Canon RF 24mm f/1.2L & RF 85mm f/1.2L in the works [CR1]

hmatthes

EOS-R, RF and EF Lenses of all types.
Remember the first EOS were the 650/620 cameras. Nothing great and mind blowing about the bodies except they took the revolutionary EF lenses that blew the competition away
Yep... still have my 650 shooting infrared film when I can find it...
my R will be with me 30 years also (if the circuit boards last that long)
 
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Besisika

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I'm in the minority. I want them to make slower, read "smaller and lighter," primes. These f/1.2 primes will all be 1Kg or heavier bricks on a small light body. Frustrating. It means that a lightweight FF mirrorless system is still many years away, until Canon gets around to making f/1.4 or f/1.8 lenses for this system.

You really NEED the patience of Job to stay with Canon.
You can always grab an EF lens. If I understood what they said, they are after lenses that otherwise a lot more difficult to achieve. Besides, if their autofocus are faster at 1.2 then it makes sense to me to get both low light and AF better.
The one I am interested the most is a zoom 70-135 F2.0. It would be a huge lens but I wouldn't mind, if it is not as heavy as the 100-400 II.
 
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Jack Douglas

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Yep... still have my 650 shooting infrared film when I can find it...
my R will be with me 30 years also (if the circuit boards last that long)

Wow, wish I had life "assurance" like that. What company guarantees you 30 years? Let's see, that'd put me at just about 100.;)

Jack
 
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CanonGrunt

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I agree about the quality of Canon lenses, but what do you mean by "lenses that cannot be seen off brand?" Canon claims EF lenses work fine with the RF mount, and there are plenty of fast lenses from Sigma. Are you saying that Canon is going to lock out third party lenses?


I think they are referring to the 24mm f/1.2. Is there another 24 that fast out there somewhere for a current mount?
 
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Would love high quality 1.8 lenses like what Nikon is doing with the Z. I have the EOS R and 85mm 1.4 IS. Love the output but it's heavy and unbalance.

For me as someone searching for a good "balance of specs" the RF f/1.8 35 IS is the real star and surprise: f/1.8 AND 1:2 macro in a - as far as I see from the images - very compact and lightweight package. The sheer existence of that lens makes me hope that a compact low cost series is still in the pipeline.
I think there is a good chance that you will see these lenses ... and me too!

But marketing-wise f/1.8 lenses aren't that interesting compared to those presumably excellent f/1.2 lenses which have their own range of applications.
 
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You don't need to look at a ton of samples to already guesstimate to a certain degree what will come out of these tests. We already know, for example, that the 50 RF is unarguably incredibly sharp for an f1.2 lens, or that it will be quite significantly affected by cat's eyes. Some aspects of how a lens is biased or designed in terms of blur can be guessed from a few samples.

Solid reviews in general don't give a particularly comprehensive review of blur behaviour. They're still extremely useful and the 50mm RF should look like a brillant lens in most of them. Deservedly so. I'm sure it's taken a lot of hard work for Canon engineers.

The 35mm II is limited in its expression of distance within the blur because of how perfect a lens it is. Its blur characteristic between rear and front blur is as neutral as it gets, as Lenstip's focussing scale shots show.

This is the 35mm II :

View attachment 181148

Here I've allowed myself to switch the 35mm II for the 55 Otus (a lens with similar blur characteristics as the 35mm II) as the way the focusing scale is shot makes it more comparable to another standard lens, specifically designed to under-correct some aberrations :

View attachment 181149

As you can see the "LensAlign" word blurs in the exact same way whether it's in front or behind the focal plane with the Otus (or the 35mm II). On the contrary on the lens with poor spherical aberration correction, it blurs in a strong double edged fashion in front, but in a very smooth, readable way behind.

And here's the big deal : with the Otus (and the 35mm II), as soon as you're past a certain number, you can no longer read the word, and there's practically no difference in the look of the "LensAlign" word : it's as if the LensAlign word is repeated in the exact same fashion afterwards, with lots of well defined edges which start to intertwine with each others to the point that the word becomes undistinguishable and that everything becomes flat.

A practical illustration of the problem :
View attachment 181150
https://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/canon-5ds-r/Y1C6A7739-35LMarkII.HTM
In that shot the two blurred men are at a distance from each others. What I'd like to see from my ideal lens is the traduction of that fact into how the blur behaves. Yet what do we see ? The blurred edges of the objects are similar regardless of the distance (see for example how the neck strap of the guy behind is just as sharply defined as the one from the guy in front). Maybe my brain is stupid, but to me this is difficult to process : I know that these guys are at a distance from each others (the size of their respective heads should be enough to know it, unless something quite bad was unraveling to their physical integrity), and yet they look like they're painted on a 2D canvas.

