Canon explains RF lens technology and why bigger is better (sometimes)

[3kramd5]

Digital created the pixel

Indeed

 

[Pape]

I wonder if those modern bigger lenses are actually medium format lenses with permanent speed booster group on them
Like 75mm f1,8 medium format lens shrinked with 1.4x speed booster to get 50mm f1,2 full frame with better sharpness and light power.
Is there end on that road ,lenses just get bigger and bigger?

 

[Timedog]

I wonder if those modern bigger lenses are actually medium format lenses with permanent speed booster group on them
Like 75mm f1,8 medium format lens shrinked with 1.4x speed booster to get 50mm f1,2 full frame with better sharpness and light power.
Is there end on that road ,lenses just get bigger and bigger?

Ha this seems to especially be true with stuff like the Sigma 40mm art, which is heavier than the already huge RF 50, AND with a larger front filter thread, despite having smaller aperture. The more gigantic you make the lens the less engineering you have to do for great IQ, lol.

 

[mjg79]

Digital created the pixel peeping clowns at 100% + that we photographers have to suffer with. At realistic viewing distances no one can tell the difference between a cheap or a most expensive lens, unless there is actually something wrong with the cheap lens.

I think you're right, I feel like with hobbyist digital photography there are two groups - those who simply like photography and would have been enjoying film photography all the same and those who enjoy the technology, the challenge of mastering it, the sort of people who, were there no such thing as digital photography, might enjoy computer building or model trains etc as a hobby.

Part of the huge explosion in photography over the past 15 years I think is that once it went digital it could appeal to those two groups - sometimes their interests coincide, sometimes they have very different desires.

 

[mjg79]

I wonder if those modern bigger lenses are actually medium format lenses with permanent speed booster group on them
Like 75mm f1,8 medium format lens shrinked with 1.4x speed booster to get 50mm f1,2 full frame with better sharpness and light power.
Is there end on that road ,lenses just get bigger and bigger?

I am pretty sure I read that people were able to mount Otus lenses on the new Fuji baby medium format and they performed well. It's just like the Canon 17mm TS lens is so exceptional in the corners if you don't shift it because its imaging circle is much, much bigger. There's nothing illegitimate about the approach I think, to a certain extent every lens will be slightly bigger than it needs to be but yes it does seem that it is a part of the arsenal used by, in particular, Sigma and Zeiss.

It's clearer still in the world of rangefinders. Zeiss adopted a different approach fro their ZM lenses usually using more elements to correct aberrations etc and larger elements for the corners and vignetting. They sacrificed size and weight. Leica has by and large continued with simpler designs with extremely expensively made elements to try to keep the size somewhat under control. Thus you arrive at the situation with the 35mm Summilux-M ASPH compared to the Zeiss 35mm 1.4 ZM - the latter is in many technical respects superior but it is a lot larger.

Really there's no right and wrong but, just speaking for myself, the way some of the Sigma Art lenses and Zeiss Otus lenses have gone would make me not want to use them even if you gave me them for free, photography is a hobby to be to enjoy. I was given a lot of hope when Canon brought out the Mark II 24-70/2.8 L - it does suggest at least they are going to try to keep size and weight under control. Alas it seems to be a rarity, a lens smaller than its predecessor I mean.