Canon officially announces the RF 14-35mm f/4L IS USM

[BurningPlatform]

The price is where I feared and expected it to be, considering the 70-200 f4L and the 100mm macro pricing. Out of reach for me, by about 30-40 %.

 

[APP]

At $1300, I would have preordered. Here, I'm in "wait for detailed reviews" territory. At this price it will need to check ALL the boxes to justify replacing my 16-35/4.

-Vignetting (comparable to 16-35 f/4, at least at equal focal lengths)
-exceptional sharpness
-well corrected coma (stars/astrophotography).

I hope the reviews can justify the price, since I'd love the smaller/lighter/wider combo. But for now I'm in "wait and see" mode.

 

[wockawocka]

FYI - The RF version costs 50% more than the EF equivalent. Looks like I'll be keeping my EF.

 

[Flamingtree]

The profit margin is probably constant, but the development + production costs, parts shortages, increased shipping costs etc. have ramped up the price.

I partly agree.

I think the loss of volume of sales is what is hurting them. I think their gross margin is significantly higher but they are aiming to achieve the same level of profit on them as they did on a lens in the EF days, without the volume.

I can’t remember the thread it was in but canon talked about the high margins in RF lenses in their annual report. It’s clear they are looking to maximise that strategy with this lens, unfortunately.

 

[gsm]

I was excited for this lens (it would be my first ultra-wide), but like many of you I find the cost too high. It makes sense for Canon as a business though. The cost of materials, shipping, etc. has gone up with the pandemic. They have had production shortages and cannot keep up with demand (for example, the 100-500 has been on back-order for a while). Increasing the price until demand matches production lets them sell the same number of lenses at a higher price. If the high price is keeping a lot of us from buying, my hope is that once production ramps up they will drop the price to tap into a new segment of the market. Hopefully that will happen sooner than the usual schedule for drops in price.

 

[mangobutter]

To be honest $1699 was my first thought... then I backspaced and went nahhh... that can't be. Look at the Nikon Z 14-30... so then I went.. yeah it'll be $1399.

$1699 is heavy but I think as per usual, the price will go down a couple hundred after a few months. This is the early adopter price for professionals that need it now. At this point, you may as well pay a bit more and get a 2.8.

I'd be all over a $700 17-40 replacement for the RF, no IS. But who are we kidding, those days are gone.

 

[Jemlnlx]

I feel everyone else's disappointment. I was very excited to replace my current 16-35mm f/4 lens, which I love, with new RF glass gaining 2mm on the wide end. This would have been my first RF lens upgrade.

I was hoping for about a 23% price increase, similar to what they did with the 70-200 f/4 (EF - 1299 --> RF - 1599).

I was suprised to see the ~55% increase on the RF 16-35 f4... (EF - 1099 --> RF 1699). I was hoping they would market this as an "affordable" L RF lens...just as they did with the EF version.

I think I will eventually start switching over to RF lenses...but currently I cannot justify upgrading my go-to EF lenses (24-70 ii +$,1000 after resale, 70-200 ii + $1500 after resale, and 16-35 f/4 + 900 after resale) given the prices of their RF equivalents. The "pros" in upgrading are just not worth it TO ME. Others may feel different.

 

[[email protected]]

Seems like another win from Canon - price seems a bit higher than Nikon Z' version.

 

[carlosalberto]

After reading the messages, it seems to me that many do not accept that the photographic market that we knew, ended up dying with the pandemic. In my opinion we will see increasing prices in Prime lenses and Pro line cameras, in an increasingly smaller market.

 

[reefroamer]

Considering many Canon products seem to be back-ordered, Canon likely set the price at a point — for now — that won’t worsen their production difficulties. At this price, they are probably hoping they can mostly meet demand. As supply constraints ease, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the price come down somewhat. But as a consumer, a low price is meaningless if I can’t actually buy the product. I haven’t seen the $99 Canon EF-RF Adapter available for months now.

 

[edoorn]

To be honest $1699 was my first thought... then I backspaced and went nahhh... that can't be. Look at the Nikon Z 14-30... so then I went.. yeah it'll be $1399.

$1699 is heavy but I think as per usual, the price will go down a couple hundred after a few months. This is the early adopter price for professionals that need it now. At this point, you may as well pay a bit more and get a 2.8.

