Yep, the new super telephotos really are just the regular lens, a fixed tele despite what they say and a huge premium on top. There will be some optical benefits but marginal.
Canon’s roadmap includes 32 new lenses by 2026 according to Canon’s CEO
- Thread starter tiggy@mac.com
- Start date
unfocused
EOS-1D X Mark III
Why not? What many of our European contributors complain about is that Canon allocates a ridiculously small supply for the market.
The existing RF lineup can be roughly broken up into 5 tiers:
Tier 1 - Statement lenses, super telephotos.
28-70 f/2L, 400mm f/2.8L, 600mm f/4L, 800mm f/5.6L, 1200mm f/8L
Tier 2a - Upper tier L workhorse lenses
50mm f/1.2L, 85mm f/1.2L, 15-35mm f/2.8L, 24-70mm f/2.8L, 70-200mm f/2.8L, 100-500mm f/4.5-7.1L, 5.2mm f/2.8L
Tier 2b - Lower tier L workhorse lenses
14-35mm f/4L, 24-105mm f/4L, 70-200mm f/4L, 100mm f/2.8L Macro
Tier 3 - Enthusiast
35mm f/1.8, 85mm f/2, 600mm f/11, 800mm f/11, 24-105mm f/4-7.1, 24-240mm f/4-6.3, 100-400mm f/5.6-8
Tier 4 - Entry Level
16mm f/2.8, 50mm f/1.8
Looking for gaps at each tier gives us some obvious lenses to conjecture, including some already rumoured:
Tier 1:
Wide angle f/2L zoom, Mild telephoto f/2L zoom, 200mm f/2(1.8?)L, 300mm f/2.8L, 500mm f/4L
Tier 2a:
Fisheye L prime, right ultra wide angle L prime, 24mm f/1.4(1.2?)L, 35mm f/1.2L, 100/105mm f/1.4L, 135mm f/1.8(1.4?)L, tilt-shift prime lineup, 10-24mm f/4L, 200-400mm f/4L, 180mm f/2.8L macro, ultrawide fisheye L zoom
Tier 2b:
200mm f/2.8L, 24-70mm f/4L, 70-300mm f/4-5.6L
Tier 3:
20/24/28/40/50mm primes with IS, light macro capabilities, and apertures in the f/1.8-2.8 range. 18-45mm f/4-5.6. Compact enthusiast macro lens (100mm f/4 IS?)
Tier 4:
24/28/35/40mm f/2.8 pancake-ish primes without IS. Ultra cheap standard zoom kit lens, ultra wide, and telephoto zoom
Add in cinema lenses, some more "experimental" lenses like the 600/800 enthusiast telephotos or 5.2 dual fisheye, and few lenses that aren't in line with what Canon has done in the past (20/28/40mm L primes?), and 32 lenses is quite doable.
Tier 1 - Statement lenses, super telephotos.
28-70 f/2L, 400mm f/2.8L, 600mm f/4L, 800mm f/5.6L, 1200mm f/8L
Tier 2a - Upper tier L workhorse lenses
50mm f/1.2L, 85mm f/1.2L, 15-35mm f/2.8L, 24-70mm f/2.8L, 70-200mm f/2.8L, 100-500mm f/4.5-7.1L, 5.2mm f/2.8L
Tier 2b - Lower tier L workhorse lenses
14-35mm f/4L, 24-105mm f/4L, 70-200mm f/4L, 100mm f/2.8L Macro
Tier 3 - Enthusiast
35mm f/1.8, 85mm f/2, 600mm f/11, 800mm f/11, 24-105mm f/4-7.1, 24-240mm f/4-6.3, 100-400mm f/5.6-8
Tier 4 - Entry Level
16mm f/2.8, 50mm f/1.8
Looking for gaps at each tier gives us some obvious lenses to conjecture, including some already rumoured:
Tier 1:
Wide angle f/2L zoom, Mild telephoto f/2L zoom, 200mm f/2(1.8?)L, 300mm f/2.8L, 500mm f/4L
Tier 2a:
Fisheye L prime, right ultra wide angle L prime, 24mm f/1.4(1.2?)L, 35mm f/1.2L, 100/105mm f/1.4L, 135mm f/1.8(1.4?)L, tilt-shift prime lineup, 10-24mm f/4L, 200-400mm f/4L, 180mm f/2.8L macro, ultrawide fisheye L zoom
Tier 2b:
200mm f/2.8L, 24-70mm f/4L, 70-300mm f/4-5.6L
Tier 3:
20/24/28/40/50mm primes with IS, light macro capabilities, and apertures in the f/1.8-2.8 range. 18-45mm f/4-5.6. Compact enthusiast macro lens (100mm f/4 IS?)