On the other hand, on the lens with strong spherical aberration, the "LensAlign" word remains readable far into the blurred area behind, and there's a strong difference in how that word looks between the numbers 5 and 10, for example. I think that this is a more elegant way to fade into the blur, but, much more importantly : it preserves distance information better since you can still see what the object is !

The same thing may apply at longer focusing distances, or even when closed down (depending on lens design).

The EF 50mm f1.2 behaves to some degree like the under-corrected lens, at least around f2-F4 in the centre. It's got a lot of other aberrations that make its overall bokeh performance questionable, particularly wide open and off-centre, though.

Another illustration of the difference between these two lenses, from a pdf from Zeiss :
View attachment 181151
https://lenspire.zeiss.com/photo/app/uploads/2018/04/Article-Bokeh-2010-EN.pdf

That said, I've left the photos in color, because credit where credit is due, the 35mm L II controls longitudinal chromatic aberrations exceedingly well. Hat's off to Canon's engineers for that. It's also much, much sharper than the poorly corrected lens, which some may call "hazy".

IMO in 2018 a more balanced lens would try to straddle the fine line between these two extremes.

Interesting analysis, MayaTlab. Thanks!
 
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Interesting analysis, MayaTlab. Thanks!

You may be interested in this interview of Nikon engineers about the 105mm f1.4 :
part 1 : https://dc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/interview/1017554.html
part 2 : https://dc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/interview/1018916.html

Google's translation is reasonably understandable. Some bits are quite interesting : "It has been known for many years that such blur characteristics depend on how to retain residual aberrations, but until now we have not found the optimal balance. Although I know qualitatively, it was reality that quantitatively it was quite difficult"

I'm pretty sure that Canon's engineers are well aware of that as well (I don't think that you can do such an amazing job in various areas of performance without knowing your stuff inside and out). The 85mm IS isn't quite as extreme as the 35mm II and leaves some aberrations uncontrolled wide open (I'm expecting the 50mm RF to slot kind of in between in terms of blur behaviour). But I don't think that as far as focusing scales go it's anywhere near quite as successful a balance as the 105mm :

Screenshot 2018-10-23 at 08.42.16.jpg
It should be obvious which is which :D.

What I like here is that unlike their 58mm or 85mm, we get reasonable sharpness, not too much haze within the focal plane, and decent control of CA. But they've nonetheless been able to retain a good deal of the 58mm's asymmetrical and biased blur characteristics, even when you close the lens' aperture (big deal IMO, particularly for a 105mm lens). I think that this lens is closer to the fine line I was talking about :D.

This thread from Dpreview is interesting as well, particularly since it analyses how a lens' blur characteristics evolve as you close the aperture down : https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4031515
This should also tell you why with only a few samples you can already start to make a reasonably educated guess about what the designers' intent was in terms of blur characteristics.

This is all about what happens in the centre of the frame, though. Personally I'd like to see such evaluations done for the remaining of the frame. My 50mm STM's blur behaviour, for example, varies considerably at various apertures depending on image height.
 
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For astro there is a super lens: The Sigma 14mm 1.8 Art. The difference between 1.2 and 1.8 (~1 stop) is covered by the fact that the wider Sigma can be used with almost twice the shutter time (It's a 14mm vs a 24mm) without startrails so you can use the same ISO. Assuming you need Ultra wide of course. I always do need it in landscape astrophotography photos.

For 14mm, that is the lens for astro! But I purchased a Samyang 14mm 2.4 before the Sigma was even rumored and could not rationalize buying another 14mm. But I can rationalize a 28mm, since I don't have a good prime near that length. 28mm frames the core better for me than 14mm.
 
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Adrianf

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These are seriously pro lenses. It sounds like there will be another shower of lower-spec/price lenses when they start talking about APS-C cameras with the R mount. Or, they could even switch to only producing full-frame lenses, even for a crop sensor. Go Canon! This looks like it will be an exciting (and expensive) ride..
 
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You may be interested in this interview of Nikon engineers about the 105mm f1.4 :
part 1 : https://dc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/interview/1017554.html
part 2 : https://dc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/interview/1018916.html

Google's translation is reasonably understandable. Some bits are quite interesting : "It has been known for many years that such blur characteristics depend on how to retain residual aberrations, but until now we have not found the optimal balance. Although I know qualitatively, it was reality that quantitatively it was quite difficult"

I'm pretty sure that Canon's engineers are well aware of that as well (I don't think that you can do such an amazing job in various areas of performance without knowing your stuff inside and out). The 85mm IS isn't quite as extreme as the 35mm II and leaves some aberrations uncontrolled wide open (I'm expecting the 50mm RF to slot kind of in between in terms of blur behaviour). But I don't think that as far as focusing scales go it's anywhere near quite as successful a balance as the 105mm :

View attachment 181152
It should be obvious which is which :D.

