Predicting What Canon Will Launch in 2026

[scyrene]

I don't understand that Canon, being the pioneer of DO supertele tech doesn't come up with an equivalent and even lighter competition.

Canon did in fact create supertele DO lenses for RF - the 600 and 800 f/11.

We can only speculate why they have thus far ignored the "mid-range" long lenses, and/or why Nikon created them. It could be that they will eventually. Or perhaps they see the market differently, especially being so much bigger than Nikon now, and will never make eg a 600 f/6.3. I wouldn't expect to find out any time soon, either way.

 

[justaCanonuser]

Canon did in fact create supertele DO lenses for RF - the 600 and 800 f/11.

We can only speculate why they have thus far ignored the "mid-range" long lenses, and/or why Nikon created them. It could be that they will eventually. Or perhaps they see the market differently, especially being so much bigger than Nikon now, and will never make eg a 600 f/6.3. I wouldn't expect to find out any time soon, either way.

You're right, scyrene, but I wouldn't regard the RF 600 and 800mm f/11 as any sort of RF mount successor to the EF 400mm F/4.0 DO L lenses. They are a great offering for those who want reach with a light and very affordable lens, so that was a smart move by Canon, since they are quite popular (I meet users frequently when I go birding). But looking at the faster RF tele lens selection available today, I miss such a lens.

Maybe Nikon forces Canon to come up with something competitive, but looking back in history that could take a lot of time. Here's an example: quite a number of wildlife photographers changed from Canon to Nikon when Nikon released their 2nd version of their 200-400mm f/4.0 in 2003 that sported an AF drive + VR (IS in Canon naming) - the first fully manual ED version from the 80s didn't sell too well, I read elsewhere. Canon needed ten years to come up with their EF 200-400 f/4.0, but with the smart solution of an integrated TC, of course. That's typical for Canon: they wait, observe the market and then take a leap if the result turns out to be economically attractive.

So, let's see what happens on the DO tele front in future...

 

[scyrene]

I wouldn't regard the RF 600 and 800mm f/11 as any sort of RF mount successor to the EF 400mm F/4.0 DO L lenses. [...] But looking at the faster RF tele lens selection available today, I miss such a lens.

I agree they aren't successors to the EF 400 DO but undoubtedly when the RF lineup was being planned, sales of various older lenses were analysed and some were sacrificed - there's been no RF 500 and apparently there won't be. And of course mirrorless has given them more options - reliable autofocus at f/11 couldn't have been dreamt of in the DSLR days. The 400 DO was always a niche within a niche. When the prototype 600 DO was shown, it generated some excitement but was never turned into a commercial product - we can speculate why.

Maybe Nikon forces Canon to come up with something competitive

Given the relative positions of the two companies now, I very much doubt that will happen. And as you say, it would take a long time. As Neuro has suggested before, perhaps Nikon has targeted those niches that Canon doesn't provide for not because they want to usurp the leader, but because they can't compete in the other areas? I'm sure all the manufacturers pay close attention to what the others are doing, but there is a persistent belief on here that they should all replicate the same lineup, and I don't think that is logical.