Tier 4:
24/28/35/40mm f/2.8 pancake-ish primes without IS. Ultra cheap standard zoom kit lens, ultra wide, and telephoto zoom
Add in cinema lenses, some more "experimental" lenses like the 600/800 enthusiast telephotos or 5.2 dual fisheye, and few lenses that aren't in line with what Canon has done in the past (20/28/40mm L primes?), and 32 lenses is quite doable.
Thank you for the proper sorting out.
Tiers 2b and 3 are where I see the largest holes but does Canon?
Tier crafting is what we do when camera craft gear prices are going through the roof.
Stay crafty my friends.
Thanks, nice work formulating a tier system of RF lenses and their uses/markets, this is great! Would be nice if Canon did that!
Perhaps we'll see something like this with each popular zoom focal length:
- RF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS USM
- RF 70-200mm f/4 L IS USM
- RF 70-200mm f/6.3-9.0 IS STM (this one doesn't exist... yet)
A good list.
I think Canon is missing a 200-600mm . The Sony one is a great lens. Such a lens would sell very well with an R3 or R5
It has been noted in this forums before that, as far as optical design goes, there's little benefit in shorter flange distance. The super teles work with extenders that sticks into the lens because the last element is not flush to the flange.
From here, its plain old capitalism. Making a whole new design is expensive, and Canon has recently invested it in several of the super teles, e.g. the EF 600mm f/4 mkIII was released in 2018. So the same optical formula is used for the RF mount, with a longer barrel.
I think @northlarch’s point was in reference to the new 800/5.6 and 1200/8, which are the recent 400/2.8 III and 600/4 III with a built-in 2x TC and bolted-on RF adapter.
IIRC, I've read somewhere the back element (just before the 2x TC) was modified.
No doubt. Just as the switchable 1.4x in the 200-400/4 is slightly modified from the standalone version. I suppose that changing 1-2 elements slightly technically makes it a ‘new design’ but clearly it’s not, really. It’s not a coincidence that the 1200/8 has elements and groups that are the sum of those in the 600/4 III and 2x TC, or that the MFD is identical.
I'll break my answer to two
1. If the point is the word game behind it (shove a 2x TC, and call it "new" design), I think that's salesmanship, and leave it at that.
2. If its cheaper to adjust an element and shove a 2x TC behind an existing lens, rather than design a whole new lens, that's capitalism for you.
Nobody has to buy or like it. I fully understand why some would prefer a 600mm f/4 + 2x TC over the 1200mm f/8.
It is more correct to say that Canon combined the lens element of the 400 and 600 with the lens elements of a 2x TC.
Canon is pretty open about that.
The greater complaint is the $4K USD price increase over the discontinued EF 800 f/5.6.
And at that...the US doesn't use the old Imperial gallon, we use a different gallon that's less than four liters.$1 a gallon... what's a gallon? </ searches internet > "ancient imperial unit of volume that most countries stopped using in the 1960's"... wow there was a different unit before the litre became world standard for volume... you learn something new every day!
A lot of people in the UK who compare gas prices with Americans don't realize that when they 'helpfully' 'convert' their prices to USD/gallon and end up overstating their prices. (Many of them also don't realize the pound isn't worth two dollars any more and hasn't been for decades.)
Similar threads
- Contains 2 staff post(s)
- Contains 1 staff post(s)
- Contains 2 staff post(s)