Me too. Do you think it will be back after covid? Or is the ILC market just too small any more?
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Canon Germany addresses recent Viltrox RF mount lens demands, and it’s a case of patent infrigement
- Thread starter Canon Rumors Guy
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I think that's true. Long ago, film SLRs shipped with a 50mm prime as the kit lens. Zooms were convenient, but you took a big hit on image quality for that convenience. Modern zooms can be as good as primes, even contemporary ones. You still pay a price for the convenience, but now that's more about size/weight/cost than IQ.
Looking at the 'current' lineup of Canon FF lenses, there are ~14 EF-mount zooms and ~24 EF-mount primes, and there are 11 RF-mount zooms and 16 RF-mount primes. The slightly higher ratio of zooms to primes for RF indicates Canon has prioritized zooms (the difference goes up if you omit the RF 5.2mm VR lens and don't count the RF 85/1.2 and its DS version separately).
Zooms seem to have a much broader appeal, with the exception of the 50/1.8 prime which is a perennial best-seller because it's a cheap supplement to a kit zoom lens.
I'm sure Canon doesn't plan to make lenses that won't sell, so obviously they perceive a market for prime lenses. But fast ultrawide lenses, tilt-shift lenses, and 'great white' supertelephoto lenses are niche products. One of the reasons they have higher price tags is that Canon prices them to recoup R&D expenses in a certain period of time. At the lower end of the market, cost of goods has a higher impact on pricing. At the higher end, amortization of R&D costs plays a bigger role.
If you look at the R6, R5 and R3, certainly the unit production cost goes up in that order, but I expect the magnitude of production cost increase is far less than the jumps in retail pricing of those three models. The R3 is priced higher in part because Canon knows they will sell fewer units.
As a more extreme example, look at the RF 400/2.8 and 600/4 vs. the RF 800/5.6 and 1200/8. The R&D costs for the longer two were probably relatively low (they didn't exactly 'bolt on' a 2x TC, but the designs are clearly the shorter two with a optimized 2x TC group behind them. It seems very unlikely that the 800/1200 lenses cost 42% and 54% more to produce. I suspect those two lenses are very profitable for Canon, at least on a unit basis (though they likely won't sell many, relatively speaking).
True. Lots of car forums discuss Ferraris and Lamborghinis, and they're fun to discuss even though very few people will ever own one.Without the discussions and speculation about the 'desserts' though, there wouldn't be much happening on the photography forums! People tend to get excited a lot about the additional, unusual and exotic that probably sells in the lowest numbers!
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Asinine comments make those who post them look like asses. Ridiculous suggestions invite ridicule. Puerile comments, like this one, are simply pathetic.
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I have little hope for Photokina, because CeBIT, the world's largest computer fair and also once the world's largest fair overall, also was cancelled for good a few years ago and I think that was even before Covid. That decision really shocked me. CeBIT was such a huge place. The size of more than 90 football fields of indoor exhibition space. There were years when even Bill Gates visited CeBIT every year. Then it became smaller and smaller and no it is gone.
I still hope Photokina can come back in some form in 2024 or so. Maybe not in Cologne, bit somewhere else. It could become a part of "IFA" in Berlin for example, which is the world's largest fair of consumer electronics. Canon always had a huge tent there in the outdoor area:
I have not been at IFA for a while, but that could still be the place to go in Germany, if you want to see the latest Canon gear. I do not know though if the Canon tent still exist. IFA 2022 just ended this week. So the next chance for Canon gear is Photopia in Hamburg from October 13 to 16. I will probably go there on a Sunday because during Covid I love empty trains.
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The more reviews I see about the wider RF lenses, the more I think that while the shorter flange distance makes some new formulas and lighter lenses possible, it also has a huge disadvantage: As the last (or first) element of a lens can now be much closer to the sensor, light rays will now hit the sensor in a much shallower angle with all the negative consquences that brings. If you use an EF lens with an adapter instead, the angle of the light has a much higher minimum steepness. I always thought about the short flange distance as one of the main advantages of mirrorless cameras and Nikon was very proud that its flange distance is even shorter than the one of Canon's mirroless cameras, but I am not so sure any more if it really is an advantage. For long lenses it is not used anyway (the additional space is just filles with air) and at wide angle lenses it could lead to heavy vignetting. The RF 14-35 f/4 for example has four (!) stops of vignetting in the corners at 14mm and f/4. That means a handheld shot with ISO 1,600 for example is ISO 25,600 in the corners, as you have to amplify the corners by 16 times (four stops). Of course you could just crop the image, but then you lose the advantage of heaving a 14mm lens. Compare that with a Sigma 14-24 f/2.8 lens also at 14mm and f/4 and you will only the a fraction of the vignetting of the RF lens. Maybe if Sigma built a real RF version, it would be lighter than the EF version, but also show that heavy vignetting. That is not a trade off that I am willing to make. Distortion is also much worse on the Canon RF version than on the Sigma EF lens. Not sure if that also has to do with those new optical formulas.