I'd be all over a $700 17-40 replacement for the RF, no IS. But who are we kidding, those days are gone.

to be honest, I don't really see a price drop of RF lenses after a few months, at least not here in Europe. Both the 15-35 and 24-70 have been more or less stable in the past two years

 

[alexp]

It might be 1.819,00 € in Germany which is already crazy expensive for EU pricing, but over here in Spain is actually priced at 1.949,99 € which is even crazier, also it's already of out stock here... Glad I didn't upgrade to a RF body yet.

 

[Tom W]

Price is a little steep, but that is likely to drop a bit after the initial "gotta have it" sales have occurred.

This lens is one that, barring some optical oddities, I'd want to add to my collection eventually. But I can make do with the 16-35 f/4 IS EF lens and adapter for now.

 

[Flyingskiguy]

focus breathing looks super well controlled in the B&H video. fantastic news for us video shooters. MTFs look pretty good, not too much vignetting in the sample images... I'm really looking forward to picking one of these up.

 

[Amoma]

I honestly think that Canon believes that’s what you should do then. Unfortunately, I think their mindset is that if you want something more affordable, there is nearly zero compromise to using the EF lens other than the addition length and “hassle” of the adaptor. I really don’t see any reason to upgrade from the 16-35 you have now unless you were unhappy with the image quality or you thought you would benefit from the additional 2mm on the wide end.

My biggest disappointment with the RF mount is that their “affordable” lenses -particularly the zooms- are basically terrible. The 24-105 variable apaerture lens and 24-240 aren’t winning any image quality awards.

I've been consistently impressed by the 24-240. No, it's not an L lens, but for the crazy range it offers and the fact you can find it around $600 used the results are quite good. My only real complaint is the fringing can get pretty bad under certain conditions but it's usually totally fixable and that's such a small trade off for the versatility of the lens.

I also think it's a mistake to compare RF lenses to EF equivalents outside of "trinity" lenses when it comes to pricing. When the 16-35 F4 came out, it was on a very mature system with a 30ish year history and dozens of alternatives from several manufacturers at various price points. The 14-35 is on an almost brand new system with one real alternative at the moment. I don’t think the 16-35 F4 would have anywhere close to the cult status it does if it wasn’t such an amazing value.

It’d be awesome if this new RF cousin was marketed similarly but there’s no real incentive for them to do that when they don’t need to undercut a vast used market for what is ostensibly a niche lens. And that’s not even taking pandemic supply and material and production restraints into account. It’s higher than I hoped but still what I’d consider fair and I’m definitely preordering.

 

[angelisland]

Wow, the mint EF 16-35 f4 L which I just got for $550 used is now looking like an even greater bargain! IQ is great, IS, etc.
It’s also adaptable to my Sony A7r4 - unlike the RF lenses.

 

[InchMetric]

Same here. I was thinking of lightening my pack by selling the 15-35 and picking this up. The price absolutely killed that plan.

It's an underwhelming "26% off!" the price of the superlative 15-35 f2.8. Which I already own and would leave me with less than half the $600 difference after selling used and shipping. I'm staying put (but still have a preorder just in case), and likely to swap when the 10-24 comes out.

This f4 new is $200 less than I paid for a perfect RF 15-35 f2.8 used at FM.

I don't have any of the info Canon has, so trust they made the best choice, but I'd have expected having the f4 for ~2/3 of the f2.8 (~$1499) would feel much better.

 

[SHAMwow]

I'm surprised people are still shocked at Canon's pricing. I don't love it either, but to me it's not going anywhere. Anytime your hobby or industry shrinks and becomes more niche, the prices for all of the gear goes up. I too want cheaper RF lenses, but I think this is here to stay. Even when they reiterate on each lens.

 

[Viggo]

The only thing it does, like the 70-200 f4, is make the 2.8 version more attractive. RF f4’s costs more than the EF 2.8 did… $2360 here is ridiculous, that’s 200 more than the 70-200 f2.8 III at release…

 

[H. Jones]

Sidenote, I thought it was interesting the RF 14-35 was possibly going to be announced alongside the R3. It turns out, it wasn't.

That leaves me wondering, what lenses will be announced alongside the R3? I'd hazard a good bet that they'll announce the RF 35mm F/1.2 at the same time, since the 35mm F/1.4 lenses were always the pro prime of choice for photojournalism and tended to be featured on 1-series bodies. Even if this isn't "1-series," it's to the same general audience.


I'd also hazard a guess that they'll announce the 70-400 at the same time, even though it's a consumer lens. They did announce the F/11 primes with the R5/R6. I'd like to see something like the slight rumors of a 500mm F/4L, but that sounded like more of 2022-territory.