superior image, allow more light, and seem to autofocus better.