After observations like that I doubt more and more that I will ever buy RF glass except the 800mm f/11.
After observations like that I doubt more and more that I will ever buy RF glass except the 800mm f/11.
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> the last (or first) element of a lens can now be much closer to the sensor, light rays will now hit the sensor in a much shallower angle with all the negative consquences that brings
I believe this is called cos^4 falloff.
However, the light ray doesn't come from the glass, exactly, but the "exit pupil." That's the APPARENT hole the light's coming out of, which is not necessarily (and probably never is) the surface of the rear glass.
I don't know that a mirrorless design has a closer exit pupil than an SLR design.
That said, they could clearly give you a lens with the space of an SLR lens between it and the sensor if they thought that would get the best results. Yet clearly they don't think that will give best results anymore, and see some advantages (size? price? resolution? compactness and weight?) to doing it this way.
And most of the tones even in the corner got a lot of light and so are low noise. EG, something that was Zone III is now Zone V. And Zone I stuff in the corners is still Zone I, flat black, so no noise there either. The only thing you have to worry about (and it IS a worry) is noise in things that are in Zone II-III in the result, as these had nearly no photons hit them (if the photo's already higher ISO) but still have to be multiplied significantly.
Something else to understand though is the R5 and other top Canon sensors have like 12.6 stops of dynamic range, so adding 4 stops is not the big deal it was on film or early digitals.
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This is usually a smart tradeoff. Distortion can be corrected easily in software at the cost of like 1 pixel's worth of blur at most., and lenses that don't need to be so corrected for distortion can instead correct better for things you can't easily fix in software, whether optical aberrations, or size and price. It's TRIVIAL to get the geometry perfect. You simply have to sacrifice other things (coma, chromatic aberration, size, price, weight, fragility, etc.) to get it.
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3rd party lenses have identified themselves as Canon lenses for a long time without copying their firmware. Cameras don't look at the lens' firmware. The camera and lens communicate digitally over the mount, and somewhere in one of the messages, the lens inserts a number identifying its model. Third party lenses insert the same codes used by original Canon lenses, and the cameras accept it at face value.
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But it's not really a disadvantage of the RF mount, because a lens can always be designed leaving extra room. After all, a bunch of the Sigma EF lenses were just extended to become Sony FE lenses, and the Canon 400mm f/2.8 RF is the EF version optically. It's an additional level of flexibility for the lens designer; no possibility was eliminated by switching to the shorter flange distance.
It's not really fair to compare a 14-24mm f/2.8 to a 14-35mm f/4, although I agree that the Sigma is a better lens.
As for Sigma's mirrorless design, you don't need to guess. https://www.the-digital-picture.com...sComp=1182&CameraComp=453&FLIComp=0&APIComp=0 Sigma produced a 14-24mm f/2.8 lens for Sony FE and Leica L. The L and RF mounts have the same flange distance. If/when Sigma eventually offers RF lenses, this would be almost certainly the design they'd use for porting over a 14-24mm f/2.8. There is stronger vignetting on the mirrorless-native design at 14mm and stronger vignetting on the DSLR design at 24mm.
As for distortion, see: https://www.the-digital-picture.com...&FLI=0&LensComp=1182&CameraComp=453&FLIComp=0 --- I would say the Canon EF version is better than the Sony FE version by a little bit.
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Of course they could, but the "disadvantage" is that lens designers might use the option to sacrifice image quality for a more compact design that is made possible by the shorter flange distance. As you say, in the past some third party EF lenses were just extended for mirrorless, as that of course was a cheap option.
What also worries me is that mirrorless cameras hide distortion from the owner by correcting it even in the viewfinder. So lens designers have less incentive to build a lens with low distortion.
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I've already responded to your potentially mistaken point that there's any sacrifice at all.
I just edited my responses a little so if you didn't understand before you may understand now.
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I understand what you mean. It is mathematical set theory. If you increase a set (like a set of options for example), the maximum of that set can't go down. It can only stay the same or go up. For example the best tennis player from California can't be worse than the best tennis player from Los Angeles, as Los Angeles is part of California. Either the guy from Los Angeles is already the best or there is someone better in California, but outside of Los Angeles.
