Kipon first to announce third-party native RF mount lenses for the EOS R system

LSXPhotog · Dec 10, 2018

It would be cool to see the 7artisans f/1.1 lens in native RF mount. I don't know much about these lenses, but the aperture isn't too exciting for me.

I've adapted all my Canon FD lenses and they're a blast to use and render beautifully.

JonSnow · Dec 10, 2018

i bet they will sell 100 of each focal length....

mb66energy · Dec 10, 2018

It depends like always on (1) IQ and (2) e.g. MFD and other parameters and the 90mm will go down to at least 0.7 m which is roughly 1:5 max reprod. ratio - good!

@LSXPhotog: My FD lenses are waiting for a FF body where they might show their qualities - while not beeing stellar on APS-C 24 MPix maybe they are much better suited for similar resolutions at FF!

Pookie · Dec 10, 2018

LSXPhotog said:
It would be cool to see the 7artisans f/1.1 lens in native RF mount. I don't know much about these lenses, but the aperture isn't too exciting for me.

I've adapted all my Canon FD lenses and they're a blast to use and render beautifully.

Owning a few 7Artisan lenses I seriously doubt they would be able to handle a sensor like the RF. I use the 7Arts on many of my analog Leicas and the IQ is lacking to say the least on film. On my M10 they are dogs... I'd easily take a CV over them any and everyday of the week... on any camera. So if they make a RF version of CV then that would be a promising... these or 7Arts... bleh, unless they change build quality up pretty drastically.

Mistral75 · Dec 10, 2018

These Kipon Elegant lenses are the same lenses with new lens mounts (Canon RF and Nikon Z) as the HandeVision IBERIT 24, 35, 50, 75 and 90mm f/2.4 lenses currently available in Fujifilm X, Leica L, Leica M and Sony E mounts.

HandeVision is (was?) a joint-venture between the German company IB/E Optics Eckerl GmbH https://www.ibe-optics.com/en/ and the Chinese company Shanghai Transvision Photographic Equipment Co., Ltd, better known under their Kipon trademark.

LSXPhotog · Dec 11, 2018

mb66energy said:
It depends like always on (1) IQ and (2) e.g. MFD and other parameters and the 90mm will go down to at least 0.7 m which is roughly 1:5 max reprod. ratio - good!

@LSXPhotog: My FD lenses are waiting for a FF body where they might show their qualities - while not beeing stellar on APS-C 24 MPix maybe they are much better suited for similar resolutions at FF!

They are really at home with the EOS R. I've fallen in love with my 50mm f/1.4 S.C.C. and went ahead and picked up a FD 35mm f/2 S.C.C. and 135 f/2.5 S.C.....all of them are great. The 35mm f/2 legitimately outperforms many modern lenses. I like it more than the RF 35mm f/1.8. The 50mm is simply beautiful as long as you avoid flares - which it actually renders artistically, but not admirably.

I got the 135 just a few days ago and started playing with that...I somehow managed to get a copy that looks like it's brand new. Love the built in lens hood.

I'll be in NYC this week and I plan to play with these lenses quite a bit.

4fun · Dec 11, 2018

no AF, not interested. Plus these are simply clumsy, cheap adaptations of old lens designs rather than new optical formula lenses taking true and full advantage of optimally chosen Canon R mount parameters. just look at the ugly flange, yikes.

not interested. really wonder how many of these manual shards are really sold in the end.

Maybe Samyang will come out with AF lenses for Canon R mount some day - just like their AF series for Sony FE. That would at least hold a bit of potential, provided they manage to reverse-engineer lens mount communications protocol well enough.

jolyonralph · Dec 11, 2018

4fun said:
Maybe Samyang will come out with AF lenses for Canon R mount some day - just like their AF series for Sony FE. That would at least hold a bit of potential, provided they manage to reverse-engineer lens mount communications protocol well enough.

It took many years for the EF protocol to be understood enough by third parties to make lenses, and after that it took decades before they actually started getting it right with lenses that didn't fail with every new EF body release.

The EF-M system has had a grand total of one third party AF lens, (Tamron 18-200) and Tamron couldn't figure that out and the lens doesn't work well with modern EF-M bodies. And Tamron have given up on that, no firmware upgrades for latest cameras.

So, if third parties start releasing RF autofocus lenses would you invest in them? I certainly wouldn't. Maybe they would work on the current body - but will it still be useable in five years time?

Also, the protocols of 1986 are relatively easy to reverse engineer. Protocols of 2018 are a whole different thing. Who knows, the protocol communication may even be encrypted.

Canon aren't stupid. They know that a percentage of their EF lens sales is lost to Sigma and Tamron etc. The RF gives them an opportunity to lock their competitors out so only Canon can produce autofocus RF lenses. Because you can still use Sigma/Tamron etc EF lenses with the Canon RF adaptor there's no reason for those owning third party lenses NOT to upgrade. But once you have upgraded, you have to buy your RF glass from Canon. And that is why RF lenses are going to cost more than EF!

4fun · Dec 11, 2018

@jolyonralph - fully agree with all your points.

Some of the Samyang AF prime lenses look interesting because of very compact size, decent IQ and low price. To me they are living proof that such lenses as I'd prefer them are technically and economically very well possible for mirrorfree FF.

But I share your serious doubts if/when third party vendors will be able to "spoof" EOS R mount protocol and provide full and stable [AF etc.] functionality.

mb66energy · Dec 11, 2018

LSXPhotog said:
They are really at home with the EOS R. I've fallen in love with my 50mm f/1.4 S.C.C. and went ahead and picked up a FD 35mm f/2 S.C.C. and 135 f/2.5 S.C.....all of them are great. The 35mm f/2 legitimately outperforms many modern lenses. I like it more than the RF 35mm f/1.8. The 50mm is simply beautiful as long as you avoid flares - which it actually renders artistically, but not admirably.

