Canon EF 24 mm f/2.8 IS USM review - Distortion

Have you rated your lenses yet?

Canon EF 24 mm f/2.8 IS USM

17 October 2012

Arkadiusz Olech

6. Distortion

Significantly lower distortion is an advantage of prime lenses over the zooms. It’s worth reminding here that zoom lenses which focal length starting from 24 mm at the widest angle can have distortion amounting to about –2% on the smaller detector and -4% or even –5% on full frame. Compared to that the results of the Canon EF 24 mm f/2.8 IS USM look splendid. On the APS-C sensor we notice very slight “barrel” of -1.23% which increases a bit to –1.91% when you pass to full frame.

Such a small difference between full frame and the APS-C sensor results is a bit puzzling though - most likely a small level of moustache distortion might be responsible for that. It seems on the edge of full frame you can notice a bit of bending of straight lines in the direction opposite to that observed near the frame centre.

It’s also worth noticing that the distortion level of the tested lens, although lower than that of the „zooms”, is higher than that of more advanced constructions. For example the Canon EF 24 mm f/1.4L II USM on full frame shows the distortion reaching just –1.26% so practically the same as the 2.8/24 model features on the APS-C sensor.

Please Support Us

If you enjoy our reviews and articles, and you want us to continue our work please, support our website by donating through PayPal. The funds are going to be used for paying our editorial team, renting servers, and equipping our testing studio; only that way we will be able to continue providing you interesting content for free.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - advertisement - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -