Canon Officially Announces the RF 20-50mm f/4L IS USM PZ

[mb66energy]

The MTF chart shows that the lens in the RF-S / Super 35 perspective is very homogeneous in terms of image quality: Maybe a good two-world lens or on e.g. an R6 a great 20-50 for wide and 32-80 in APS-C land if you need the 80mm ore a tighter close up.

 

[PinholeR5]

I ordered the lens from B&H at 9:02 a.m EDT and also separately ordered 10 of the new RF rear caps. I will likely also need to order additional rear caps, but B&H set the maximum at 10.

Interesting, I ordered 30 of the new caps from B & H. They confirmed the order, just pending on delivery. IMHO, this is an update that only makes sense if you go wholesale. Perhaps it is because I didn't order immediately after the preorder button was available and hence didn't have the "first batch" constraint.

 

[EOS 4 Life]

I tried the lens yesterday, what do you want to know?

How was it zooming in and out using the zoom ring?

 

[neuroanatomist]

Interesting, I ordered 30 of the new caps from B & H. They confirmed the order, just pending on delivery. IMHO, this is an update that only makes sense if you go wholesale. Perhaps it is because I didn't order immediately after the preorder button was available and hence didn't have the "first batch" constraint.

I had an email exchange with B&H customer service when I requested that my order for 10 caps be cancelled, and I told them that I ordered from another vendor because I needed more than 10 caps. Soon after that, the preorder dropdown changed from the 1-10 that it was when I placed the order to 1-10+, enabling you to enter a larger quantity.

 

[roby17269]

Quick question: I cannot find a detail about this lens: does it cover the FF image circle at every focal length or does it require stretching?

Thanks

 

[neuroanatomist]

Quick question: I cannot find a detail about this lens: does it cover the FF image circle at every focal length or does it require stretching?

Unknown at this point, I believe. There was no patent published for this specific lens (there was a patent that included the design that became the RF-S 14-30 PZ, and a design for a 20-50mm f/4-5.6 lens; that patent did not list image heights).

If I had to guess, I would suspect some correction is required at the wide end. At least, I would not be surprised by that.

 

[m4ndr4ke]

Quick question: I cannot find a detail about this lens: does it cover the FF image circle at every focal length or does it require stretching?

Thanks

Unknown at this point, I believe. There was no patent published for this specific lens (there was a patent that included the design that became the RF-S 14-30 PZ, and a design for a 20-50mm f/4-5.6 lens; that patent did not list image heights).

If I had to guess, I would suspect some correction is required at the wide end. At least, I would not be surprised by that.

It does not cover the entire full-frame sensor at 20mm, I have completely black corners on my RAW files. I just can't share them because I was photographing people.



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EDIT: Oh, I forgot to mention, there's barrel distortion from 20 all the way to 50.

The white thing you see on the left is not supposed to be straight, so don't judge distortion at 20mm by that. However, the glass doors are straight, obviously.

 

[m4ndr4ke]

How was it zooming in and out using the zoom ring?

You mean zooming manually? It responds very well.

Basically, there's two modes, you either use the W-T area, or you use the focal lengths.
When you're in the W-T area, the default position is the middle, like in this photograph. There's a spring mechanism that sets it back to the middle. You can go left to the W, or right to the T, the ring doesn't turn past those letters (hard stops). You can adjust how fast you zoom with your movement, by rotating more or less. Maximum speed was decent, not crazy fast, but I think it can be further adjusted on RV cameras (I didn't bother trying the R6V, I was using my original R6).



The switch PZ/MZ on the side of the lens (seen on many other pictures) lets you go the other zone of the ring, on the right. You hold the switch, rotate to the focal lengths, and then release it.
The manual zoom is operated electrically with two nano USM motors, so it responds every well, in general use there's no lag at all; you can provoke lag if you turn the ring like a jerk, on purpose, however it's minor.
There's hard stops at 20 and 50, but there's no resistance to turning at all (is "dampening" the proper word? I'm not sure), the ring turns as easily as the lightest electronic focus ring you can imagine.

 

[PinholeR5]

I had an email exchange with B&H customer service when I requested that my order for 10 caps be cancelled, and I told them that I ordered from another vendor because I needed more than 10 caps. Soon after that, the preorder dropdown changed from the 1-10 that it was when I placed the order to 1-10+, enabling you to enter a larger quantity.

I see. So they did change it!

I didn't specify the quantity in the page with the item description before adding it to the cart. I added it to the cart with a quantity of 1, then later I went to the cart and changed the quantity. At that point it isn't a drop-down but rather a box where you can input a number and I simply typed the number 30.

I hadn't even realized there is a 1-10 vs 1-10+, I think this is the first time I buy more than 10 of anything on B&H .

I did just check (using the R6V as an example) and when the drop-down says 1-10, you can't input a number larger than 10 in the quantity box in the cart. It flags an error and sets it to 10.

So indeed, my order went through because it happened after your exchange with them rather than because of a "UI loophole".