Did Canon See the Writing on the Wall with the RF Mount?

[HotPixels]

This is an interesting question. The conventional wisdom in the camera market back in the day was that lenses were an absolutely vital part of the business for camera makers, because people would buy more than one lens per camera, and people didn't always upgrade their camera that frequently.

I've often wondered about Sony's position. Sony opened up their mount only because they had to, in order to compete against Canon and Nikon in the DSLR days. Sony didn't have that many E mount lenses, and they also wanted a differentiating factor with Canon/Nikon. It worked out well for them, but now one wonders if that is sustainable. Sony is in the unique position that they are not the one who sells the most lenses for their own cameras. And it seems to be getting worse for them by the day with more quality third party lenses appearing.

I think in part this explains Sony's generally higher prices on camera bodies; they have to make it up somewhere. But as the camera market has shrunk, and no brand, including Sony is releasing new camera bodies as frequently, what does this mean to their overall business?

If Sony were to enter a new camera market, say medium format, would they open up that new mount? I think there's a good chance they would not, now realizing the trap they set for themselves.

 

[Agustin]

I have the Yongnuo 85mm f/1.8 RF with auto focus, and it is one of the sharpest lenses I've owned; it matches the razor sharpness of my EF 16-35 f/2.8 III (those who've used this lens know how sharp it is)

Those Chinese lens manufacturers know what they are capable of, and if Canon opens the mount I won't doubt that they (China) will make superior optics for the RF mount

 

[SnowMiku]

When I eventually upgrade to an RF body the only lens I'm thinking of getting is the RF 800mm F/11, I was also thinking of getting the Canon RF 100-400mm F5.6-8 IS USM but it's 2/3 - 1 stop slower @300mm then my current Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS II USM. For everything else my existing EF lenses do everything I need, I see no reason to sell my EF lenses and change them to the RF versions. I don't think Canon are going to allow Full Frame Lenses on RF anytime soon due to the reasons on this article.

The third-parties should make more APS-C lenses for Canon, a 60mm f/1.2 would be a nice 100mm f/2 full frame equivalent.

 

[Uneternal]

@Richard CR I'm usually all for an open mount.
But interestingly, I was thinking the exact same thing recently when all those new Chinese lenses came out.
Back in the day, we only had Yongnuo, and those lenses were actually pretty bad. If you ever used a Yongnuo nifty-fifty, you learned to appreciate Canon's $100 lens real quick. But now we got TTArtisan, 7Artisans, AstrHori, Viltrox, Laowa, Meike etc. and all of them want a piece of the pie. And those lenses got pretty good, they have quiet AF now and they are sharp.

It came to me that Canon's decision makes a lot of sense in terms of their profit, because Sony and Nikon for sure are going to lose a lot of lens sales if you combine all those third party sales numbers. Viltrox alone offers almost 30 autofocus lenses for Sony E. Meike and TTArtisan are getting close to 10. In an article Viltrox claimed to sell more than 30,000 lenses annually. Multiply that with an average price of $300 and you have a operational loss of 9 million dollars per year.

Of course, Canon plays a risky game here, because they have to fill the void with their own lenses.

 

[jeffa4444]

I’m buying a BMW 5 series and looking for a Chinese engine to put in it I’m fed up with BMW locking other manufacturers with the engine choice.

As a 71 year old who bought his first Canon camera and lens at 16 the reason I’ve stayed with Canon is because of three things.
1. Long standing innovation and product improvement
2. Outstanding reliability and product back up
3. Price to product quality and longevity.

When you buy Canon cameras your buying into a system not a parts bin so if you don’t like that don’t buy Canon cameras buy Sony or Nikon it’s simple.

 

[blackcoffee17]

Why not? For almost 2 decades no US astronaut got into space without the help of a russian spaceship.
The Sukhoi SU-57 is arguably the most sophisticated warplane today - at a much lower price than the self-defeating F35.
And the Russians build many more of them compared to the F35.

Yakovlev SJ-100 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

By now fully import substituted (no Western parts) and in serial production.

And this one is a direct competitor to the Boeing B-737 MAX and Airbus A-321 NEO:

Yakovlev MC-21 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

It has a wider cabin than the A320, a wing which allows a higher cruise speed
and a higher capacity in its base variant, the MC-21-300.


