Tom R5R7 said:

I think 2 versions, with 2 different lens options are in order. The "24-70 f/2" equivalent would be well liked by many, but for me, I'd want a larger zoom range, say, 24-240 or something of that nature. Which would necessitate a variable aperture, say f/2 to f/4.5 or something like that. Of course, that would be a different market, but a reasonably fast 10X zoom with a decent aperture would really be nice for a vacation camera.

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Yes, I'm with you on the 10x option... my G3X is limping on, but desperately in need of retiring and replacing.

roby17269 said:

I have had the EF 50 1.2 and I would agree it was legendary... in a bad way.
I did not like it at all.
If this lens is similar, then it is a no-go, regardless of the price. If I wanted something soft and quirky I'd buy a lens baby...
The RF 50 1.2 (which I have) may be much more expensive and heavier, but it delivers with almost no compromises.

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I wasn't too impressed by the EF 50mm F1.2 either. I got it just a bit before the RF 45mm F1.2 came out.

Tom R5R7 said:

I happen to have both this new 45/1.2 STM and the old EF 50/1.2L. I haven't run a full battery of tests, but what I can say from my limited comparisons is that the RF 45 is the sharper of the two, especially at wider apertures. Just a sharper lens.

On the other hand, the old 50/1.2L produces a creamier, smoother bokeh regardless of the harshness of the background. It is essentially a portrait lens. So 2 different animals with a similar purpose, perhaps, but one is considerably less expensive than the other is (or rather, was).

If I wanted ultimate sharpness, I'd get either the RF 50/1.4 or RF 50/1.2L lens - both appear to be spectacularly sharp and very well designed. But for my purposes, what I have now (along with the inexpensive 50/1.8 RF) will do the trick. I lean in favor of the RF 45 because of its size and weight, but I can't really say that I don't like what the EF 50/1.2L does for me either.

On focus shift, I hadn't paid a lot of attention to this issue, but I will be. Since I have the older R5, I don't have the ability to use "Display simulation" or whatever setting it is that people use to force the lens to autofocus with a smaller aperture than f/1.2. Whether this is a problem or not will be the subject of future testing and comparison to manual focusing.

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I ended up with both lenses as well. I did a quick comparison (not very scientific) using an R5 II with a link to the CRAW files for those interested:

P-visie said:

No, the working distance from the front of the lens to the subject would be way too short for skittish insects like dragonflies and butterflies. Cropping is no substitue for a long RF macrolens.

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For butterflies and dragonflies you don't need/want a macro lens. I have used the R7 with the RF 100-400 mm lens for that and it works great.

David - Sydney said:

Does a r7ii with this resolution and the rf100 macro negate the need for a long macro lens (working distance)? AF and fps would support handheld usage

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The R7 with the RF100 already works very well in that way. I have used it the past three years for handheld macro photography of insects and flowers, using autofocus most of the time. So the mark ii will be even better in this respect and I am look forward to it.

My fast 50mm Prime for a very affordable price (600€), excellent optical performance but quite slow AF is a second hand Zeiss Milvus 50mm/ f1.4. Only downside is the weight ...

"I expect to see an EVF..."

I don't, because the G7 X doesn't have one.

But if it's a replacement for the PowerShot SX70 HS an EVF would make sense. Of course the zoom range would be shorter.

I think 2 versions, with 2 different lens options are in order. The "24-70 f/2" equivalent would be well liked by many, but for me, I'd want a larger zoom range, say, 24-240 or something of that nature. Which would necessitate a variable aperture, say f/2 to f/4.5 or something like that. Of course, that would be a different market, but a reasonably fast 10X zoom with a decent aperture would really be nice for a vacation camera.

I love my Powershot V1 and I use it for almost all of my travel videos and social media as a primary or secondary camera. Even if it is a sales flop, the focal length is perfect and the compromises don’t bother me too much. It pretty much replaced my R6 for travel videos and social media.

However, it would really be complemented by a photo focused compact, such as a follow up to the G7 X III. I hope they retain the 100mm F/2.8 reach or bring it further to 120mm at F/2.8. With the larger sensor it seems hard to do that without a size compromise, but the wide aperture and long reach make it suitable for concert photos where larger cameras are not allowed.

I do wonder, however, why Canon didn't just take the optical formula for the EF 50/1.2L and transform it to the RF mount, kind of like what some third party lenses have done. It would have been easy and the development costs are minimal - basically make the adapter part of the lens. Optical formula unchanged.

But then they'd have 2 50/1.2 lenses.

