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mimbu · Mar 6, 2026

m4ndr4ke said:
A RF lens would stand closer to the sensor, which would probably allow IBIS to be slightly more effective, perhaps even getting two stops at 300mm. I'd take that

Short flange distance itself doesn't really impact IBIS performance. Of course over time IBIS has improved (better gyros, faster movement of the sensor, faster calculations, that sort of thing) which may help slightly, but we still today don't see much impact from IBIS on longer lenses. Not even the best IBIS (Panasonic) has managed to do that.

m4ndr4ke · Mar 6, 2026

blackcoffee17 said:
The macro is the best feature on the 85mm F2. It just needs a better AF motor and some weather sealing/ internal construction (but i don't see that happening).

I'd easily trade its macro ability for internal focusing, like I just did with the 35, which is gone and not to be missed, around here

blackcoffee17 · Mar 6, 2026

m4ndr4ke said:
They were twins, you couldn't tell them apart unless you read the lettering

View attachment 228271

I could see myself considering a lower end 100 to 135mm lens, but not a L variant. That, or MAYBE an upgrade to the 85mm f/2 in the same philosophy as the 45mm f/1.2 (not that fast, but internal focusing and no macro).

The macro is the best feature on the 85mm F2. It just needs a better AF motor and some weather sealing/ internal construction (but i don't see that happening).

m4ndr4ke · Mar 6, 2026

mimbu said:
IBIS is most effective at shorter focal lengths due to the nature of how it works -- the sensor can only move so far regardless of the focal length, unlike IS which is tuned for each lens. In particular at focal lengths beyond 150mm, IBIS performance starts to really fall off a cliff. Beyond 200mm it becomes mostly ineffective unless it's working together with IS in which case it can give the combined system a small bump over IS alone.

I'm aware, that's why I mentioned my experience with the old EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L, that took me to 200mm with IBIS alone, and using the adapter. I still had 2 stops of stabilisation - I always found that to be quite good, all things considered.
A RF lens would stand closer to the sensor, which would probably allow IBIS to be slightly more effective, perhaps even getting two stops at 300mm. I'd take that

mimbu · Mar 6, 2026

m4ndr4ke said:
Heck, I'd even take lenses without IS up to 200, maybe 300mm, if it meant other benefits like wider apertures or crazy zoom ranges.
I'm happy as long as I can get one to two stops of IBIS. I remember my old EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L non-IS allowed me 1/50 at 200mm on my R6 and I always found it to be more than adequate.

IBIS is most effective at shorter focal lengths due to the nature of how it works -- the sensor can only move so far regardless of the focal length, unlike IS which can be designed to work with (practically?) any focal length. In particular at focal lengths beyond 150mm, IBIS performance starts to really fall off a cliff. Beyond 200mm it becomes mostly ineffective unless it's working together with IS in which case it can give the combined system a small bump over IS alone.

m4ndr4ke · Mar 6, 2026

roby17269 said:
True although my personal experience is that I saw (used in real life or online) way more 85 1.8 than 100 2 lenses... this is purely an anecdotal data point

They were twins, you couldn't tell them apart unless you read the lettering

I could see myself considering a lower end 100 to 135mm lens, but not a L variant. That, or MAYBE an upgrade to the 85mm f/2 in the same philosophy as the 45mm f/1.2 (not that fast, but internal focusing and no macro).

mb66energy · Mar 6, 2026

What a great interesting lens and design with 17! lenses and "only" 12 groups. Might be a lens which is stellar from 1.4 - maybe interesting for wide field astro photography.
I miss image stabilization as a feature but IBIS works well up to ~100mm with modern Canon cameras so maybe not the real problem.

Can it substitute my old EF 2.0 100? Never! because the old one is tiny against that design and great e.g. on an R7 where it converts into a 160mm lens in terms of angle of view.

mb66energy · Mar 6, 2026

GMCPhotographics said:
It’s certainly a nice option if you want to run a trio of fast primes, 100mm / 50mm / 24mm. It keeps the focal length math very tidy.

A step width I always liked and own in the old EF versions - the rest can be done be feet (mostly). But now a little bit spoiled by using 24-105 and 100-400 !

RDGood · Mar 5, 2026

Got mine on Tuesday March 3

neuroanatomist · Mar 5, 2026

AJ said:
Makes me wonder how it affects bokeh

The users’ desire for good quality OOF areas of the image is called out in the patent.

AJ · Mar 5, 2026

Makes me wonder how it affects bokeh

neuroanatomist · Mar 5, 2026

AJ said:
I wonder what the "HM" stands for, in the diagrams?

Half Mirror.

neuroanatomist · Mar 5, 2026

riker said:
I'm shooting with R5 Mark II. Just sharing my experience.
Point is, I has a few occasions where are really appreciated IS at wide angles and managed to get shots which were impossible 10-15-20y ago.

