Focus Speed and Performance
Starting with the good news, the Canon RF 35mm f/1.8 Macro focuses accurately and consistently, even in stringent lab conditions. There is no issue on that front.
However, I found that the Canon RF 35mm f/1.8 had more issues with hunting for focus compared to most other Canon RF lenses. In low light, especially if capturing both near and far subjects, the lens would sometimes take a while to find focus or give up entirely. It didn’t happen enough to make the lens unusable, just enough to be annoying – and in good light, the lens was pretty snappy. I continue to think that a focus limiter switch would have been a very useful addition to this lens.
Also, the Canon RF 35mm f/1.8 Macro focuses pretty loudly relative to a lot of modern lenses. This can be a problem for videography if you’re working with an on-camera mic, which is a shame, because it’s otherwise a good lens for quick video work.
Lastly, the close-focusing capabilities are – as expected from the lens’s name – excellent. It’s worth noting that the RF 35mm f/1.8 Macro is not a true macro lens that can reach life-size magnification (AKA 1:1 or 1x magnification). Even so, the lens can focus to half life-size, or 1:2 magnification (2x), which is still excellent for a 35mm prime.
However, keep in mind that 35mm is a pretty wide angle, so you’ll need to get very close to your subject if you want to do any near-macro photography. Since the lens barrel extends at close focus, the problem is exaggerated even further. You may find yourself scaring away any skittish creatures that you’re photographing, or even seeing the shadow of the lens barrel appear in some of your photos with this lens. Keep all that in mind before you start to think of it as a substitute for a longer macro lens.
Distortion
The Canon RF 35mm f/1.8 has fairly low levels of distortion, measuring in at -1.49% barrel distortion in a lab environment. That’s still enough to benefit from corrections when shooting architecture, but it’s not enough of a problem to cause severe stretching in the corners.
Here’s a simulation of -1.49% distortion on a flat grid:
Vignetting
In uncorrected images, the Canon RF 35mm f/1.8 Macro has fairly high levels of vignetting. Here’s a full chart of vignetting levels:
The maximum of about 2.5 stops of vignetting – which occurs at f/1.8 and infinity focus – is certainly on the high side. Vignetting at close focus is better controlled. As you stop down, the lens quickly improves. Vignetting is already pretty negligible at f/2.8, even at infinity focus.
Here’s an image showing the worst-case vignetting against a gray field, which exaggerates the issue.
Lateral Chromatic Aberration
There is a low amount of lateral chromatic aberration on the Canon RF 35mm f/1.8 at every aperture, hovering around the 1 pixel range. Here’s the chart:
Generally speaking, lateral chromatic aberration is almost impossible to notice in real-world images if it measures under one pixel in our lab tests. The Canon RF 35mm f/1.8 Macro hovers right around that mark, which is very good performance. Whether you turn on chromatic aberration corrections or not, you will rarely see any lateral CA with this lens. I couldn’t spot it in any of my real-world photos.
Sharpness
The Canon RF 35mm f/1.8 Macro is a sharp lens, with the one (unsurprising) weakness being corner performance wide open. Here’s how it performs as measured in our lab:
Central and midframe sharpness is good even wide open, and the center is already excellent by f/2.8. The lens hits its peak central sharpness at f/4, while the sharpest aperture from corner to corner is f/5.6. That said, for landscape photography or macro photography, I wouldn’t hesitate to use f/11 or f/16 with this lens if more depth of field is needed.
As for the corners at f/1.8 and f/2, most wide-aperture primes struggle to capture high levels of corner sharpness until they’re stopped down a bit, and this lens is no exception. It’s uncommon for most photographers to need sharp corners at f/1.8 anyway, except for Milky Way photography; more on that in a moment.
In the field, the Canon RF 35mm f/1.8 Macro remains very sharp even at near-macro distances, although you’ll usually need to stop down to at least f/4-5.6 in order to get enough depth of field.
