The first review of the Canon RF 10-20mm f/4L IS STM is here
- Thread starter Canon Rumors Guy
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The review from Camera Labs has one:
Canon RF 10-20mm f4L IS review-so-far | Cameralabs
www.cameralabs.com
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Thank you! That's a lot more real estate at 10mm.The review from Camera Labs has one:
Canon RF 10-20mm f4L IS review-so-far | Cameralabs
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It’s a ”review so-far”, which means he has just read the specs and perhaps picked it up at a preview.Yeah, Gordon's review came out on the 11th.
Canon RF 10-20mm f4L IS review-so-far | Cameralabs
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A 21mm and a 24mm gives a different look to an image. It's easy to see this focal range as just a number, and yet thet create different looking images. Another example is the difference between a 28mm and a 24mm view. They seem to create a slightly different look and feel to an image.
I agree, it's the general build that I was commenting on. My Old EF 135L has been dropped several times, it's a very front heavy lens that likes to topple out of my camera bag (these days i use a camera bag where I can aly this lens down on it's side). My copy has dropped out of my hands and bounced onto a cobbled pavement more times that I would care to mention. It has a polycarb body shell and the part the needed replaceing the most was the metal lens mount ring, three times I've had that part replaced on my copy. I dropped my 70-200/2.8 II LIS once on a hard floor and that was far more catestrophic. It's got a lot of metal in it's construction, but as another has commented, it's also a lot bigger and heavier. So it hit the floor with a lot more mass. I'm sure dropping 700g lens is less of an engineering problem than at 1.5Kg lens. I also think that the extra engineering that is required to make silent AF systems for Videographers and the inclusion of IS units and elements makes a lens slightly more fragile than the older and simpler designs. I wonder if the new (and rather spectacular) RF 135 L IS is as resistant to cobbled pavements as the old EF model, not that I would like to intentionally bounce a RF 135 L IS! Subjective, I know.
From my experiances of using EF glass professionally over the last 20 years it is apparent to me that the newer coatings are slightly more suspeptable to scratches than the older coatings, but way easier to clean. I far prefer the newer coatings, especially with the newer BR and SWC. The newer lenses flare way less.
One of the things I didn't mention in my observation of the test's photographs that were presented was the amazing lack of ghosting and flare when shot directly into the sun, really clean and spectacular Sunstars....possibly the best I've seen so far.
I also think that the newer EF and now RF lenses are generally a lot shaper wide open than the older lenses, so they can take the very slight Sharpness hit from a clear filter. The older lenses...less so. Squeezing every last drop of sharpness from the older EF lenses was a priority. I used to advise my collegues to just use the hood for protection....these days a clear filter is the better and safer option.
Yes I sold that rig about 6 months after investing in it (just after launch of the range, I was one of the early adopters of the system).
I had a 3 & 6 stop ND filters, plus a CPL. Some of the worse colour casts I've seen on a ND filter. The CPL was crazy sized.
The problem with the system was
a) dealing with the sheer size of the filters (it was like carrying a set of small dinner plates). It would take me so long to assemble the rig that often my moment had passed.
b) dealing with bizarre reflections and chronic additional flare that seemed to appear.
For me, both be 10-20 and the 11-24 are niche lenses offering an ultra ultra wide angle. The use case is different from, for example, the 14-35/4 which can serve as both a UWA and walk around lens.
A fair comment.
Let me explan my point of view in more detail and please feel free to dissargree and comment yours. It's an awesome forum and we all have different perspectives. Debating and sharing our views helps with our education and I'm more than happy to be proved wrong...it's a way of learning. I may be a bit of a luddite, but I'm not intransient. I'm always up for a re-learn.
If a lens needs heavy correction and several stops of vignette exposure correction, there where does that data come from? Obviously the image file's DR. If a lens needs 2 stops of edge brightening, then that's 3 stops of extra noise and three stops of less DR I have as a photographer to use in post processing. If the image is being stretched and pulled significantly, then again that can affect the post production. Sure, I grant you that Ai is getting better all the time, but at the moment...it's a simple negative vignette mask and a geometric distortion propfile that is being applied.
Sure this available technology isn't there to literally cut corners on their lens design but to help photographers get the best results possible in their photographs.
It's just occurred to me how crazy it is that we are dicussing the particular merits of 10-20mm and 14-35mm lenses....it's amazing how these focal lengths are so much easier to access these days. This new lens is a lot smaller and lighter than the older EF 11-24mm As you stated earlier, a RF 14-35mm offers the average photographer a massive range of ultra to wide angle options, far greater than the older EF 16-35mm f4 ever did. With my EF 11-24mm lens, I'm regularly seeing compositional requirements that are specifically 12mm, 14mm, 16mm, 19mm, 21mm, 24mm.
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Yes, I never realised how an uncorrected lens can add so much extra wide super-duper focal length! It's a remarkable difference and actually a serious useful accidental feature. It's re-writing my opinion of software / profile lens correction!
I love the drama I'm seeing in jared's examples. I particaulrly like the BnW helicopter selfie....that's a stunning image. hey Jared, I know you are readin this forum...I'd love the see the reflection in your sun glasses at 100%...just for extra awesomeness geekerie and fun! this lens truely is a Photojournalists "must have" lens.
I also have to say that after reading his review and seeing the photos at the end of his youtube....I kind of want one of these lenes now...it's a photojournalist's dream. This could be my first RF lens.
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Fair enough. For me, in many cases the difference between 21mm and 24mm is a few steps forward.
