KIPON has announced the ELEGANT series of lenses, the first third-party series for both new Nikon Z mount and Canon RF mount cameras.
The five new lenses will likely start shipping before the end of December 2018.
RF lenses for Canon EOS R from Kipon:
- 24mm/f2.4 (For Nikon Z & Canon RF) 499USD
- 35mm/f2.4 (For Nikon Z & Canon RF) 468USD
- 50mm/f2.4 (For Nikon Z & Canon RF) 325USD
- 75mm/f2.4 (For Nikon Z & Canon RF) 355USD
- 90mm/f2.4 (For Nikon Z & Canon RF) 386USD
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I've adapted all my Canon FD lenses and they're a blast to use and render beautifully.
@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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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!
I'm sure that Sigma is aware of the possibility.
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.
Still, they don’t need adapters, so that’s a plus, even if the optical designs themselves are not optimized.
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.
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.
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.
http://optics.org/news/8/7/16
https://www.tuv-sud.com/home-com/re...ials-11-2018/eu-rohs-renews-7-lead-exemptions