An epiphany I had regarding what the RF mount means for the future of EF lenses

Ultimately I think there's a strong case to be made that Canon will never phase out the EF mount, because honestly what do they gain by making a new lens in the RF mount?

Money, that is a simple answer.

They have more functions that they can put on the lens. People like those types of little extras. You have to entice people from using the old EF lenses you are talking about. So you add a few extra functions and people are enticed to upgrade.

FWIW, you can insert that answer in to anything where it involves a "Why would Canon...?" question.
 
Upvote 0
Money, that is a simple answer.

They have more functions that they can put on the lens. People like those types of little extras. You have to entice people from using the old EF lenses you are talking about. So you add a few extra functions and people are enticed to upgrade.

FWIW, you can insert that answer in to anything where it involves a "Why would Canon...?" question.

There is also the money involved with tooling for manufacturing the lenses. Why continue producing an inferior EF 50mm 1.2L after the superior RF 50mm 1.2L has been released? The answer is still money. The EF 50mm 1.2L will continue on until it is not profitable for Canon to produce it. The next EOS R camera release will be following the money trail with new RF lenses upgrading EF lenses.
 
Upvote 0

sdz

CR Pro
Sep 13, 2016
262
209
Pittsburgh, PA
you guys are pretty delusional. EF mount and EF lenses are on the way out. And an EF lens used on R body with RF adapter will work well but will not be equal to a native RF lens in a number of aspects....

The fact that these EF lenses will work well when adapted to an R body means that Canon will have only a weak incentive to move many of its lenses to the new system. I would bet it will take many years to phase out EF lenses, especially since Canon users will not immediately or quickly migrate en masse to the new system.

Eventually, the RF mount will replace the EF mount. The transition from the old to new mounts will be a gradual one.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Upvote 0

Quirkz

CR Pro
Oct 30, 2014
297
221
Well, unless the extra pins are all for the control ring on the new adapter.




The EF mount uses serial communication, not parallel, for different things on different pins. Three of the current eight pins on the EF mount are power supply voltages only, not data. And again, you're making a huge assumption that some or all of those extra pins are not there solely for the benefit of the added control ring on the adapters/new lenses.

Yeah. It’s also possible that the new pins do NOTHING right now; and are merely there to provide the possibility of future functionality without changing the lens mount (for example, higher voltage power feed for future lenses without blowing up existing lenses).

As someone (I think neuro?) pointed out, they already improved the speed of the EF data transfer several times in the past 30 odd years since release. You can get a lot of data across just one short serial link at very high speeds without needing to change the interface.

I very much doubt it’s about improving data transfer.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Upvote 0