Though kit zoom lenses are rarely the ones that you’d want to see tested by a lab, DxOMark today released their results on the Canon 55-250mm f4.5-5.6 IS STM–a lens that was announced a little over a year ago. And according to their results, it’s not looking too good. When scored against its closest competitors that the company has in their database from both Nikon and Sony the Canon lens falls a bit short. Nikon takes the lead and Sony just barely beats out Canon’s offering though shows itself to have the strongest sharpness of the three.
More of an analysis is after the jump.
When you look at the comparison a bit closer, what you see is that DxOMark hasn’t included their tests with the lenses on the 7D Mk II or the Sony A77 Mk II. So for what it’s worth, both Canon and Sony could actually have a bit more of a lead over Nikon. The 24MP sensor and the 18MP sensor in the Sony and Canon offering both make a difference when it comes to sharpness. And Nikon’s D7100 doesn’t have a low pass filter at all either.
But as far as the other test issues go, the Canon offering has more vignetting but less chromatic aberration.
And for what it’s worth, we’d like to remind everyone that DxOMark’s tests are simply put into a numbers game to compare and contrast. No one is making a bad lens these days. They’re all good. In fact, we’ve been very impressed with the quality of kit zoom lenses in the most recent years. They’ve improved considerably.
From this test though, you can see where each company stands when it comes to technology and thinking ahead.