However the same also is true for a minimum of a set. If you increase the set, the minimum either stays the same or you get a new, even lower minimum. So if you take the worst tennis player from Los Angeles and then look at whole California, you might find and even worse tennis player than the worst from Los Angeles.
Coming back to the lenses that means that if you increase the set of possible distances from the sensor to the closest lens element, you get better options to create a lens, but also worse options, that are just built because of the lighter weight or lower production costs. Over time we will see if my fears will really become true. Will manufcaturers really only use the shorter flange distance if that does not affect the image quality in a negative way?
Imagine regulations for planes would be reduced. That would mean that there are more possible options to built a plane. Would that really be an advantage for the passenger? Of course you could still build the same planes as before, as you still have all those old options, but it is more likely that the new planes would be less safe after the regulations go away.
It's also a general "problem" in life. Getting more options is not always an advantage. Rich people for example have more options than average people in many parts of life. Good looking people have more options of getting a partner. Smart people have more options of getting a job, but very often those options are more a curse than a benefit. It is not easy to choose the best option once the number of options increases. That increase in options also means that you have more options to make a terrible mistake. That's why smart, rich or good looking people do not always have a better life.
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The way engineering works is that there's always a compromise, you just have to select the area where the compromise will be.
A simple way to look at the case for camera lenses this is - 1. size/weight, 2. image quality, 3. price, pick any TWO only!.
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Jan,
Excellent post! Sorry to hear about the switching systems issues.
One thing that is only really of minor value but might help in a pinch is with the R systems the shutter comes down to protect the sensor when the camera is off and I have gotten away swapping lenses a couple of times in a hurry on an active runway. Not as ideal as the grail lens you are after but figured you shared your experience I could maybe share some of mine.
I spoke to my local CPS center on another matter and told them they need to have at least one L quality super zoom in the line up at some point.
Cheers
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The parallels you draw are quite good I think.
However Canon's not TRYING to deliver crappier and crappier lenses, and now suddenly is reveling in their brand new way to deliver crappier lenses.
It's a competitive market, and Canon needs to ship lenses that are not only equal or superior to competitors, but also comfortably exceed specs on the massive ocean of used EF glass out there, no?
I think you were also assuming that rangefinder/mirrorless lenses would automatically have greater cos^4 vignetting due to the rear lens being closer. I'm not sure this is the case. Optically speaking, the light doesn't appear to come from the surface of the rear element but someplace behind it. Look at the "light circle" coming out the back of a lens that is close to the sensor, and tip the lens side to side to see what the corners of the sensor would "see." You'll see it is nowhere near as an extreme angle as you might think.
Finally, I don't think you're appreciating that some lens aberrations are trivial to correct in software where others are impossible. Lateral CA, distortion and vignetting are trivial to fix. Axial (longitudinal, bokeh) CA is impossible, as is coma and several other aberrations, and including simply nice out-of-focus highlight shape and so on. Distortion or lateral CA correction, both at once, at absolute worst will average four neighboring pixels, yet lenses can't deliver details that fine anyway. (An R5 has 8200 pixels horizontally, which is 228 per millimeter. A lens would need not only 100 lp/mm resolution but also actually be focused exactly perfectly on that corner detail, or it would be nearly impossible to see the theoretical resolution loss of distortion correction even when pixel-peeping.
Likewise, vignetting correction requires effectively increasing the ISO up to say 4 stops in the corners, as you say. But first, the area needing a full 4 stops correction is only the outermost, corner-most, few percent of the area of the photo. And then, an R5 has 14 stops of dynamic range. I think photo prints only have a DR of 7-8 stops, and typical LCD screens only about 10. Anything in the corners brighter than 10 stops less than the sensor's maximum range will not be suddenly "noisy," as it has ample light to have high signal-to-noise ratio. It is only the darkest shadows in the furthest corners that would possibly be suffering from increased noise: shadows so dark they are literally black on most LCD screens!
And it seems in tests that things like coma and axial CA are indeed far improved in today's offerings. Further, there are other key benefits. I loved the EF 14mm f/2.8 I paid $2500 for (back when that was real money!!) but it was no sharper than the RF 16mm 2/.8 I just paid $300 for. Yet it was maybe 5x the size and seemed a lot more fragile. I have the 16mm in my backpack at all times and don't even notice it. In fact it's hard to even find in there. I would be surprised to find it was destroyed by a drop! And yet if it was I would shrug it off! By leaning heavily on the camera's ability to fix distortion almost without even technically observable impact at the pixel-peeping level, today's 14-35/4 is surprisingly small and light, while beating the EF glass on resolution, while also beating it on zoom range. Or, take the 24-105/4, which has the size of the EF MkI but the sharpness of the EF MkII.
