The lens that stays on the camera, and its aperture tells you how it was built · review

Canon RF-S 18-150mm F3.5-6.3 IS STM, 4.5 stops claimed review

The variable-aperture side of this three-lens shelf at 430 €, with eight and a half times the range of its own short end and a 4.5-stop stabiliser in the title, and six of the nine lines this shelf is compared on left blank.

By Jean-Benoit Buisson

The bottom line The range is the reason to buy it and the price is the second: 430 € for 18-150mm with a stabiliser claim no other lens here makes. It answers four of the nine lines this shelf is compared on, and the aperture at the long end — the one figure the hub says to read first — is printed only in the product name.

On the listing

Five bullets, and all five are about the same two things. A compact, light tele-zoom with advanced stabilisation and a versatile 18-150mm range, called ideal for everyday use and video; subjects near and far captured with power and flexibility; a vlogging bullet naming creative control and a 4.5-stop stabiliser; a portability bullet saying the lens can be left on the camera all day or stowed in a bag; and a compatibility bullet naming the EOS R System and, at its end, the APS-C bodies within it.

Eight times the short end, which is the argument

18-150mm is a wider span than either lens above it. Sony reaches 105mm from 18mm and Sigma stops at 50mm; this one goes to 150mm from the same start. On an APS-C body that covers a moderate wide angle through to a genuine short telephoto, which is the whole case for a single lens that never comes off.

The aperture is in the name and nowhere else

F3.5-6.3 appears in the title, then never again. Neither of the two bullets about the range mentions what the lens is doing to its aperture while it covers it. The hub above divides this shelf on precisely that point, and on the variable side the second figure is the one to read: F6.3 is where this lens spends its long end.

What 4.5 stops does not tell you

The figure is claimed twice and qualified nowhere. No protocol is named, and the page never says whether it works with the body’s own stabilisation or instead of it. It is the only stop figure on this shelf, and it is also the only one that cannot be compared with anything.

Three practical lines left blank

No filter thread. The diameter that decides which filters already owned still fit is absent from a page with five bullets.

No minimum focus, and no magnification. The second bullet says near and far without a distance.

No weight, and no sealing. Compact and light are the words used; grams are not published, and nothing claims protection against dust or water on a lens sold for travel.

Availability

Between 430 € and 525 € on the German, French, Italian and Spanish Amazon stores when this page was last checked.

The American and British Amazon stores carry it too, priced in local currency. Those amounts are deliberately absent from the range above, which reads euro stores only.

Everything in this section is the figure Keepa carried on the day of the last update to this page. Availability and prices shift without notice.

Prices quoted in this text were read on 13 September 2026. The live price is at the top of the page.

What it does well, and what it gives up

Strengths

The longest range on this shelf, 18-150mm, from a shelf where the other two stop at 105mm and 50mm
4.5 stops of stabilisation claimed, the only stop figure published by any of the three lenses here
The cheapest of the three at 430 €, and the only one built for Canon’s own APS-C mirrorless mount

Compromises

F6.3 at the long end, published only in the product name, and it is the aperture in use whenever the range is being used
No filter thread, no minimum focus and no weight, so three of the four practical lines this shelf compares are blank
No sealing claim on a lens sold for travel and for staying on the camera all day

Specifications

Mount	RF-S, stated in the title. The fifth bullet names the Canon EOS R System as the family it fits, and adds that it was designed for the APS-C bodies within it
Format	APS-C, stated in the fifth bullet, which says the lens was developed for EOS R-System APS-C cameras. On that format the engraved 18mm frames as a moderate wide angle rather than a wide one, which is the reading the hub above asks for
Focal range	18-150mm, in the title and repeated in the first two bullets. It is the longest span of the three lenses here by a long way — eight and a third times the short end, where the other two reach six times and under three
Maximum aperture at both ends	F3.5 at 18mm and F6.3 at 150mm, in the title and nowhere else. Neither bullet mentions the aperture at all, so the F6.3 that applies at the long end — the figure the hub above says decides what a lens can do indoors — is published once, in the product name
Stabilisation	4.5 stops, claimed in the title and again in the third bullet. No measurement protocol is named alongside it, and the page does not say whether it combines with stabilisation in the body
Filter thread	Not published on the listing — five bullets cover the range, the stabiliser, vlogging, portability and compatibility, and no diameter in millimetres appears anywhere
Minimum focus	Not published on the listing, and no magnification ratio either. The second bullet says subjects can be captured from near and far without giving a distance
Sealing	Not claimed on the listing. Nothing on the page describes protection against dust or moisture, and a lens the fourth bullet recommends leaving on the camera all day is one where the claim would have been worth making
Weight	Not published in grams — the first and fourth bullets call it compact and light and say it fits in a bag, which is the adjective rather than the figure
Amazon reference	B0B25VFZJ7 (same reference on 6 Amazon marketplaces)
EAN	4549292195798

What people ask before they commit

What does F3.5-6.3 mean in practice on this lens?

It means the maximum aperture available changes as the barrel extends: F3.5 at 18mm, F6.3 by 150mm. The hub above calls the second figure the one that decides what a lens can do indoors, and F6.3 is the narrowest long-end aperture on this shelf. Outdoors it is of little consequence; in a room at 150mm it costs roughly two and a half stops against the F2.8 lens two places up.

Is 18mm on this lens the same as 18mm on a full-frame lens?

No. This is an RF-S lens computed for APS-C, and the fifth bullet says so. The engraved millimetres never change, but the sensor takes a smaller rectangle out of the image circle, so the framing is narrower than the same figure on a full-frame body. The listing does not print an equivalent figure, and this page does not invent one.

Does the 4.5-stop claim include the camera’s own stabilisation?

The page does not say. Both the title and the third bullet give 4.5 stops without naming a protocol or stating whether the figure is for the lens alone or for lens and body working together. Canon publishes combined figures elsewhere in its range; this listing publishes one number and leaves the question open.