Teardown: Canon RF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM

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Our friends at Lensrentals.com have done what a lot of us wanted to see done, and that’s a teardown of the brand new Canon RF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM.
From Lensrentals.com:
There are some of you who are going to scream about how you want metal lenses. OK, Boomer, go get you a metal lens and show us how strong you are. On every other 70-200mm lenses we’ve disassembled, there are multiple metal parts that we can bend with our fingers. There’s not a damn thing we can bend with our fingers in this bad boy. This is going to hold up better than a metal lens, it’s probably sturdier, and it weighs far less.
I haven’t tested it optically. I haven’t even shot with it. But after looking inside it, I want it. The engineering in here is pure art. And even I, the person who mocks construction at any chance I get, can’t find anything to complain about...

Continue reading...


 
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YuengLinger

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Very informative. Enlightening, even!

I do have a great relationship with my ef 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II. But it doesn't like the EOS R, mostly because of balance issues. Almost like they weren't made for each other. :rolleyes: I have a very hard time getting sharp shots with the combo in vertical orientation, though other lenses on the R are great, and the ef 70-200mm on my 5D IV is great. But, wow, do my hands get awkward and wobbly with the R and the ef version.

If this is beautifully balanced on the R, does this give us an indication that future R bodies will have similar ergonomics?


But as long as I have my 5DIV, I cannot justify ditching the ef lens.



Great teardown and discussion of what hopefully is a great new lens.
 
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Up to now I wasn't very much interestet in the R system but after ordering an RP with RF 35 @ just over 1000 EUR (just the packet is hanging on a postal hub, hopefully it will come in the next days or week) I couldn't resist. Added an FD2RF adapter to reuse my old FD glass and to check if I will keep it or sell it.

Checking the specs I found out that the RP is more or less the M50 mark ii I was searching for (two dials, Linear PCM, servo AF with eye detect and some minor but convenient tweaks) and if you strip down the price of that offer to a body only price it was as expensive as an M50.

While I will keep the M50 with the EF-M 32 which is a unique combination in terms of portability and IQ the RP with the RF 70-200 would make a great companion with large aperture, IS and similar weight compared to the f/4 70-200 IS + EF2RF adaptor. And it's more compact than the EF variant (while having maybe a similar volume).

TDP has it's standard comparison photos and from what I see the RF 70-200 is a very good lens - but it's not easy to compare because of the different resolutions of EOS R and 5Ds / 1Ds mark iii ...
The EF III seems to be a tad better at 70mm while the RF wins @ 200mm but this is a very rough estimate due to the different sensor resolutions.

Factoring in size, weight and the great MFD / max. reproduction ratio of 0.23 it might be a very good "to go" lens!
 
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Aaaah, but you forgot the three pounds of dust that get sucked in every time.

Or so I am told is true for every extending "dust pump" lens.

(And yes, I'm being sarcastic.)
Interesting comment from Roger!
"Before we start, though, let’s get the extending barrel discussion out of the way. Some of you HATE extending barrel lenses. That’s cool; don’t get one. Some of you like to call them dust pumps. That’s cool, too, although it’s incorrect. (We take care of over 20,000 lenses. The most common ‘dusters’ among current lenses all happen to be primes that don’t zoom at all.) "
 
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SteveC

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Interesting comment from Roger!
"Before we start, though, let’s get the extending barrel discussion out of the way. Some of you HATE extending barrel lenses. That’s cool; don’t get one. Some of you like to call them dust pumps. That’s cool, too, although it’s incorrect. (We take care of over 20,000 lenses. The most common ‘dusters’ among current lenses all happen to be primes that don’t zoom at all.) "

I had that very thing in mind when I wrote.
 
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The most important thing in this article was this statement: "Canon claims that the shorter back focus distance with a wider opening allows them to place larger elements closer to the sensor to achieve this. The fact that the rear element is a large aspheric with subwavelength coating, and that the other rear elements are large, supports this".

Canon stated that they experimented with copying Sony by retro-converting their APS-C dimension M mount (almost identical in flange distance and diameter to the Sony E mount) into a 35mm format mount, but they found that the cramped APS-C dimension mount forced engineers to place heavy lens elements on the end of the lens and that you couldn't place them close to the sensor as you could with a large diameter mount (with a "wider opening" as Roger puts it). You also needed extra corrective elements to get the light to bend unnaturally into the sensor corners. These diagrams come from a presentation by Canon at the time the EOS R was released (I have added my own translation to Canon's captions).

ShortMountDiameter.jpg

LargerMountDiameter.jpg

So it's not just about being more compact in size but also less front heavy and imbalanced.

It took Canon longer to enter the 35mm mirrorless market because they had to build their 35mm mirrorless system from scratch. The Sony hare only managed to get in front of Canon and Nikon by taking a dirty little shortcut in retro-converting an APS-C mount into a 35mm mount, but this has left a critical vulnerability that the tortoises are going to slowly exploit. Are Sony doomed yet?
 
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navastronia

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The most important thing in this article was this statement: "Canon claims that the shorter back focus distance with a wider opening allows them to place larger elements closer to the sensor to achieve this. The fact that the rear element is a large aspheric with subwavelength coating, and that the other rear elements are large, supports this".

Canon stated that they experimented with copying Sony by retro-converting their APS-C dimension M mount (almost identical in flange distance and diameter to the Sony E mount) into a 35mm format mount, but they found that the cramped APS-C dimension mount forced engineers to place heavy lens elements on the end of the lens and that you couldn't place them close to the sensor as you could with a large diameter mount (with a "wider opening" as Roger puts it). You also needed extra corrective elements to get the light to bend unnaturally into the sensor corners. These diagrams come from a presentation by Canon at the time the EOS R was released (I have added my own translation to Canon's captions).

View attachment 187771

View attachment 187770

So it's not just about being more compact in size but also less front heavy and imbalanced.

It took Canon longer to enter the 35mm mirrorless market because they had to build their 35mm mirrorless system from scratch. The Sony hare only managed to get in front of Canon and Nikon by taking a dirty little shortcut in retro-converting an APS-C mount into a 35mm mount, but this has left a critical vulnerability that the tortoises are going to slowly exploit. Are Sony doomed yet?

I love this diagram and explanation, but Sony has stated repeatedly that the mount diameter doesn't limit their lens design. I think they also claimed that the E mount could theoretically take f/0.95 lenses, but that they didn't have any planned. Would an f/0.95 lens also feature huge elements at the front of the lens and smaller ones at the rear, thus changing/throwing off the balance on the body? According to what you've posted, quite possibly.
 
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