Really, I would commend you to go try to purposefully compose photos that show off these theoretical issues. If you're right, you'd be doing the whole world of camera users a huge favor. But I suspect you'll be very frustrated at the lengths you have to go to to get any kind of result that can be seen even in pixel-peeping raw images, and I'm not even sure how you could make a good web page to show it as LCDs literally don't have the dynamic range to even see the levels of darkness that I think any possible issue would be confined to.
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Canon has 30+ lenses to release in the next 4 years. I assume Nikon so do as well. Tagging @AutoMatters as this is important to him. That lens will come out before the year 2030.
As an indicator of popularity among users or production priority among brands, the 28-300mm focal length from any brand has only the Canon EF L model showing up. My assumption is this is the last batch to be made and will not be replenished.
No other brand whether it be 1st party like Sony, Nikon or 3rd party like Sigma or Tamron currently has it "in production" for dSLR or mirrorless. On bhphotovideo it is labeled as "No Longer Available".
In the 63 E lens SKUs Sony has the 28-300mm focal length was never released in the dozen years of E mount.
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Maybe the difference is that I try to avoid bokeh whenever possible. So I do not really care too much if out-of-focus area appear green or magenta oder even have an annoying colour fringing. I also do not care about the shape of the bokeh balls. My focus are skyscrapers and I try to get them into focus as much as possible. That of course is very different for portrait photographers. I also have to admit though that even vignetting is only a problem in the rare circumstances when I am forced to shoot wide open die to the lack of light. Usually I use f/8 or f/11.
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OK, but you may be losing more resolution from diffraction at f/11 than you possibly could from geometry correction. And I believe the geometry correction will correct perfectly, more rectilinear than even the most accurate uncorrected primes. In your field, the geometry correction is likely to be visible even at internet resolutions where I can promise you the at-most 1/2-pixel blur from geometry correction will not be.
I'm trying to hear you out and put myself in your place, but I am still convinced that you are rejecting the new technology due to an incorrect understanding of the cost and benefit. You seem think the cost is many orders of magnitude higher than it is, in terms of sharpness lost (distortion correction) and noise introduced (vignetting correction), and don't value the resulting savings in cost, size, portability. I grant not every shooter has issues about every possible gain. Lateral and axial CA and out-of-focus rendering apparently don't affect you. I understand that. Still, it's not common for a photographer to work in such a narrow niche as that. It's possible that most of the improvements simply don't affect you, so if you can make use of the far far cheaper ocean of EF lenses, I can only be envious!
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Sometimes it annoys me though that a new technology is created to address problems that I did not have in the first place. Then I might have to experience the downsides without benefitting from the upsides. Mirrorless cameras are a good example for that. One of the big reasons they were introduced was the improvement of autofocus. Autofocus points from edge to edge, face recognition and other stuff are only possible without a mirror. Either in Live View or with a mirrorless camera. However for the subjects of my photography, I hardly ever had trouble with autofocus. Skyscrapers do not have faces and I almost always use the single autofocus point in the center. I also do not really need video. I see video more as a gimmick. You can't really hang a video to your wall. At least not that easily. Yet those new cameras are heavily influenced by the video aspect. For example when the camera manufacturer decides about the resolution of the sensor. Of course the sensor is read out all the time anyway. So video should not be expensive to implement. However I am sure that video is a part of the price calculation of each camera. You do not get any features for free. Even those you do not need. I wish there was a stills only R3 for less money.
It reminds me of notebooks that use a lot of space for a giant touchpad that I NEVER use. I usually even disable it. Or a smartphone with a front camera that punches a whole into the display although I never use my front camera. That design even makes it harder to put a sticker on it without hiding even more pixels. Hotels are also a good example. Good hotels offer some services you might enjoy, but also a lot of stuff that you do not really need, but still have to pay.
Mirrorless cameras come with a few huge downsides for me that are hard to swallow.
First I lose the optical viewfinder, which has a better resolution, brightness and durability than an electronic viewfinder will ever have. Loosing the optical viewfinder disconnects me from reality. I only see a copy of the world. Secondly the camera consumes a lot of energy during composing the photo. With a DSLR you can wait ten minutes for the perfect shot without losing a lot of power. At the same time the sensor also gets warmer and warmer, which leads to more noise. Maybe that gets compensated because newer sensors have a better noise performance, but the noise would be even lower if the sensor would only have to work during actual exposure. The sensor is the heart of the camera. It is a waste to use it outside of any exposure. That may introduce hot pixels or dead pixels much sooner than in the past.
I wish Canon simply continued to develope new DSLRs with all the new sensor technology (stacked BSI) and LiveView could still be optional instead of forced.
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