What I like here is that unlike their 58mm or 85mm, we get reasonable sharpness, not too much haze within the focal plane, and decent control of CA. But they've nonetheless been able to retain a good deal of the 58mm's asymmetrical and biased blur characteristics, even when you close the lens' aperture (big deal IMO, particularly for a 105mm lens). I think that this lens is closer to the fine line I was talking about :D.

This thread from Dpreview is interesting as well, particularly since it analyses how a lens' blur characteristics evolve as you close the aperture down : https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4031515
This should also tell you why with only a few samples you can already start to make a reasonably educated guess about what the designers' intent was in terms of blur characteristics.

This is all about what happens in the centre of the frame, though. Personally I'd like to see such evaluations done for the remaining of the frame. My 50mm STM's blur behaviour, for example, varies considerably at various apertures depending on image height.

You obviously have studied this in detail. Your last two posts are the most interesting I’ve read online for a long time!

My takeaway is that for having a three dimensional look in an image, the transition between the in and out of focus area should be gradual. If the softness kicks in too early/too close to the area in focus, the image will appear flat. I have seen this effect in Zeiss Otus lenses and Sigma ART lenses, and to some degree in the 35LII.

Personally I find the 24 LII, the 28 f2.8 IS, the 35L, 50L, 85LII, 100L and 135L to be very pleasing in terms of creating a 3D effect, less so the 35LII and 85 L IS.
 
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You obviously have studied this in detail.

I haven't studied anything, I'm just quoting, and I'm no optician. I've probably already said a truckload of erroneous things. I guess that there are a lot of variables to factor in when it comes to bokeh, even only on axis. What I mentioned probably is only one partial aspect of it.

But it took me less than a minute (seconds, actually) of scrolling through the 50mm RF samples to see yet again what I've come to start to strongly dislike with Canon's latest batch of L primes (and some other lenses as well), so I tried to put some degree of understanding on what I was seeing. It's my feeling that Canon's optical engineers and me aren't quite on the same page regarding what makes a truly great lens. I have a lot of admiration for what they're doing (particularly on the manufacturing front), but in the end I have zero desire to use any of their new lenses. No, really. If I were given a 50mm RF, I'd instantly put it on sale.

I wish lens reviews put more emphasis on describing and evaluating blur qualities in a more comprehensive way, but it must be very difficult to do well, in a way that the average joe (me) can start to understand.

In some capacity I actually think that some reviews are actively degrading our understanding of lenses by focusing on some aspects of a lens' performance (for example, criticising the Nikon's 58mm focus shift) while not helping users understand that it might be there for a good reason (in the case of that lens, as a by-product of its copious aberrations, to improve some aspects of background blur behaviour). I was the first in line to criticise that lens, but over the year I've started to like what it stands for. A good review would have saved me a few years to get to that point :D.
 
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You obviously have studied this in detail. Your last two posts are the most interesting I’ve read online for a long time!

My takeaway is that for having a three dimensional look in an image, the transition between the in and out of focus area should be gradual. If the softness kicks in too early/too close to the area in focus, the image will appear flat. I have seen this effect in Zeiss Otus lenses and Sigma ART lenses, and to some degree in the 35LII.

Personally I find the 24 LII, the 28 f2.8 IS, the 35L, 50L, 85LII, 100L and 135L to be very pleasing in terms of creating a 3D effect, less so the 35LII and 85 L IS.

I'm not an optician, neither, so I can't really contribute much to the debate myself, buy remembered I read this some time ago:

https://petapixel.com/2016/03/14/problem-modern-lenses/

Basically, the author states that those modern lenses with plenty of glass elements to attain highly corrected, crispy sharp lenses fail to produce that 3D "pop" effect.
 
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I'm not an optician, neither, so I can't really contribute much to the debate myself, buy remembered I read this some time ago:

https://petapixel.com/2016/03/14/problem-modern-lenses/

Basically, the author states that those modern lenses with plenty of glass elements to attain highly corrected, crispy sharp lenses fail to produce that 3D "pop" effect.

I’ve read and quoted that article before. I am not sure if it’s theory about why the 3D effect varies, but it is describing differences in depth rendering that is rarely spoke about.

I agree with MayaTlab, that reviewers are way to obsessed with sharpness and aberration controls, and overlook qualities such as depth rendering. The obvious reason is the challenge in comparing depth rendering in an objective and measurable way.

Real world reports from thrustworty and experienced users can be of more value than the many review sites out there.
 
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Ozarker

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You obviously have studied this in detail. Your last two posts are the most interesting I’ve read online for a long time!