I got the 135 just a few days ago and started playing with that...I somehow managed to get a copy that looks like it's brand new. Love the built in lens hood.

I'll be in NYC this week and I plan to play with these lenses quite a bit.

Thanks for that information and the photos which show the typical bokeh balls of these lenses. I myself own the FD 1.4 50 S.S.C. and the FD 2.5 135 S.C. and I always liked them with my Canon EF camera and later with the F-1 seeing forward using them maybe in the future with an RF bayonett equipped camera!

Mt Spokane Photography · Dec 11, 2018

I'm not expecting third party autofocus versions of RF lenses very soon. The capabilities built into the RF lenses are unknown, there may be more than currently meets the eye, I'm certain of that. Every new Canon body can pick up yet another of those capabilities which would render a third party lens unworkable with the new camera, and it might not be fixable by firmware. If a future body has IBIS, then a RF lens may already include hidden provisions to make the IBIS sensor do other things besides just stabilize the image.

I'm sure that Sigma is aware of the possibility.

Bernard · Dec 12, 2018

4fun said:
no AF, not interested. Plus these are simply clumsy, cheap adaptations of old lens designs rather than new optical formula lenses taking true and full advantage of optimally chosen Canon R mount parameters. just look at the ugly flange, yikes.

The designs aren't "old," they came out just a few years ago. They are old-style designs in a way, since they don't use aspheres or ultra-expensive glass. That's not a bad thing, especially for relatively slow lenses.

mb66energy · Dec 12, 2018

Bernard said:
The designs aren't "old," they came out just a few years ago. They are old-style designs in a way, since they don't use aspheres or ultra-expensive glass. That's not a bad thing, especially for relatively slow lenses.

While some fluorite lenses used very expensive glass and some of the FD lenses used aspherical lenses you are right that they had a much reduced "tool box" compared to todays lens designers.
On the other hand they had lead glass which is forbiddden (more or less) today and maybe that gave some other tool at the hand of lens designers with its high refractive index:
Crown glass n ~ 1.5
Flint glass n ~ 1.6
Lead glass n up to 1.7
And the dispersion of Lead glass might have matched other lens materials dispersion to make a good CA correction (while I see a much better CA correction with todays (ultra) low dispersion materials.

melgross · Dec 12, 2018

Mistral75 said:
These Kipon Elegant lenses are the same lenses with new lens mounts (Canon RF and Nikon Z) as the HandeVision IBERIT 24, 35, 50, 75 and 90mm f/2.4 lenses currently available in Fujifilm X, Leica L, Leica M and Sony E mounts.

HandeVision is (was?) a joint-venture between the German company IB/E Optics Eckerl GmbH https://www.ibe-optics.com/en/ and the Chinese company Shanghai Transvision Photographic Equipment Co., Ltd, better known under their Kipon trademark.

Exactly the point I was going to make. Just look at them and it can be seen that the rear is just extended a lot.

Still, they don’t need adapters, so that’s a plus, even if the optical designs themselves are not optimized.

melgross · Dec 12, 2018

mb66energy said:
While some fluorite lenses used very expensive glass and some of the FD lenses used aspherical lenses you are right that they had a much reduced "tool box" compared to todays lens designers.
On the other hand they had lead glass which is forbiddden (more or less) today and maybe that gave some other tool at the hand of lens designers with its high refractive index:
Crown glass n ~ 1.5
Flint glass n ~ 1.6
Lead glass n up to 1.7
And the dispersion of Lead glass might have matched other lens materials dispersion to make a good CA correction (while I see a much better CA correction with todays (ultra) low dispersion materials.

Are you sure leaded glass was banned? Because you can still buy leaded decanters for wine, as well as leaded crystal chandeliers and such.

What was stopped was glasses that used thorium and other radioactive substances. I have a couple of those old lenses in my closet, though I haven’t used them for many years.

Josh Leavitt · Dec 13, 2018

Small, fast, manual focus primes are a lot of fun for mirrorless cameras now that focus-peaking has become so accurate. It's why I picked up an X-T1 and all of the 7Artisans lenses for the XF-mount. Although these Kipon lenses don't really qualify in the "fast" category at f/2.4 - but all the reviews I've read about the IBERIT lenses rate them as excellent performers for the price.

I would love to see Canon release a compact EOS R camera (something like an upsized M6) to really take advantage of small primes like these. But I get the feeling Canon would need to release several small and pancake lenses of their own for the RF-mount before they would consider such a move; based on presence of lenses like the 50/1.2L and the 28-70/2L, I wouldn't count on that happening soon.

mb66energy · Dec 14, 2018

melgross said:
Are you sure leaded glass was banned? Because you can still buy leaded decanters for wine, as well as leaded crystal chandeliers and such.

What was stopped was glasses that used thorium and other radioactive substances. I have a couple of those old lenses in my closet, though I haven’t used them for many years.

If you search for "lead free lenses canon" you will find a lot of statements from Canon websites that the presented lenses are lead free for environmental protection. Maybe it is according to some laws to reduce lead in different countries and e.g. the european union where electronics pcbs are more or less forbidden if they contain lead.
A quick search at amazon.de (germany) shows close to no products with lead glass, at amazon.com they show lead free drinking glasses and feng shui crytal balls (lead is maybe bad for good feng shui) but a lot of leaded glass for crystal chandelier elements you mentioned. Maybe there is some regional difference.

While I do not see environmental issues with lead glass during use of lenses and their correct recycling I see a problem if these optoelectronic systems are "recycled" maybe in countries where (1) children do it by (2) open flame which releases a lot of toxics from this special waste (3) without any filters etc.