By comparison, here’s how Nikon’s Z 35mm f/1.8 S (an $850 lens, albeit one that often goes on sale for $700) performs:
It’s a pretty interesting comparison, with the “winner” (if such a thing is even a contest) swapping places depending upon which aperture and portion of the frame you’re examining. The simplistic summary is that the Canon is sharper in the center at wide apertures, so it may be a better street/event/portrait lens, while the Nikon is sharper in the corners throughout the aperture range, so it may be preferable for landscapes. In any case, this is a pretty good showing for the Canon 35mm f/1.8 Macro considering that it’s only $500 and can focus to near-macro distances.
For some additional context, within Canon’s own lineup, here’s how the RF 35mm f/1.8 Macro compares to the high-end RF 15-35mm f/2.8 L at 35mm:
As we have seen many times before at Photography Life, even a high-end zoom often falls short of basic prime lenses in maximum sharpness. While these two lenses are very competitive in corner and midframe performance, the RF 15-35mm f/2.8 L never reaches the high central sharpness that the RF 35mm f/1.8 Macro achieves at f/2.8 and f/4.
Coma
Related to sharpness is coma, a lens aberration that can make dots of light in the corner of a photo look like smears. Coma isn’t usually visible in everyday photography, but for something like Milky Way photography, it can be a factor. The Canon RF 35mm f/1.8 Macro wouldn’t be my first choice for Milky Way photography considering the longer focal length – normally, something 24mm or wider is preferable. Even so, because of the f/1.8 maximum aperture, I wanted to put it to the test. Here’s the image that I started with:
The crops shown in the image below are extreme crops from the top-right corner of the Canon EOS R5 with the 35mm f/1.8 Macro lens. I cropped the EOS R5’s 45-megapixel sensor down to tiny 2-megapixel crops and didn’t do any resizing. Click to see the following images full size, which are direct excerpts from the image with only Lightroom’s default sharpening and noise reduction applied:
As you can see, the coma at f/1.8 is pretty bad, but it’s mostly gone at f/2.8. This is adequate performance, and while I won’t be using the RF 35mm f/1.8 as my primary Milky Way lens by any stretch, it works in a pinch. I definitely recommend stopping down to f/2.8, however, even though it necessitates a higher ISO.
Bokeh
Bokeh is another word for the qualities of the background blur in a photo. “Good” bokeh can be subjective, but it’s usually preferable to have round, uniform, and soft-edged qualities in any out-of-focus specular highlights.
The Canon RF 35mm f/1.8 Macro has beautiful bokeh when focused at macro distances, but somewhat busy bokeh if focused further. Here are some images and crops to show how it looks in practice:
You may notice that in some of these images, there is visible longitudinal chromatic aberration, also known as color fringing in out-of-focus areas. While this isn’t unusual to see on wide-aperture lenses, it’s still higher on the Canon RF 35mm f/1.8 Macro than I would like. Here’s the worst example of it that I was able to capture:
Longitudinal CA is more difficult to correct compared to lateral CA, and it shows up most significantly when photographing shiny objects like watches and rings. The good news is that, as you stop down with the RF 35mm f/1.8 Macro or focus further away, the amount of longitudinal CA decreases. It’s only this bad at f/1.8 and close focus distances.
Sunstars and Flare
I found the Canon RF 35mm f/1.8 Macro to have good sunstars at small apertures, as you can see below:
You can see a bit of flare in the image above (some green specks a little lower and to the right of the sun) but they aren’t bad, either. Here’s a more demanding scene showcasing the lens’s good control of flare:
While there is obviously a large speck of flare at the bottom right, plus some classic red dot flare around the sun, the photo still has very good contrast considering how backlit it is. This is a strong performance from the Canon RF 35mm f/1.8 and better than I’ve seen on a lot of wide-angle lenses.
That said, I did notice one consistent issue with flare when focusing at close-up distances. You may have noticed it in the Bokeh section earlier, too: Lines of flare appear in the out-of-focus regions. It occurs regardless of aperture and isn’t just an isolated event. Here’s the most significant example that I saw:
To me, the flare above is actually kind of an interesting visual element in the photo, and I don’t see it as a major negative. But I wanted to point it out, since you may disagree.
The next page of this review sums up everything and explains the pros and cons of the Canon RF 35mm f/1.8 Macro. So, click the menu below to go to “Verdict”:
Table of Contents