I happen to have both this new 45/1.2 STM and the old EF 50/1.2L. I haven't run a full battery of tests, but what I can say from my limited comparisons is that the RF 45 is the sharper of the two, especially at wider apertures. Just a sharper lens.

On the other hand, the old 50/1.2L produces a creamier, smoother bokeh regardless of the harshness of the background. It is essentially a portrait lens. So 2 different animals with a similar purpose, perhaps, but one is considerably less expensive than the other is (or rather, was).

If I wanted ultimate sharpness, I'd get either the RF 50/1.4 or RF 50/1.2L lens - both appear to be spectacularly sharp and very well designed. But for my purposes, what I have now (along with the inexpensive 50/1.8 RF) will do the trick. I lean in favor of the RF 45 because of its size and weight, but I can't really say that I don't like what the EF 50/1.2L does for me either.

On focus shift, I hadn't paid a lot of attention to this issue, but I will be. Since I have the older R5, I don't have the ability to use "Display simulation" or whatever setting it is that people use to force the lens to autofocus with a smaller aperture than f/1.2. Whether this is a problem or not will be the subject of future testing and comparison to manual focusing.

hight ISO performance of the sensor please!

The V1 was a total fail and selling poorly. It was one of the few products that didn't even sell out on their Black Friday sales for $650 (almost everything else did). I hope Canon learned from this and doesn't put another poor lens into the upcoming camera. 24-120mm f/2.0-3.9, like the G1X II has, would be something.

We’re certainly in great need of a compact GP-E2 replacement for the new hot shoe. Preferably powered by the camera and the size of the SpeedLite Transmitter ST-E10, which is tiny. Making it compatible with a “G7X Mark IV” would lead to a higher volume of sales, and hopefully a cheaper price.

David_B said:

But the ability to pull apart some of the individual beams is lost.

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I think your conception of optics is a bit idealistic tbh.

David_B said:

To go to an extreme point, why even bother with a full frame lens if all we need to do is put an APS-C lens on the front of a full frame model and then stretch that image such that it "fill the picture".. Afterall, what's a few dark corners/boundary between friends if digital corection is ok? Where's the cutoff point between too much stretching vs acceptable stretching?

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Is your argument here that because an extreme and somewhat contrived situation is unacceptable, that every gradation between that and your ideal setup must also be rejected? If it is a continuum, why is zero the only acceptable position?

David_B said:

Canon's asking people using its equipment to take it on good faiith that the dark corners from various lens is acceptable.

I don't trust humans to be a good judge of the evidence because humans are unreliable and all too frequently plagued by biases.

Faith is an interesting word to being up in the discussion of this topic because there is practically no verifiable analysis done on it but we're alll excepted to accept the new lay of the land as being ok. Summary, Canon's asking us all to take a huge leap of faith in it.

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Canon is producing novel lenses with new compromises that weren't possible before. You don't have to buy them. I suspect the alternative, especially in a much smaller market than 20 years ago is that these lenses simply wouldn't exist. More choice is better, no?

As for faith/evidence, you clearly have an entrenched view but haven't presented anything to support it except high-minded principles (such as your comment on "separating beams of light" above), Neuro has asked for evidence. And somehow you are turning that into, he is blinded by faith in the new optics?

Click said:

Excellent sequence. Beautiful shots.

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Thanks, Click!

ThomasTH said:

A beautiful animal well captured. My favourite is the third.

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Thank you, Thomas!

Etnaphele said:

Ordered a 45mm 1.2 in Europe at the beginning of December, out of stock everywhere and the shop where i ordered said two weeks ago, that Canon delayed shipments and they have no idea when the lenses will arrive. Does anyone know what's the matter? No ETA in sight, I had hoped to receive it for Christmas (perfect family gathering lens), but now I'm worrying I have to wait further months for a this plastic fantastic (outside AND inside )

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Perhaps they misjudged, but demand is outpacing supply. Because Canon has a locked mount, we are beholden to the mother ship for supplying fast, affordable lenses. They finally make one and turns out people want it. Should have been predicable considering how successful 3rd party lenses are on E, Z, X & L mount but some lessons take a while to learn apparently.

I have had the EF 50 1.2 and I would agree it was legendary... in a bad way.
I did not like it at all.
If this lens is similar, then it is a no-go, regardless of the price. If I wanted something soft and quirky I'd buy a lens baby...
The RF 50 1.2 (which I have) may be much more expensive and heavier, but it delivers with almost no compromises.

jabird56 said:

Canon EOS 90D with a Canon EF 16-35 f/2.8L II USM Lense
Processed with DXO Photolab Elite 9View attachment 227470

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I really like this one, looks kind of abstract and kind of like from another world.
The others are very interesting too,

David_B said:

But the ability to pull apart some of the individual beams is lost.