It is allowed to fly to the global majority.
Have you noticed that US airlines lately complained for "unfair" competition because
US passenger jets couldn't fly over Russia when heading for China?
Sanctions cut both ways, and Russia is by land mass the largest country on earth.



Russia is fully self-sufficient, has >95% of the resources it needs
and get's the rest from China. Passenger planes need robust chips,
not 5nm AI-chips. The Russians can build them reliably in masses.
But have you noticed news about rare earths lately?
Looks like it isn't Russia who is without resources.

Nvidia had a 95% market share for AI chips in China.
Sanctions reduced that to 0%. Huawei is doubling their yield
every year since the first sanctions. Sanctions work - but not
for the benefit of the sanctioning party.

This astounding video gives you some insight in the current
competition of AI systems:

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

www.youtube.com

Found the russian fan. On paper everything looks great...

 

[m4ndr4ke]

They sold me the 1.8/18-35mm ART, the 1.4/35mm ART, the 1.4/50mm ART,
the 1.8/135mm ART.
They couldn't sell me the 2.0/200mm ART yet, because it isn't available
in either EF or RF. Otherwise......
And I am still on the fence for a reasonably priced pre-owned 2.8/120-300mm SPORTS.

Man, I miss my 28 and 50 Art lenses, but I gotta be honest, they had to go, I just didn't use them enough.
I had the 28, the 35, the 50 and, briefly, the 40.
I never liked the 35mm focal length on full-frame, so I replaced it with the 28.
I never kept the 40 because it was too much of a speciality lens, at 1.2kg and with that size. That lens still haunts me today, it's just too good.

And earlier this year I almost lost it and took an 120-300mm f/2.8 Sports but, again...I know I wouldn't use it enough.


Getting the 28-70mm f/2 helped a lot, it replaced the 28 1.4 Art, the EF 24-70 2.8 II and the 50 1.4 Art, to me. I sold the three lenses and added 100 bucks or so.

In the future, I just want to add ONE nice fast prime lens somewhere between 28 and 50. It has to be 1.4 or faster, otherwise I'm not disattaching the tank. I'm looking at the 50 VCM, maybe this 45 1.2, or maaaaybe the 35 VCM but, knowing I don't like 35mm, that one is an unlikely choice.

 

[HMC11]

I do not know what will happen once the likes of Sirui, Laowa, and TTArtisan mature to compete effectively against the current leading lens manufacturers. I can, however, draw some observations from comparable situations in the world of laptops and mobile phones.

Laptops. I recall a time when laptops were getting better and cheaper as more players enter the market. At that time, the dominant ones included HP, Lenovo, Acers, IBM, Compaq, Toshiba, and Epson; with ‘new’ players like Asus, Dell, Sony, Fujitsu, Microsoft, and Apple coming into the fray. It was quite a good time for me as the choices were plenty, and one can enjoy the selection process based on specs, price, support level etc. This did not last long, however. Something cracked, particularly during and post Covid, with some brands withdrawing from the market – e.g. Sony, Fujitsu, Compaq, reducing choices to a relatively few number of options, particularly for business grade laptops (the ultraportables).

Having either experienced directly (about 20 laptops) or discussing with IT department colleagues, here are some observations with their inherent biases and small sample size:

• when the market is not saturated and that there are very healthy competition, both the quality and pricing of business grade and higher end laptops are generally very good, with the laptops being reliable, durable, and priced reasonably;
• when the number of brands reduced to few options, the prices went up, and the laptops’ durability suffers, and no longer as reliable. For instance, there are notable problems with Lenovo’s X1 Carbon when using zoom, my pretty expensive Acer with 3-yr onsite warranty failed 4 times in less than a year, my HP 360 simply died in less than a year etc. These are not once-offs, but have been much more noticeable in the last 3-5 years.
• some manufacturers, in particularly, Fujitsu, maintained the quality of its laptop with durable and reliable components (e.g. my U939X has lasted almost 6 years and still going well with practically daily use – battery drains faster now, but apart from that, the i7 8gen processor can still handle the apps and software that I use despite regular updates, the touch screen has no issue etc). Unfortunately, such devotion to quality has a price, as Fujitsu has stopped selling laptops outside a few jurisdictions. I guess it is not profitable enough.
• At least one manufacturer, specifically, Apple, continues to produce reliable, durable and good quality macbook pros (and air). Despite these laptops being able to last for a good period of time with little degradation of performance, they have refined the art of persuading consumers to keep buying new versions regularly enough such that the company can stay in good profit. Wasteful from an environmental perspective, but more power to Apple.

