With Canon being a little late to the mirrorless party, you know they’ve got a lot of catching up to do. The camera giant debuted the EOS R series and the new EOS RF mount lenses late 2018, and while lens selection has greatly improved since then, it is still evidently a maturing ecosystem.

That said, Canon has done a great job at covering the bases and offering a crop of high-performance glass that’ll make full use of mirrorless tech’s host of design advantages. So if you were one of the early adopters of the latest and greatest from Canon, or someone who’s looking to jump ship into the red team, here are some of the best Canon RF lenses you should seriously consider adding to your bag, according to pros.

But first, let’s cover an important topic…

Can you use Canon EF lenses on EOS R Cameras (RF mount)?

In short, yes. Through the use of Canon’s many adapters. Heck, you can use legacy Canon FD lenses if you want as well. EF lenses were built for mirrored systems, and naturally they’ll be a little bigger. The adapters will also add a little bit of bulk to your setup. We covered the Best Canon EF Lenses last week,

I personally prefer native lenses, but to each their own. I mean, who wouldn’t want the latest and greatest? Let’s start with a rather unique offering to Canon’s RF lens lineup…

Canon RF 28-70mm f/2L USM – If you could only have one lens…

Many are familiar with a 24-70mm f2.8, it’s popular across all formats. When Canon announced four RF lenses way back when they first teased a new, serious mirrorless contender representing the red giant. To show off their new tech, and perhaps to tell creatives that they mean business, Canon did the unthinkable – create a constant f/2 aperture standard zoom for their R-series cameras.

The Canon RF 28-70mm f/2L takes the “do-it-all” workhorse lens idea to the extreme and gives you all the focal range you need to get the job done, and couples it with an insanely fast aperture on a zoom of this caliber. It’s plenty sharp even at f/2, has snappy AF, and renders a lot of beautiful character to the images, especially when shot wide open at any focal length.

It could practically replace three or more primes in your bag if you wanted it to. Wedding photographer and SLR Lounge founder Pye Jirsa says the 28-70mm f/2L will be his first pick, if he’s forced to shoot with one lens and one lens only.

There are however a few drawbacks. With such a complicated lens design and that many elements to move around, the Canon RF 28-70mm f/2L comes with size and weight penalty. About 3 pounds of weight penalty, which is almost as much as an EF 70-200 f/2.8. If that’s enough to get you squeamish, might I point you to the new Canon RF 24-70mm f/2.8L IS USM.

But if you’re after the best of the best, all-around workhorse for your R-series body, and like the idea of replacing a few primes in your bag, the Canon RF 28-70mm f/2L USM is the lens to get.

Check out Pye’s review of his personal favorite Canon lens of all time and see if this beast of a lens is something you’d want to add to your arsenal.

Canon RF 85mm f/1.2L USM – The best for portraiture…

If you’re craving for that out of this world background separation for your portraits, then you’ve got to take a good hard look at the Canon RF 85mm f/1.2L USM. This beauty can obliterate the background like no other, without compromising on sharpness at all.

The RF 85mm f/1.2L carries over the spirit of its ageing EF 85mm 1.2L brother to the newer generation of Canon pro-grade mirrorless cameras in flying colors. It’s remarkably sharp, even sharper than the newer EF 85mm f/1.4 shot at their widest, and reportedly reaches its peak sharpness at f/2. For context, most primes will reach their peak sharpness at around f/2.8 and up, which makes the Canon RF 85mm f/1.2L quite an exceptional piece of gear.

Like the RF 28-70mm f/2, the flawless image quality will also come with the usual drawbacks of heftiness and a bigger build. But you’d be pleased to know that the USM motor on this thing is strong enough to drive the elements faster and quieter than its older brother.

Chicago-based wedding photographer Jay Henington thinks the Canon RF 85mm f/1.2L is the best 85mm prime he’s ever used:

“If you want the absolute best 85mm that money can buy and you use the Canon EOS R, this is the lens for you. Simply put, this is the most optically perfect 85mm lens I’ve ever used. It’s sharp from the center to the edges. It produces beautiful, smooth bokeh that is really unrivaled by any other 85mm lens on the market…”

Canon RF 15-35mm f/2.8L IS USM – The best wide angle lens…

It used to be that you had to pick between a fast aperture and image stabilization when choosing a wide angle zoom for your Canon system. With the Canon RF 15-35mm f/2.8L IS USM, you’ll be getting both and then some.

