Canon 24mm EF-S Pancake Review

I recently saw that Canon had released a 24mm EF-S f/1.8 Pancake lens. I was very interested in this lens. I have a full set of Nikon and Canon FD primes, but my EF prime selection is lacking. Seeing that Canon released a low cost, wide-angle “pancake” lens was just the push I needed to expand my EF’s.

The First thing you will probably notice about the Canon 24mm EF-S lens is the slim profile. This is achieved by the use of one aspherical element in the lens' construction, which helps to minimize chromatic aberrations and produce notably sharp images. The slim “pancake” profile of the lens also allows you to use the lens in ways (and places) you cannot with a standard sized lens.

The second thing you will probably notice about the Canon 24mm EF-S lens is the price. At $150.00 it is ¼ the price of the standard Canon 24mm EF lens and is really only lacking in the EF lens’s Image Stabilization.

Once I got my hands on the Canon 24mm EF-S, I took it down to the beach to shoot some photos. I immediately noticed how fast and quiet the auto focus on this lens is. This is the result of Canon’s Stepping motor (which I learned can easily be overridden by turning the manual focus ring without needing to switch the lens to manual focus).

The photos came out sharp and very nice. This gave me an idea, and I quickly rushed of to do a comparison between the Canon 24mm EF-S and my other 24mm prime lenses (a Nikon Nikkor 24mm, and a Canon 24mm L-series FD).  To use the other lenses on my Canon T2I, I use fotodiox adapters. The one for the FD adds a piece of glass that cuts light and a bit of sharpness as well as increasing the focal length a bit (although that never stopped the L-series 24mm from being one of my favorite lenses).

Below I have added a photo from each of the three lenses, and as you can see, the Canon 24mm EF-S Pancake holds up surprisingly well against it’s more expensive partners.

Another great advantage of the Canon 24mm EF-S lens is it's great macro abilities. Canon claims the ability of this lens to focus on object about 6 inches from the lens. This photograph of some sailboat rigging seems to verify that claim. the photo has remarkable color clarity, and sharpness.

Overall, I would have to say that if you shoot with a Canon APS-C camera, the 24mm EF-S lens is good addition to your lens collection. It may, in fact, become my new “goto” wide-angle prime lens.

Have you tried the Canon 24mm EF-S prime lens? If so, tell us what you think in the comments below!