Vignetting is not unique to digitally corrected lenses. The RF 14-35/4 has about 2.3 stops in the corners at 14mm f/4, that's much less than many EF lenses (e.g. the 16-35/4 has over 3 stops, the 16-35/2.8 III and 11-24/4 have >4 stops). While I agree that the exposure adjustment needed to correct that vignetting adds noise and reduces DR, that has always been the case. In terms of vignetting, the RF 15-35/2.8 is similar to its predecessor and the RF 14-35/4 is better, needing less exposure increase in at the periphery.
By definition, wide angles of view made rectilinear result in distortion. If no attempt to correct distortion is made, you get a fisheye lens. Distortion can be corrected with lens elements, or digitally. Many of the UWA lens designs still in use today were around when film was the capture medium, so optical correction in the lens was the only viable option. That's no longer true – manufacturers can use the computed optical parameters of a lens design to design a specific correction profile for the distortion (it's not AI, but neither is it a simple geometric correction since most lenses have some degree of mustache distortion as well as barrel/pincushion).
Whether you correct the distortion optically or digitally, there are consequences in terms of sharpness/resolution. Look at the corner performance of optically-corrected wide angle lenses compared to the center, there's a hit. The point is, that hit is no worse with digital correction. The only difference is that in one case, the lens itself is stretching the corners of the distorted image, and in the other the image processor is doing it. Different methods, same result.
Decades ago, solving a complex algebraic equation took reams of paper and lots of hours. Today, my daughter's calculator can do it instantaneously. If the result is the same, does it matter how you get there? Well, yes it does – in the case of lenses, getting there with digital correction enables modern lenses to be smaller, lighter and cheaper than their predecessors. Clearly you see this:
The RF 14-35/4 is substantially wider than the EF 16-35/4, optically as good or better depending on focal length, is smaller and lighter than its EF predecessor, and still takes 77mm filters. Many of those features are a direct result of the lens being designed to be used with digital correction. The 16/2.8 is another example, digital correction is why that lens can cost $300. Same story with the RF 10-20/4 – wider AoV than the EF predecessor (less zoom range, yes, but I suspect most people would choose an extra 1 mm on the wide end over an extra 4 mm on the long end in an ultra UWA lens), much (!!) lighter, and significantly cheaper, too.
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Focal Length Comparison Tool
A simple and easy to use tool for a visual comparison of the focal length and the angle of view of two camera lenses.
morn91.github.io
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LR needs to have profile correction turned off for the EF8-15mm/4 to see what was shot at the time. I haven't understood why LR does that for this lens.
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Doesn't LR by default have profile correction applied to all new images? I've tried turning it off, and then an update puts it back on by default. This is not how LR behaved several years ago.
It will be interesting to see how long it takes for the 10-20mm to get added.
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> Vignetting at 10mm also seems to be very well controlled.
This is about the least interesting bullet point for me.
Lens design is all about tradeoffs: any time you improve THIS, THAT gets worse. If we can instead have software correct the problem--as is possible with both distortion and vignetting--we should accept that as the best possible answer. There's no reason we should pay a dollar more, or carry an extra 20g, or accept worse resolution or a degradation in other, generally uncorrectable aberrations, to have some improvement in these metrics.
The only tradeoff I see in having software fix vignetting is that it's technically possible (though I don't say that I know of a single real-world photo that shows this problem) that deep shadows in the center that nonetheless show some detail may not show detail in the very depths of the corners. And if there are such photos, please share with the group. (Similarly, computer rectification of distortion gets reactions of "no, I don't want my image streeeetched!!" but why not, if it's simply being stretched back into utter geometrical perfection the likes of which no lens has ever actually achieved? As an engineer whose done some image-processing software, I'd agree that single-pixel-wide details may be blurred by up to a pixel by such repair, but even with the best lenses I doubt people are resolving images that are truly 1 pixel wide in the first place. That's 110lp/mm resolution... and we're talking not center but corners to boot...no lens ever made by anybody has even 20% contrast at 110lp/mm in the corners, I'd wager.)
I've said this a couple other times in my 3-4 years on this forum and people always scream that having the camera fix these is somehow ruining their photos. Fair enough! Show me the ruined photos! Post them here! If I'm wrong on this, I'd rather find it out sooner than later and I'll thank you for teaching me better. I'm a fan of my 16/2.8, which lives in my backpack, so start explaining why its images suck, if you can't supply a photo that illustrates the problem...
This is about the least interesting bullet point for me.
Lens design is all about tradeoffs: any time you improve THIS, THAT gets worse. If we can instead have software correct the problem--as is possible with both distortion and vignetting--we should accept that as the best possible answer. There's no reason we should pay a dollar more, or carry an extra 20g, or accept worse resolution or a degradation in other, generally uncorrectable aberrations, to have some improvement in these metrics.
The only tradeoff I see in having software fix vignetting is that it's technically possible (though I don't say that I know of a single real-world photo that shows this problem) that deep shadows in the center that nonetheless show some detail may not show detail in the very depths of the corners. And if there are such photos, please share with the group. (Similarly, computer rectification of distortion gets reactions of "no, I don't want my image streeeetched!!" but why not, if it's simply being stretched back into utter geometrical perfection the likes of which no lens has ever actually achieved? As an engineer whose done some image-processing software, I'd agree that single-pixel-wide details may be blurred by up to a pixel by such repair, but even with the best lenses I doubt people are resolving images that are truly 1 pixel wide in the first place. That's 110lp/mm resolution... and we're talking not center but corners to boot...no lens ever made by anybody has even 20% contrast at 110lp/mm in the corners, I'd wager.)
I've said this a couple other times in my 3-4 years on this forum and people always scream that having the camera fix these is somehow ruining their photos. Fair enough! Show me the ruined photos! Post them here! If I'm wrong on this, I'd rather find it out sooner than later and I'll thank you for teaching me better. I'm a fan of my 16/2.8, which lives in my backpack, so start explaining why its images suck, if you can't supply a photo that illustrates the problem...
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