What lenses are coming next for the Canon RF mount?

May 4, 2011
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I don’t see longer tele’s as being a priority. Considering their weight and size, there will just be a shortening of 24mm. How much lighter will a several pound lens get from that? I think the adapters will serve the purpose just fine for a long time to come.

I mostly agree. I think that the super tele lenses will remain EF for at least the next 5 years until the next update cycle, then at that time, if MILC is finally ready for “prime time”, they may be replaced with RF versions.

Ultimately, I think it will depend on how fast MILC gains traction. If it’s anything like the transition from film to digital, now that all the big players are in the game, this could happen faster than many of us realize...perhaps as quickly as the next 2-3 years!
 
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I agree. Now that people got over the sticker shock of a 2200 dollar 50mm lens and a 3000 dollar 28-70, time to address the less sexy but ever so important "boring" segment. Sub 1K USD primes that don't aim to take some f/stop crown and cost upwards of two grand for a common focal length are a good foundation. Ditto the wedding/portrait bread and butter 2.8 zoom trinity. And various f/4 zooms, and a few wide options for landscapes...in other words not that different from this:

Nikon-Z-Mount-Lens-Roadmap-650x379.jpg
sprinkle a specialty lens as well as your obligatory variable aperture "budget" 70-300 zoom or whatever here and there.

Canon should release a roadmap like above. Some worry it "gives away" their plan. What plan? Nikon leaves the slot blank when it doesn't want to tell you as can be seen by those blank empty slots in 2020-21. And when they do tell you, it is a 100% predictable necessary lens: 2.8, f/4 zooms, and 1.8 primes precisely like CR Admin's list. Any competitor that cannot anticipate these lenses isn't much of a competitor. And even a 2 minute search for patents in NR reveals some of those "secret" lenses
52mm f/0.9 and 36mm f/1.2 (will probably be labeled as 50 and 35 for marketing purposes)
https://nikonrumors.com/2017/09/07/...-36mm-f1-2-full-frame-mirrorless-lenses.aspx/
 
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ethanz

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O great; glad to see Canon already EOL'd my what recently acquired EF 70-200 F4L IS II
This would be enough to get me to sell the whole damn lot at this point. Nikon Z doesn't look too bad.

:rolleyes: EF is sticking around for a while. Your lens is still as good as it was two days ago. And it has the same life expectancy and service life as before.
 
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If the 28-70 F2 is $3000, how much would the 70-130 F2 cost? Any guess?

I would think considerably less than the 28-70. Probably comparable to the EF 70-200mm F/2.8L IS USM III. The aperture diaphragm would be smaller than the 70-200/2.8, so the elements could be smaller. Also, I think there are fewer optical engineering hurdles involved in going from short telephoto-to-mid telephoto versus short telephoto-to-long telephoto. I wouldn't see any reason a 70-130mm f/2 would cost substantially more than the EF 70-200/2.8 unless it had a crazy new optical design that utterly neutralized every optical aberration in existence.
 
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Aug 26, 2015
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I would think considerably less than the 28-70. Probably comparable to the EF 70-200mm F/2.8L IS USM III. The aperture diaphragm would be smaller than the 70-200/2.8, so the elements could be smaller. Also, I think there are fewer optical engineering hurdles involved in going from short telephoto-to-mid telephoto versus short telephoto-to-long telephoto. I wouldn't see any reason a 70-130mm f/2 would cost substantially more than the EF 70-200/2.8 unless it had a crazy new optical design that utterly neutralized every optical aberration in existence.

No, this is just a hypothetical thing, they might not even consider one. When you increase the f-stop to f/2 on a zoom with a decent range, the optical problems magnify by a mile (why they haven't done it in the first place earlier in EF mount?) many more corrective elements needed, huge price and weight etc. so if there ever was a lens like this, it would cost at least as much as the 28-70/2
Look at the Sigma 50-100/1.8 only slightly faster and it's not even a FF lens, so it needs to be bigger.
 
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No, this is just a hypothetical thing, they might not even consider one. When you increase the f-stop to f/2 on a zoom with a decent range, the optical problems magnify by a mile (why they haven't done it in the first place earlier in EF mount?) many more corrective elements needed, huge price and weight etc. so if there ever was a lens like this, it would cost at least as much as the 28-70/2
Look at the Sigma 50-100/1.8 only slightly faster and it's not even a FF lens, so it needs to be bigger.

Yeah, I think I heard somewhere that the number of optical aberrations increases by a factor of 9 for every stop of light you add (maybe more for zooms). But even if it was heavier and just as expensive as the 28-70/2, it could still be a viable lens for portrait photographers. I would imagine one 70-130mm f/2 would weigh less than an 85mm f/1.4, 100mm f/2, and 135mm f/2 combined - which would likely be the lens trio it would be competing with.
 
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jolyonralph

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Canon are going to concentrate on lenses that don't overlap with their recent EF releases. So I don't think a 70-200 f/2.8 or f/4 is imminent. I think they've been holding back on certain things just to make sure they can push demand for the new format.