Then I’m confused. Previously you argued that lens IS is desirable in an updated MkII 28-70/2 and you stated:

riker said:
I just had a recent experience with the 28-70/2, shooting in low light conditions (event). I was shocked to see how I can see the lack of IS on the images and probably how much I got used using IS. I had to explicitly focus on having a steady hand which I haven't much done in the past ~15y.

Your camera has IBIS. For the 28-70/2, the camera’s IBIS provides the maximum possible stabilization (8-stops based on the CIPA standard) that can be achieved by any current Canon system including the RF 24-70/2.8 IS. In other words, putting IS in a future 28-70/2 II lens will have zero benefit unless the lens is used with a body lacking IBIS (like the R8 or C50).

If you were using the R5II and 28-70/2 and were ‘shocked how you can see the lack of IS’, then you probably have the setting turned off. That’s a ‘wetware’ error, or maybe we need the photography equivalent of PBKAC, perhaps PBCAH – problem between camera and hair.

AJ · Mar 5, 2026

Richard CR said:
Yes, you got it. the light bounces in between the two elements and magic happens.

Whoa - this is making my head spin. It seems that for decades the objective was to reduce the reflection coefficients by means of coatings. But here we are talking about surfaces that are reflective on purpose.

I wonder what it does? I see from the one implementation that rays are shifted towards the optical axis. Wideangle gets the strongest shift. Maybe this simplifies the design beyond these exotic elements, allowing more possibilities (e.g. faster zooms). It's interesting that this technology is introduced in zooms, not primes.

I wonder what the "HM" stands for, in the diagrams?

In any case, this seems revolutionary. I'd love to read a whitepaper on this.

neuroanatomist · Mar 5, 2026

tpatana said:
Ok, can you explain how that helps it bounce only once while another photon/wave on same trajectory wouldn't if it had already completed one bounce?

Fyi I have masters in physics so complex explanation is ok. I just can't figure out how that could work the way they have it in the picture, other than that they haven't told something critical about the design and how it operates.

It's not that Canon didn't tell us, it's that Richard didn't pass along the full explanation. He hints at it, though, right at the start: "I had previously discussed these as quarter-wave optical designs...," in reference to the quarter wave plates (QWP) that convert linearly polarized light to circularly polarized light and back.

Details are in the patent, and the light manipulation you're missing is polarization, more than once in the optical path and both linear (POL) and circular (QWP2, QWP1), plus selective reflection/transmission.

By the above operation, only the light transmitted through the half mirror C, reflected by the polarization selective transmission reflection element PBS, reflected by the half mirror C, and transmitted through the polarization selective transmission reflection element PBS is guided to the imaging plane IM.

dolina · Mar 5, 2026

el peso said:
Once again. Canon already has RF 135/1.8. They won't release 1.4 just because someone wants.

Sigma has one!

roby17269 · Mar 5, 2026

el peso said:
I feel like 100mm is a happy medium between 85mm and 135mm: you get more perspective compression and more natural facial proportions than with 85mm, but you still don’t need a walkie-talkie to communicate with your model.

Agree to disagree in a friendly, non-confrontational manner

I already don't see a significant difference between the 85 1.2 and the 135 1.8 (I have and use both, I prefer the 85) and a 100 1.4 would be too "nuanced" for me.

Not that I'd mind if Canon would release a 100 1.4, at least apart from it being another distraction for the delivery of the RF 35 1.2

, but I would not buy it.

m4ndr4ke · Mar 5, 2026

josephandrews222 said:
It sure does.

For your usage...absolutely. Very nice post. Logical. Reasonable. Fun to read. Even educational!

For my usage?

Not so much.

My statement from earlier:

"This is one of the real world comments, at least for me. Well done."

Of course it may not work for everyone, everytime, but the same applies do IS. If, out of 20 people, one complains that IBIS didn't work for him, the system was still successful for 95% of the users.

Canon often develops the fastest lenses without IS, they did the same on EF mount. EF 24, 35, 50, 85, 135...all the fastest variants were unstabilised, and the same happened with a few zooms, like the 24-70 f/2.8 and 16-35mm f/2.8.

It is my understanding that including IS requires the lens to be able to cover a larger image circle at least at some point of its construction. When designing for the extremes, that may certainly be an issue.

riker said:
I'm shooting with R5 Mark II. Just sharing my experience.
Thanks for the graph, it was showing exactly what I think but the focal length is really missing. My absolutely subjective guess/feeling is that around 40-50mm it starts to count. In average situations that is. There are always exceptions like you are in an Italian village at night, near the sea, interesting clouds lit by the Moon and you are trying to shoot 1/4s at 28mm handheld to make the waves silky. Or whatever Point is, I has a few occasions where are really appreciated IS at wide angles and managed to get shots which were impossible 10-15-20y ago.

IBIS does pretty much the same. At those focal lengths it may be even more effective than IS alone.

