Ah, the plot thickens, not even a day after Sigma's CEO said a nothing burger, Canon's Imaging Chief Executive, Mr. Tokura had other thoughts on the matter. At first, when I was writing this I was pretty excited and then after putting my own words around it to give it all to fine readers, I am left with more questions than answers.
My Navi sat down with Canon's Imaging Division Chief Executive Mr Tokura. With the interview by MyNavi, we can focus a bit on this from their article.
When I asked these questions to Mr. Tokura, he immediately replied, “Canon is communicating with third-party manufacturers regarding RF mount lenses” and “There are no restrictions.” He quickly denied the speculations that were circulating among photography fans.
“This year marks the 6th year since we introduced the RF system to the world (in September 2018). Our lineup has grown to over 40 lenses. We are thinking about strategies based on our own situation and environment.”
“There are no restrictions”
This implies that the third-party manufacturers that pulled their auto-focus products off the market did so of their own accord without Canon telling them to do so. According to Canon, right now, there are no restrictions on the mount. So if vendors wanted to release EF protocol-based RF lenses tomorrow Canon would be okay with that.
But this seems to be contrary to even Canon's position where they weren't going to blanket allow a manufacturer to create any lens for the RF mount, but grant licensing on a case-by-case basis, if the manufacturer requested permission or licensing to do so.
From DPReview's interview in 2023;
Whenever a third party presents a request to us, we’ll consider it, based on our business strategy. In fact, we have been communicating with some outside companies, and you may already be aware that here at CP+, Cosina has announced that they will be creating RF lenses of their own.
Okay, that sounds like a restriction to me, but then again, I'm Canadian.
Mr Tokura also stated this year that there are active talks between Canon and other third-party manufacturers. From looking at what Canon said last year, it seems as if those communications are progressing along fairly well.
Communication with third-party manufacturers is deeper than it was in the early days. The depth of communication is probably more than half way (toward commercialization).
I would be curious to know if the communication and the timeframe are because of technology, business / legal reasons, or perhaps the most important reason of them all – money. If this is an ongoing process for the third-party manufacturers, then hopefully the process can be streamlined so we don't have to wait that long for a third-party manufacturer to release a variant for the RF mount.
One takeaway that I got from this is that the communication seems to be continuing to the point of commercialization. That indicates to me that Canon is directly assisting the manufacturers with the RF mount development. That can only be a good thing.
So what are we left with? Canon seems to be moving at a slow pace incorporating third-party lenses into the RF mount, but that progress seems to be certainly going forward. We have some interesting theories that Canon may be working closely with these manufacturers as well. While we don't have any firm commitments or timelines, we can hope this time frame is sooner than later.
Addendum…
After letting this percolate a bit, I thought back to an article I wrote a long time ago here when we suggested that Canon wants to do things a bit differently with the RF mount than the EF mount.
Canon pretty much let anyone reverse engineer the mount, and it was the Wild West. Everyone was adapting and creating Canon EF mount lenses. Each third-party lens mimicked an existing Canon EF mount lens. But for the most part, the communication for EF lenses to the EF bodies was pretty simplistic. This allowed for a great many different varieties of lenses for the EF mount. Great for us, but probably a significant technological burden and also a support burden on Canon.
Similar to if you create an API, you are then limited to what you can do – especially if you no longer have control over the programs that are invoking that API. You change your API, and it breaks other people's programs and you're the person taking the blame.
It could very well be that Canon didn't want that to happen with the RF mount, and wanted to have more control and also communication with the third-party vendors to ensure that they do things the right way that still allows Canon to grow the RF mount platform, without having to necessarily worry about third-party vendors. We know the EF mount periodically broke lenses because of protocol reverse engineering, perhaps Canon is indeed hoping with a licensing strategy and more active communication, this mistake will not be repeated.
Of course, business is business, and this isn't entirely altruistic, but nothing is in this world. We can hope that this process becomes far more streamlined in the future and we have some good glass options from both Canon themselves and third-party manufacturers.
Source: My Navi
Still, good news, except for the people who already sold every bit of Canon gear...:cry:
Edit, a second friend explained more clearly:
The Canon man's words are a little vague, probably on purpose, but it sounds like, "It is said Canon doesn't want to share the technique of the RF mount lenses but it's not like that, actually, we have a communication with the third parties such as Tamron or SIGMA, and the depth of the communication with them has come already more than half of making into a product."
I still don’t get 3rd party lens not being released in Ef mount - even with manual focus
I guess the point of the negotiations is to have combined OIS/ibis af work well but probably not at full speed (similar to Sony).
It probably isn’t worth canon’s time/money to worry about the Chinese rf lenses
Yongnuo seems to have been doing this since 2020 and Canon does not seem to have a problem with it.
That is completely different from 3rd-party lenses that are specifically designed to use the RF protocol which would be granted case by case.
As far as Sigma being "noncommittal," if licensing fees and marketing policies are still being negotiated, seems expected.
Based in China perhaps?
BUT - That sounds like a restriction to me, which was the point.
Samyang pulled their AF lenses, and I don't believe they were RF protocol but they are from South Korea.
I also think Sigma would be happy to NOT agree to a deal if Canon insist on acting like Sony.
thank you for this. translations are always difficult - especially from Japanese. You should try a patent application ;)
I'm encouraged that Canon seems to be learning from a prior mistake - I'm going to add something to the article right now that has been fomenting in my noodle brain since I wrote the article.
Canon's IBIS patent literature is freaking complex. if they desire that their supported third party vendors have complete IBIS + OIS support, then yeah, that's a lot of heavy lifting for sure. that's not just a reverse engineer and we are up and running.
I will say, as I consistently say, that Canon will make decisions based on what’s best for their business. That some people are clamoring for 3rd party RF lenses means nothing to Canon, unless and until it affects their bottom line. So far, the data suggest it hasn’t in this case.
I can certainly imagine scenarios in which allowing select 3rd party lenses benefits Canon, especially if they can restrict them to lenses that don’t directly compete with RF. Of course, from the 3rd party manufacturers’ viewpoint, it’s probably exactly those ‘bread-and-butter’ lenses where they want to undercut Canon’s prices and move lots of units. I can easily see that leading to an impasse.
Aside from no TCs and a max of 15fps Sigma can and have released a wide variety of lenses including the recent 500mm prime. These days I would imagine emount is where the bulk of their revenue comes from. They have released 0 products for Canon in recent years so a deal for RF lenses similar to what is in place for emount ones I imagine Sigma would sign gladly.
So I gave the 50 f1.4 a special treatment, and brought to "the wall of shame", as in the external wall of my condo, which is my testing ground for how a lens behave, without any scientific pretence of course, it's just let's see if the lens work properly, and if I have two identical lenses, or two or more identical (or so) focal lengths from different manufactures, let's see a quick and unscientific comparison.
So, the wall of shame saw a three lens competition, tested on the 30mpx Eos R on a tripod and remote release:
EF 50 f1.4
RF 50 f1.8
Sigma 40 f1.4 Art (reframed to match the two 50's)
Sigma vs Canon @ f1.4 100% centre frame
The two Canon at their widest common aperture @ f1.8 100% centre frame
...now I soon enough remebered why I always hated that terrible EF 50 f1.4 :eek:
(In both comparisons, made in AV, the EF 50 f1.4 has 1/3 stop faster shutter, so it seems it has a slight better light transmission, at the same aperture, then both RF 50 1.8 and the 40 1.4 Art. At any narrower aperture, shutter was identical, so it seems this light transmission advantage kicks in only below f2)