So I expect to see:

RF ultrawide f/2.8 with IS
RF 24-70 f/2.8 IS
RF 85mm f/1.2
RF 135mm f/2 IS

A long RF lens using DO
 
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Aug 26, 2015
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Yeah, I think I heard somewhere that the number of optical aberrations increases by a factor of 9 for every stop of light you add (maybe more for zooms). But even if it was heavier and just as expensive as the 28-70/2, it could still be a viable lens for portrait photographers. I would imagine one 70-130mm f/2 would weigh less than an 85mm f/1.4, 100mm f/2, and 135mm f/2 combined - which would likely be the lens trio it would be competing with.
Yes if they can make it within reasonable terms, it is already on their design desk and, they might actually do it in the coming years.
But I think that an extreme standard zoom with a fairly close range to the 24-70mm may also sell better, while that hypothetical 70-130mm more of a speciality, being quite a bit narrower compared to the 70-200mm lenses, which are always in fairly high demand and also heavy enough as-is. But, at least the new tele lenses are a sign that at least a redesign combined with the partial help of electronics (fly-by-wire focusing, I thought only Sony will do that on the 400/2.8 and Canon did the same thing as well), there is certainly further room to reduce the weight for at least some of them. Can't wait to see actual examples from the 28-70mm f/2, it is certainly going to look different to any other standard zoom out there. Exciting times.
 
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Nov 2, 2016
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O great; glad to see Canon already EOL'd my what recently acquired EF 70-200 F4L IS II
This would be enough to get me to sell the whole damn lot at this point. Nikon Z doesn't look too bad.
??? You’re saying that no other company does that, just Canon? Your lens isn’t good anymore? You have to throw it out?
 
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Nov 2, 2016
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I mostly agree. I think that the super tele lenses will remain EF for at least the next 5 years until the next update cycle, then at that time, if MILC is finally ready for “prime time”, they may be replaced with RF versions.

Ultimately, I think it will depend on how fast MILC gains traction. If it’s anything like the transition from film to digital, now that all the big players are in the game, this could happen faster than many of us realize...perhaps as quickly as the next 2-3 years!

Yes. Just think about it. From the 400 to the 800, particularly for the faster lenses, the camera is just a needed accessory. It doesn’t matter how big or heavy they are, the lens is much bigger and heavier. Even for the faster 300s. And an inch difference in length, well, who is going to notice?
 
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I would bet on something nice and wide - the 14-24 f/2.8 sounds great to me. With that said though, I might actually prefer the sigma EF 14-24 f/2.8 just so I could use the drop in ND filter/polarizer on the adapter - not having a filter thread is the only thing keeping from buying that lens as it is! Now, if only I could drop in an ND grad.
 
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Nov 2, 2016
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648
I agree. Now that people got over the sticker shock of a 2200 dollar 50mm lens and a 3000 dollar 28-70, time to address the less sexy but ever so important "boring" segment. Sub 1K USD primes that don't aim to take some f/stop crown and cost upwards of two grand for a common focal length are a good foundation. Ditto the wedding/portrait bread and butter 2.8 zoom trinity. And various f/4 zooms, and a few wide options for landscapes...in other words not that different from this:

View attachment 180205
sprinkle a specialty lens as well as your obligatory variable aperture "budget" 70-300 zoom or whatever here and there.

Canon should release a roadmap like above. Some worry it "gives away" their plan. What plan? Nikon leaves the slot blank when it doesn't want to tell you as can be seen by those blank empty slots in 2020-21. And when they do tell you, it is a 100% predictable necessary lens: 2.8, f/4 zooms, and 1.8 primes precisely like CR Admin's list. Any competitor that cannot anticipate these lenses isn't much of a competitor. And even a 2 minute search for patents in NR reveals some of those "secret" lenses
52mm f/0.9 and 36mm f/1.2 (will probably be labeled as 50 and 35 for marketing purposes)
https://nikonrumors.com/2017/09/07/...-36mm-f1-2-full-frame-mirrorless-lenses.aspx/
I agree. It would be more comforting to have a real idea, rather than the guesswork we have in this article, and from us. We may think we know what Canon should do, but they have the numbers, and we don’t. They know what sells, and what most earlier buyers will want, even if we disagree.

Look at the M series. Everyone is saying what Canon should do, and why the line doesn’t match up to Sony, blah blah. But it’s selling very well, growing fasrer than any other line, and so Canon doesn’t need us to tell it what to do.

But, it would be great if they did reveal the next year or two of new lenses. Then we could all argue about why those are the wrong lenses, and why they are too big, too small, too fast or too slow. About why there aren’t enough zooms and why there are too many.

We’ll have a ball about being unhappy with whatever they do.

Meanwhile, real people will be buying their new products in increasing numbers and fulfilling Canon’s forward looking statement made last year about how they were going to increase sales and marketshare.
 
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