Best lenses for the Canon EOS R100: Affordable upgrades for budding photographers

The Canon EOS R100 is not only easy to use, it is one of the most affordable ways to step into Canon's powerful mirrorless EOS R System. The kit lens that came with the camera is a brilliant starting point for learning the ropes, helping you understand how zoom, light, and composition work together to create different types of images and effects.

However, you may want to take the next step. As Canon Europe Product Manager Mark Kendrick explains, "A kit lens helps you learn what you like to capture, but when you start to think more creatively and want to push yourself, that's where an extra lens really helps you out."

Once you've mastered the basics with your EOS R100, adding a second lens is the easiest way to see an immediate improvement in your photography. It unlocks the full potential of the camera's APS-C sensor, letting you explore creative effects such as softly blurred backgrounds, sweeping landscapes, or faraway action.

Here are four affordable Canon RF and RF-S lenses that will help you get more from your EOS R100.

Compact, affordable, and beautifully sharp, the RF 50mm F1.8 STM is often the first upgrade for anyone ready to move beyond their kit lens. The bright f/1.8 aperture lets in more light, making it perfect for indoor and low-light portraits, shooting at slower shutter speeds, and it creates that softly blurred background.

This is what makes it such a popular choice among beginners who want their photos to stand out without spending a fortune. As Mark explains, "It allows you so many more creative options. It's a really popular focal length for portraits, and even if you crop into a headshot, you'll still get a crisp, professional look."

As well as portraiture, the RF 50mm F1.8 STM also works brilliantly for food, pets, and still-life photography, providing your images with a cinematic depth that brings them to life.

If you love capturing travel scenes, cityscapes, or interiors, the RF-S 10–18mm F4.5-6.3 IS STM is a game-changer. Lightweight and budget-friendly, it delivers an expansive field of view that fits everything in. You can shoot towering cathedrals, bustling markets, or wide family group shots with natural perspective and stunning clarity.

For many EOS R100 users, this is the lens that unlocks a whole new way of seeing the world. "The RF-S 10–18mm F4.5-6.3 IS STM just gives you such a different perspective on things," Mark says. "It allows you to capture so much more, and it even includes a half-macro mode so you can get up close to capture fine details in subjects like flowers or food."

What's more, the lens's built-in image stabilisation (IS) keeps your shots steady when you're shooting handheld, making it ideal for travel and spontaneous street photography.

You might have got this lens bundled with your EOS R100, and while many photographers eventually add other lenses, the RF-S 18–45mm F4.5–6.3 IS STM remains a brilliantly versatile choice you'll keep coming back to. It covers everything from wide landscapes to casual portraits, making it the ideal all-rounder for everyday shooting.

Rather than replacing it, your future lenses will complement it, giving you more reach, wider angles, or shallower depth of field when you need them. Designed specifically for APS-C cameras like the EOS R100, and with built-in image stabilisation, the RF-S 18–45mm F4.5–6.3 IS STM delivers crisp, reliable results in a lightweight package that balances perfectly with the camera.

If you’re still finding your shooting style, this lens is your most flexible companion for family days out, holidays, and everyday creativity.

For distant subjects, such as sports days, wildlife, travel, or school events, the RF 75–300mm F4-5.6 lets you fill the frame with detail from afar, capturing clear, sharp images across its entire range. It's the ideal "next step" for EOS R100 owners who want to photograph subjects they can’t physically get close to.

"If you already have the RF-S 18–45mm F4.5–6.3 IS STM – that's the standard kit lens for the EOS R100 – then the RF 75–300mm F4-5.6 adds the biggest leap in what you can capture with just one extra lens," Mark says. "It really opens up your creative potential, especially for distant subjects."

It’s also one of the most affordable ways to explore telephoto photography, making it ideal for EOS R100 users who just want to experiment with telephoto zoom for the first time.

The lens's long reach makes it perfect for capturing children’s sports matches or wildlife in bright daylight, when you can't physically get closer to the action. And even without image stabilisation, it performs brilliantly in good lighting and opens up a whole new world of creative framing and composition from a distance.

Photography is more than just recording what you see; it’s about capturing how it feels. And with the right lens, the EOS R100 can transform everyday moments into something truly memorable. Whether it's the bokeh sparkle of city lights through a wide-angle, the expression on your child's face through a 50mm, or a bird in flight framed by a telephoto, each lens gives you a new way to tell your story.

"Investing in a second lens is a better investment than upgrading your camera body if you’ve only got one lens at the moment," Mark explains. It's a small step that can change the way you see the world, as well as the way you capture it.

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Written by Jeff Meyer