Canon EF-S 18-135 mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM review - Distortion

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Canon EF-S 18-135 mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM

21 September 2015

Arkadiusz Olech

6. Distortion

Cheap, popular megazooms usually have a lot of problems with the distortion correction and the Canon18–135 mm STM is not an exception to this rule. At the widest angle you deal with barrel distortion amounting to as much as −4.22%. It is unfortunately a lot. In fact the situation is even worse than that; if you look carefully you can notice traces of moustache distortion as well. As a result it’s enough to choose an area with corners cut out for your measurements, where the moustache distortion straightens a bit the lines, and you can get a value of −4.95%. The predecessor of the tested lens fared very similarly in this category.

Fortunately such distinct deformations are seen only at wide angle. With the increase of the focal length the situation gets better quickly. Already at 24 mm the “barrel” diminishes to −1.09%, and at 35 mm it turns into the “pincushion” variety of +0.70%. With the further increase of the focal length the distortion gets higher too but only slightly. At 50 mm it amounts to +1.21%, at 85 mm it is +1.35%, and at 135 mm it reaches +1.42%.

Canon 50D, 18 mm

Canon 50D, 24 mm

Canon 50D, 35 mm

Canon 50D, 50 mm

Canon 50D, 85 mm

Canon 50D, 135 mm

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