For a moment there you made me think twice, and I had to grab my R6.
The 45mm was attached and I managed to get sharp corners at 1/4 with ease, and about 50% keepers at 1/2.
I didn't bother dropping further, but I think that's about 4 stops of IBIS on a lens that is CIPA-rated to go up to 8 stops. IS lenses usually don't go beyond the rating of 5 stops (CIPA) on their own, with many users barely getting 3.

Usually I can get better results with the 28-70, thanks (I think) to its weight.
With the 16mm I know I can go something over a second of exposure, but I don't remember if I can get to 2 seconds, I suppose not.

The higher resolution of your camera may make it harder, but that difficulty increases for IS as well.

roby17269 · Mar 5, 2026

neuroanatomist said:
There was the EF 85/1.8 and the EF 100/2 that were siblings in design and performance. Personally, I had the former but both were pretty popular lenses.

True although my personal experience is that I saw (used in real life or online) way more 85 1.8 than 100 2 lenses... this is purely an anecdotal data point

I'd also argue that those 2 lenses were cheap... I would be surprised if a 100 1.4 VCM would not eat into the sales of the 85 1.4 VCM

tpatana · Mar 5, 2026

AlanF said:
You have to use the wave nature of light to account for the interference/diffraction/phase shift etc and not think about bouncing photons.

Ok, can you explain how that helps it bounce only once while another photon/wave on same trajectory wouldn't if it had already completed one bounce?

Fyi I have masters in physics so complex explanation is ok. I just can't figure out how that could work the way they have it in the picture, other than that they haven't told something critical about the design and how it operates.

riker · Mar 5, 2026

neuroanatomist said:
I presume you’re using a camera that lacks IBIS. The point being made was that the 28-70/2 delivers 8 stops of stabilization with IBIS alone, which is the same as the 24-70/2.8 IS achieves in combination with IBIS.

I'm shooting with R5 Mark II. Just sharing my experience.
Thanks for the graph, it was showing exactly what I think but the focal length is really missing. My absolutely subjective guess/feeling is that around 40-50mm it starts to count. In average situations that is. There are always exceptions like you are in an Italian village at night, near the sea, interesting clouds lit by the Moon and you are trying to shoot 1/4s at 28mm handheld to make the waves silky. Or whatever

Point is, I had a few occasions where I really appreciated IS even at wide angles and managed to get shots which were impossible 10-15-20y ago.

AlanF · Mar 5, 2026

tpatana said:
So for example if you look the lowest path of those 3 lines starting from down drawn on the patent, it bounces once and then goes through the second time.

But if you had another photon coming on the red arrow I drew (poorly) so it enters the same trajectory as the bounced photon, would they both pass the same spot on the back of the lens or would the red arrow photon make bounce while the other one goes through.

Photons don't have memory so if they hit the same spot, they should both behave the same. But then the red arrow path wouldn't make the bounce. So there's something strange here, maybe they left out something critical.

View attachment 228259

You have to use the wave nature of light to account for the interference/diffraction/phase shift etc and not think about bouncing photons.

neuroanatomist · Mar 5, 2026

roby17269 said:
Not that I'd be interested in such lens, but wouldn't a 100 1.4 non macro VCM be a bit too close to the existing 85 1.4 VCM?

There was the EF 85/1.8 and the EF 100/2 that were siblings in design and performance. Personally, I had the former but both were pretty popular lenses.

josephandrews222 · Mar 5, 2026

m4ndr4ke said:
I don't know if it's real enough, but the 28-70mm f/2 is my main lens for work.
I work photography full-time, photographing news (not sports) and events. Last year I took about 40k photographs with that lens alone, and I do not use burst shooting at all.

My base shutter speed is 1/200, that is what I set my cameras to when putting them in the bag.
By default, the 28-70 f/2 goes attached to the R6. The RP is carried without a lens, so I can choose whether I'll attach the 16mm or the 70-200, when I arrive at my destinations - sometimes I don't use the RP.

If there's enough light, I try to maintain at least 1/200. However, if I'm shooting inanimate subjects (or a room), I'll drop the shutter speed to lower my ISO. When in the field, for inanimate subjects, my usual lower limit with the R6 is 1/10th, whatever the focal length from 28 to 200mm. I may go lower with the 16mm, to half a second or one second. If I'm using electronic shutter, then half a second is the limit.

In all scenarios, the stabilisation systems can go further, but I'm not doing math in the field, I just pick a shutter speed I know will work with all my lenses. Also, it becomes tiring changing so many settings for one or two photographs, and I'm still carrying my bag in the other shoulder, so the steadiness of my body isn't necessarily at its best.

My only lens with IS is the RF 70-200mm f/2.8, all my other lenses are unstabilised. So yes, I find IBIS to be very effective.

I don't know, does that sound real enough?

It sure does.

For your usage...absolutely. Very nice post. Logical. Reasonable. Fun to read. Even educational!

For my usage?

Not so much.

My statement from earlier:

"This is one of the real world comments, at least for me. Well done."