The wider end of this generation’s zoom trinity from Canon offers beautiful image quality, bright f/2.8 aperture, image stabilization, and an incredibly useful focal range for landscape shooters, astrophotographers, real estate photographers and even for the vlogging crowd.

Dustin Abbott reports that this awesome wide angle zoom has a fairly consistent sharpness across the frame, at most focal lengths. Vignetting and barrel distortion, especially at the wide end, are present though both are correctible in post. So while not as optically flawless as the first few entries on this round up, the RF 15-35mm f/2.8L still a well-rounded performer that covers a crucial focal range for a lot of creatives.

For more on Canon RF 15-35mm f/2.8L IS USM, have a look at Dustin’s in-depth review of this excellent wide angle zoom:

Canon RF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM – The best telephoto zoom…

Rounding up this generation’s zoom trinity is the Canon RF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM. Now significant improvements in sharpness and AF speed over the previous EF versions of this classic telephoto zoom are to be expected. What you should become apparent at a glance, however, is the lighter build and overall compact form factor of a lens that’s traditionally expected to be quite big and bulky.

The RF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM shaves off roughly 44% of the weight of the EF 70-200 f/2.8, and chops off around 25% of its length. It’s the design advantages of mirrorless at play here, namely the shorter flange distance. Anyway, back to the lens’ performance and image quality.

AF speed and accuracy is a crucial area for every telephoto as they’re normally used in fast-paced shooting scenarios such as sports photography, weddings, event coverage and so on. Canon’s newer “Nano USM” motors seem to be working their magic here, as the RF 70-200mm f/2.8L grabs focus faster than the EF counterpart. Action photographer Martin Bissig shot over 3000 photos with this lens, most of it shot wide open, and got an impressive 75% keeper rate.

The EF 70-200mm f/2.8L Mark III was already a sharp lens, so any improvement on this area would be quite an accomplishment. The RF 70-200mm somehow delivers more punchy, more contrasty and offers more sharpness across the frame than the older EF version. Martin adds:

“I am totally sold on the crisp definition that the lens makes possible. I was already very satisfied with the results I got from the EF 70-200. The new RF takes it up a notch. The pictures are extremely crisp overall. This is especially noticeable on the edges of the photos.”

Canon RF 50mm f/1.2L USM – Best all around – especially you want a super shallow DoF…

Here’s Canon yet again resurrecting an old classic and speccing it up to modern standards. Between the EF and the RF, the newer Canon RF 50mm f/1.2L USM is the sharper lens, no doubt about that. But what about bokeh and the AF performance?

The older EF 50mm f/1.2L had a reputation for being a bit of a slowpoke with the AF. That huge chunk of glass was tech from 15 years ago, so we’ll give it some slack. The newer RF 50mm f/1.2 however, is quite the zippy one. Wedding photographer Sam Hurd has been shooting the RF 50L as his go-to since owning it and has done a helpful long-form review of this phenomenal lens. For a quick AF performance test, Sam tracked a bird flying by and nailed the focus in every shot. That very feat would be impossible to accomplish with the older EF version, as beautiful as that lens was.

If you’re buying an RF 50mm f/1.2L, you’re going to be spending a lot of time shooting it wide open. And in that regard, Sam’s happy to report that the newest 50L from canon performs wonderfully:

“Diving into my favorite part of lens reviews, the bokeh! Let’s start with the less interesting part of bokeh – foreground bokeh. It actually renders it pretty well when something is extremely close to the lens. But (and this is where this lens really shines) the background bokeh has the potential to turn scenes into damn paintings.”

Sam has shot 100,000 photos with the magical lens since owning it, so I highly recommend checking his write up to see 1:1 crops, bokeh samples and more if you’re interested.