Canon will release a trio of RF mount wide angle L prime lenses in the first half of 2023

Snapster

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Nov 28, 2022
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I'm definitely not onboard with Canon's strategy of offering only entry level lenses and uber expensive and bulky L lenses.

I need my lenses weather sealed so that pretty much rules out the cheaper lenses. The prices rule out most L lenses. There's a massive gap between a $200 and $2500 50mm lens. I'm not going to get either and don't really understand why they won't let third party manufacturers fill that gap.

Also, lenses that weigh 500-600 grams feel perfectly balanced with R5/R6. We badly need 1.4 primes in that weight class with weather sealing.
 
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photographer

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Jan 17, 2020
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That’s a good point. When I was a lot younger, the 50 came in every body. That’s was it, either buy a body, kr buy one with a 50. Everything we learned said that 50 was the natural perspective (not really true). These days people either but bodies, or buy them with some zoom. I see fewer 50mm lenses over time. A few years ago, making very expensive 50s was a thing. I’m not so sure most people cared. Look at smartphones. What’s the normal? 24 to 26mm equivalent. I think that regular camera users gave come to see that as more important than 50.
It depends on what you are shooting. I shoot mainly portraits and nudes and I have a Canon RF 50 1.2 (+ other EF lenses from Canon and Sigma) and I'm looking forward to the RF 35 1.2. With mobile phones, people use wide lenses also because most mobile phones do not offer other and also because they want to capture where they are in their selfies. The main goal is not to make a good portrait, but to show that I am in Hawaii.
 
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Sep 20, 2020
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Im waiting for the RF 85mm f1.4L IS USM but would definitely be interested in a 28mm f1.4L lens.
Unless you plan on getting a camera without IBIS like the R5 C there is no benefit to having IS on an 84 mm lens.
All 85 mm lenses get the same 8 stops.
 
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Jul 21, 2010
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I need my lenses weather sealed so that pretty much rules out the cheaper lenses.
If you need weather sealed lenses, that rules out all non-L lenses. Sorry, but L lenses are typically expensive. There have been only a few under $1K and only one of those sealed (17-40/4L, which I think barely qualifies as L from an IQ standpoint).

If you’re talking primes, to get the L moniker and the weather sealing that comes with it, they’re going to be the fastest in-class with great IQ, and that means expensive.

There's a massive gap between a $200 and $2500 50mm lens. I'm not going to get either and don't really understand why they won't let third party manufacturers fill that gap.
Canon’s goal isn’t to give you what you want. Their goal is profit, and if they can make more of that by pushing some people to buy expensive lenses and blocking 3rd parties from making AF lenses for the RF mount, then they will.
 
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koenkooi

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Feb 25, 2015
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If you need weather sealed lenses, that rules out all non-L lenses. Sorry, but L lenses are typically expensive. There have been only a few under $1K and only one of those sealed (17-40/4L, which I think barely qualifies as L from an IQ standpoint). [...]
And even that one needs a front filter added to complete the seal. The IQ is decent, if you stay at APS-H or smaller :) For full frame, the non-L RF16mm beats it in every metric, after optical corrections.
 
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Snapster

EOS R5
Nov 28, 2022
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Canon’s goal isn’t to give you what you want. Their goal is profit, and if they can make more of that by pushing some people to buy expensive lenses and blocking 3rd parties from making AF lenses for the RF mount, then they will.
They wont profit at all when people like me eventually switch to Sony.

I've always been a Canon shooter and decided to give the R5 a go after the R. But my next camera won't be a Canon unless we start seeing mid-tier lenses from Tamron/ Sigma/Rokinon.

It's not just about price, either. All the fast L lenses are massive. For travel photography, that's a no.
 
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I'm definitely not onboard with Canon's strategy of offering only entry level lenses and uber expensive and bulky L lenses.

I need my lenses weather sealed so that pretty much rules out the cheaper lenses. The prices rule out most L lenses. There's a massive gap between a $200 and $2500 50mm lens. I'm not going to get either and don't really understand why they won't let third party manufacturers fill that gap.

Also, lenses that weigh 500-600 grams feel perfectly balanced with R5/R6. We badly need 1.4 primes in that weight class with weather sealing.
Genuine question, because I can't remember - was the EF 50mm f/1.4 weather sealed? Are midrange third party primes, typically?
 
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koenkooi

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Feb 25, 2015
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Genuine question, because I can't remember - was the EF 50mm f/1.4 weather sealed? Are midrange third party primes, typically?
It wasn't weather sealed and its AF motor exploded if you looked at a Nikon camera too long. Only 3rd parties have released "weather sealed" midrange lenses.
 
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Genuine question, because I can't remember - was the EF 50mm f/1.4 weather sealed? Are midrange third party primes, typically?
No, and no. Having said that I have has an EF 50 f1.4 rolling around in my bags for over 20 years and it has outlasted half a dozen L series lenses.
 
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