To go to an extreme point, why even bother with a full frame lens if all we need to do is put an APS-C lens on the front of a full frame model and then stretch that image such that it "fill the picture".. Afterall, what's a few dark corners/boundary between friends if digital corection is ok? Where's the cutoff point between too much stretching vs acceptable stretching?

The detail that gets lost in the squashed iamge (it doesn't fill the srnsor, so I'm using "squash" as the term to refer to it being made small) can't be made to reappear with some magic process. Even if you take into account the blur from the AA, there must be less refined data to work from in an image that's only 19.96mm "high".

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This is how I look at it:

• If the image circle of a lens covers the entire sensor then there is no a priori pixel loss, but the lens that requires the most geometric correction will result in a (slightly) less image quality since more pixels will be "stretched" / extrapolated.
• If it doesn't then there is an additional (small) loss of quality: an optically corrected lens may still require stretching, but the data used to create the corrected image is based on the full mp count of the sensor, while with digitally corrected lens whose image circle does not cover the full sensor, the stretching will be done using less data (less pixels), therefore more pixels are "created" with digitally corrected lenses.

This is based on my own reasoning that, essentially, the less data you interpolate and / or the more data you start from, the better.
I do not have a scientific proof of this. It makes sense to me. But no one has given me reasons to reject my reasoning so far.
So I will continue to believe that optical corrections, all else being equal, are better IQ-wise, and obviously worse size- and weight-wise. Maybe marginally, but better. And therefore I will continue to have a slight preference for optically corrected lenses... the good ones at least

David_B said:

You've eyeballed some images and made some claims that you're asking us to accept on no better grounds than faith.

I don't trust humans to be a good judge of the evidence because humans are unreliable and all too frequently plagued by biases.

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@neuroanatomist has freely admitted that his evidence is empirical and therefore potentially imprecise. And it is entirely possible that the differences, while present (imho), are not meaningful enough to make a difference in real life shooting scenarios. But I do not believe that Neuro has an agenda here.

Excellent sequence. Beautiful shots.

Pretty cool shots. Well done!

EricN said:

LIKE YOURSELF, ERICN IS ALSO NOT A FLAWED HUMAN BAG OF MEAT.

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Your profile picture (and mine) suggests otherwise .

David_B said:

I don't trust humans to be a good judge of the evidence because humans are unreliable and all too frequently plagued by biases.

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LIKE YOURSELF, ERICN IS ALSO NOT A FLAWED HUMAN BAG OF MEAT.

neuroanatomist said:

The light that is digitally corrected to fill the corners when required still falls on the sensor.

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But the ability to pull apart some of the individual beams is lost.

To go to an extreme point, why even bother with a full frame lens if all we need to do is put an APS-C lens on the front of a full frame model and then stretch that image such that it "fill the picture".. Afterall, what's a few dark corners/boundary between friends if digital corection is ok? Where's the cutoff point between too much stretching vs acceptable stretching?

Canon's asking people using its equipment to take it on good faiith that the dark corners from various lens is acceptable. Or at least I say that because I haven't see Canon say anything with authority on this subject matter and I'm pretty sure if you had then you'd have quoted it by now.

The detail that gets lost in the squashed iamge (it doesn't fill the srnsor, so I'm using "squash" as the term to refer to it being made small) can't be made to reappear with some magic process. Even if you take into account the blur from the AA, there must be less refined data to work from in an image that's only 19.96mm "high".

neuroanatomist said:

The difference is that I’ve provided empirical evidence to support my points. Have you? Has anyone who claims that optical correction of geometric distortion is inherently superior to digital correction.

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You've eyeballed some images and made some claims that you're asking us to accept on no better grounds than faith.

I don't trust humans to be a good judge of the evidence because humans are unreliable and all too frequently plagued by biases.

neuroanatomist said:

So you shoot RAW, and you don’t use a lens profile in your RAW converter? I’m skeptical. Especially after your intentionally evasive reply to @AlanF.

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Correct. Using a lens profile is not a requirement of using a raw converter, nor is using CA correction.

Faith is an interesting word to being up in the discussion of this topic because there is practically no verifiable analysis done on it but we're alll excepted to accept the new lay of the land as being ok. Summary, Canon's asking us all to take a huge leap of faith in it.