A similar scenario seems to be playing out for mobile phones, e.g. iPhone seems to be able to get users to keep changing phones regularly; samsung’s flapships, which I have owned at least 10, has a noticeable dip in product quality, so much so that I switched to Oppo eventually, and am considering both the Xiaomi and Honor flip phones for the next change. Xiaomi’s progression in the phone industry actually draws some parallels with Sirui and Laowa, in that the earlier Xiaomi phones are generally cheap and not of good quality, but have recently entered into the high end market, pricing these not much below the equivalent of Samsung’s.

Back to photography. Learning from the above, my sense is that the following are likely, though not definitely to come true:

• Sirui, Laowa etc will catch up in terms of lens design and technology (already seems to be happening);
• As late market entrants, they will likely price their top-end lenses close to, but probably a good enough gap below that of Canon, Nikon etc. However, assuming manufacturing costs would increasingly become comparable to established brands, I suspect the build quality of their lenses will be somewhat less reliable as manufacturer QC might not be consistent enough, resulting in larger copy variations.
• There could be 1-2 new entrants, armed with these new designs, who will compete at the high-end; and similar to Oppo, will be able to offer better specs and performance compared to equivalent lenses from established brands at similar prices.

On the whole, I hope that these new manufacturers do not force Canon (or Nikon) to take measures that will lower the quality of their lenses in order to compete. For instance, not to take too far the approach of using software (rather than optical) corrections to correct for distortion and vignetting. Instead, to take a leaf from Apple to find good reasons for consumers to continue with the brand.

 

[Planterz]

I'm probably reiterating others' opinions, but here's mine...

Canon is definitely losing out on some business because of the closed mount. There's unique lenses by Sigma and budget lenses by a myriad of companies.

The problem with eschewing unique lenses is obvious - people will go to the companies that allow those lenses, unless Canon makes a version themselves.

The problem with not allowing budget lenses is that people will consider other companies as a budget alternative and Canon won't get any of that money. I understand Canon not wanting to lose money to Sigma or Tamron because a customer won't buy the L 24-70mm f2.8 or whatever, but that means that a lot of people won't be buying the R8 or R6 either, and will get a Sony A7IV or Nikon Z6/Z5 instead. Then it becomes not so much an issue of brand "loyalty", but one of simply economics and/or convenience in having to buy multiple bodies or switching brands and starting anew.

Speaking for myself, I own one Sony body and 2 lenses. That's it (so far, anyway). If I go with Canon it'll either be just the R7 II or possibly the R5 II (or III, by the time I can afford that), and probably just the 100-500mm (and the 1.4x if I ever get the R5). The problem is that the 100-500mm really isn't even my ideal lens for the R7 II - the Tamron 50-400mm is. Because of that I might Canon might never get any of my money, by their own actions. I know Canon won't exactly go into bankruptcy without my money, but it seems odd to me that they'd follow a business model that means they'll deliberately lose sales.

 

[David_B]

Canon clearly never had an issue with that. Blackmagic and RED use/used EF mount, and RED uses/used RF.

Blackmagic & RED aren't consumer equipment like the RF cameras and lenses are.

 

[Dragon]

What after sales support will you get when your 2 grand RF 200-800mm breaks in two? Quite a few complaints posted here about having to pay for the repairs.

The 200-800 may not be the most robust design, but somehow, I doubt they broke in two if handled properly. The point is that they could get them repaired. Not so much with the Chinese brands. Tamron and Sigma are pretty good with repairs, at least in the US, but they are not bargain basement anymore, either.

 

[AJ]

It seems like the options up for discussion are (1) open mount, or (2) completely closed mount.
But there is a third option: license. Canon could make a profit on each Yuongno, Meike, Samyang, 7artisans, and whatnot, RF lens sold.
Maybe people would buy a third-party lens, get fed up with it, and then buy the Canon equivalent. Canon would profit twice.
I really don't understand why they haven't gone after licensing more, aside a few piddly Sigma RF-S lenses.
In business, there is value in keeping the competition on a short leash. I used to be in the oil and gas business. If your competition has a gas well and you own the pipeline to market, then you have control. You don't shut out that well - you profit from it through transportation fees.

