Canon EF-M 18-150mm f/3.5-6.3 IS STM Review

January 6, 2017 | Amy Davies | Rating star Rating star Rating star Rating star

Sharpness at 50mm

For this test, the Canon EF-M 18-150mm f/3.5-6.3 IS STM was mounted on a Canon EOS M5, which in turn was mounted on a sturdy tripod. Exposure delay mode was activated. Tonal and colour variances across the crops are due to changes in natural light during the session.

The full frameThe full frame at 50mm

At 18mm, the centre of the frame is at its sharpest between f/4.0 and f/8.0. At f/11, there’s a tiny bit more softness, and more again from f/11 onwards. Images taken at f/16 and f/22 are soft due to diffraction, but it’s only particularly noticeable if you examine the centre of the image at 100%. This lens doesn’t have a particularly wide aperture capability, so there’s not a huge difference between sharpness in the centre and sharpness at the edges of the image.

The situation is similar across all of the different focal lengths, with a good degree of sharpness across the frame - especially if you’re looking at an image at normal printing or web reproduction sizes.

Aperture Centre Crop Edge Crop
f/5.6 f5_6.jpg f5_6.jpg
f/8 f8.jpg f8.jpg
f/11 f11.jpg f11.jpg
f/16 f16.jpg f16.jpg
f/22 f22.jpg f22.jpg
f/29 f29.jpg f29.jpg