My takeaway is that for having a three dimensional look in an image, the transition between the in and out of focus area should be gradual. If the softness kicks in too early/too close to the area in focus, the image will appear flat. I have seen this effect in Zeiss Otus lenses and Sigma ART lenses, and to some degree in the 35LII.

Personally I find the 24 LII, the 28 f2.8 IS, the 35L, 50L, 85LII, 100L and 135L to be very pleasing in terms of creating a 3D effect, less so the 35LII and 85 L IS.

"3D effect" is just fine on my EF 35mm f/1.4L II. I'm very impressed with it for a wide angle lens. Sharp as heck too.
 

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I'm not an optician, neither, so I can't really contribute much to the debate myself, buy remembered I read this some time ago:

https://petapixel.com/2016/03/14/problem-modern-lenses/

Basically, the author states that those modern lenses with plenty of glass elements to attain highly corrected, crispy sharp lenses fail to produce that 3D "pop" effect.

To each his own, but I have little to no issue getting “3D” pop images with the 35, 85 or 100 macro lenses. It’s the zoom lenses that tend to fall short in this regard, at least in my experience, although I have gotten close with the 24-70 2.8 II in certain conditions.
 
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knight427

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You don't need to look at a ton of samples to already guesstimate to a certain degree what will come out of these tests. We already know, for example, that the 50 RF is unarguably incredibly sharp for an f1.2 lens, or that it will be quite significantly affected by cat's eyes. Some aspects of how a lens is biased or designed in terms of blur can be guessed from a few samples.

Solid reviews in general don't give a particularly comprehensive review of blur behaviour. They're still extremely useful and the 50mm RF should look like a brillant lens in most of them. Deservedly so. I'm sure it's taken a lot of hard work for Canon engineers.

The 35mm II is limited in its expression of distance within the blur because of how perfect a lens it is. Its blur characteristic between rear and front blur is as neutral as it gets, as Lenstip's focussing scale shots show.

This is the 35mm II :

View attachment 181148

Here I've allowed myself to switch the 35mm II for the 55 Otus (a lens with similar blur characteristics as the 35mm II) as the way the focusing scale is shot makes it more comparable to another standard lens, specifically designed to under-correct some aberrations :

View attachment 181149

As you can see the "LensAlign" word blurs in the exact same way whether it's in front or behind the focal plane with the Otus (or the 35mm II). On the contrary on the lens with poor spherical aberration correction, it blurs in a strong double edged fashion in front, but in a very smooth, readable way behind.

And here's the big deal : with the Otus (and the 35mm II), as soon as you're past a certain number, you can no longer read the word, and there's practically no difference in the look of the "LensAlign" word : it's as if the LensAlign word is repeated in the exact same fashion afterwards, with lots of well defined edges which start to intertwine with each others to the point that the word becomes undistinguishable and that everything becomes flat.

A practical illustration of the problem :
View attachment 181150
https://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/canon-5ds-r/Y1C6A7739-35LMarkII.HTM
In that shot the two blurred men are at a distance from each others. What I'd like to see from my ideal lens is the traduction of that fact into how the blur behaves. Yet what do we see ? The blurred edges of the objects are similar regardless of the distance (see for example how the neck strap of the guy behind is just as sharply defined as the one from the guy in front). Maybe my brain is stupid, but to me this is difficult to process : I know that these guys are at a distance from each others (the size of their respective heads should be enough to know it, unless something quite bad was unraveling to their physical integrity), and yet they look like they're painted on a 2D canvas.

.

Forgive me for picking nits, but I do not think the picture supports your opinion in regards to the blurring effects visible between the two people. In the near neck strap, I can see there are white words or graphics repeated in a pattern which are completely lost in the far strap. Additionally, the far strap is blurred to the point of being semi-transparent as is clearly visible with the red shirt logo and more subtly visible as part of the strap almost disappears into the black shirt.
Capture.PNG


In regards to their faces, the near face includes just enough detail to see some skin folds around the mouth, eyes and interior shaping of the pinna (ear). Note that I shrunk the near face to better match the size of the far face.
Capture2.PNG

Certainly I am zooming into small details here, but these were things that were evident to me from your thumbnail image. OTOH, we are discussing opinions around subjective impressions, so all I can really say is that my opinion on this matter does not match yours.
 
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"3D effect" is just fine on my EF 35mm f/1.4L II. I'm very impressed with it for a wide angle lens. Sharp as heck too.

I own the 35LII, and I do like it. I have many pictures taken with this lens that I think are wonderful. At the same time, for some reason, I often prefer the look I get from the 35L, which I also own. Technically speaking, the 35LII is much better than the 35L. Sharper, less aberrations, smoother bokeh, better AF, weather sealing etc. But the most true to life images I get, are taken with the 35L.

I don’t think the 35LII produces flat looking images, but the 35L is better in that regard.
 
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