 

[Dragon]

It seems like the options up for discussion are (1) open mount, or (2) completely closed mount.
But there is a third option: license. Canon could make a profit on each Yuongno, Meike, Samyang, 7artisans, and whatnot, RF lens sold.
Maybe people would buy a third-party lens, get fed up with it, and then buy the Canon equivalent. Canon would profit twice.
I really don't understand why they haven't gone after licensing more, aside a few piddly Sigma RF-S lenses.
In business, there is value in keeping the competition on a short leash. I used to be in the oil and gas business. If your competition has a gas well and you own the pipeline to market, then you have control. You don't shut out that well - you profit from it through transportation fees.

Licensing is more complicated than you might think when you add in the support angle. If you buy a "licensed" Chinese lens for RF mount and the Chinese manufacturer offers no support, then the support call will go to Canon, who will be expected to somehow magically make the Chinese lens work. Canon has so far only licensed manufacturers who have decent support in their own right and I suspect that will be the case in the future. A manual focus lens from 7artisans is one thing. An AF lens with all the software support to deal with CA, distortion, etc. is quite another.

 

[P-visie]

It seems like the options up for discussion are (1) open mount, or (2) completely closed mount.
But there is a third option: license. Canon could make a profit on each Yuongno, Meike, Samyang, 7artisans, and whatnot, RF lens sold.
Maybe people would buy a third-party lens, get fed up with it, and then buy the Canon equivalent. Canon would profit twice.
I really don't understand why they haven't gone after licensing more, aside a few piddly Sigma RF-S lenses.
In business, there is value in keeping the competition on a short leash. I used to be in the oil and gas business. If your competition has a gas well and you own the pipeline to market, then you have control. You don't shut out that well - you profit from it through transportation fees.

Canon will probably start licensing AF full frame lenses when they think it will be beneficial for Canon or they think it becomes detrimental if they don’t. They probably monitor market sentiment (users of this forum not representative). The RF APS-C lenses by Sigma and Tamron are the precedent. Canon will wait until the RF lens line up is more complete. They will be careful to whom they will provide licences. For brand and reputation protection, complexity of integrating third party lenses (as pointed out by others) and legal reasons. Chinese companies do not have a good reputation with protection of IP rights and Canon will want to be able to legally enforce the license agreement.

 

[AJ]

Licensing is more complicated than you might think when you add in the support angle. If you buy a "licensed" Chinese lens for RF mount and the Chinese manufacturer offers no support, then the support call will go to Canon, who will be expected to somehow magically make the Chinese lens work. Canon has so far only licensed manufacturers who have decent support in their own right and I suspect that will be the case in the future. A manual focus lens from 7artisans is one thing. An AF lens with all the software support to deal with CA, distortion, etc. is quite another.

I don't think so. If I buy a third-party cable release or battery or flash, I expect no support from Canon.

 

[AJ]

They will be careful to whom they will provide licences. For brand and reputation protection, complexity of integrating third party lenses (as pointed out by others) and legal reasons. Chinese companies do not have a good reputation with protection of IP rights and Canon will want to be able to legally enforce the license agreement.

I would think that patent rights are easier to enforce when you have them on a leash (i.e. under a licensing agreement)

 

[AlanF]

The 200-800 may not be the most robust design, but somehow, I doubt they broke in two if handled properly. The point is that they could get them repaired. Not so much with the Chinese brands. Tamron and Sigma are pretty good with repairs, at least in the US, but they are not bargain basement anymore, either.

I baby my RF 200-800mm, which is my way of handling it properly.

 

[Dragon]

I would think that patent rights are easier to enforce when you have them on a leash (i.e. under a licensing agreement)

Once you transfer the tech, leashes are useless in China as so many companies have discovered.

 

[Dragon]

I baby my RF 200-800mm, which is my way of handling it properly.

I treat mine well, too. Love that lens.

 

[P-visie]

I would think that patent rights are easier to enforce when you have them on a leash (i.e. under a licensing agreement)

Yes, 1) but Canon need to be able to enforce their IP in a court of law, the track record in China is not very good. 2) The subject of the IP can be stolen, copied etc. It is not like the pipeline in your analogy.