Okay, I know this is beating a dead horse as a matter of fact, the horse has been beaten to death, dragged off, and turned into glue already. But when I saw this patent application from Sigma today, and tossed it over to Craig, his response was “Well, don't expect Canon to ever do a lens like that” to which I agree. Canon has an aversion to doing nice things for APS-C and seems to think that high-end lenses for APS-C should be rare things that happen once a decade if not longer. For example, Canon did exactly one high-end lens the EF-S 17-55mm F2.8 in 2003 and followed it so quickly that it stunned the industry with an EF-M 32mm F1.4 in 2018.
When I was rocking the EOS-M my portrait lens was not Canon, but Sigma. The 56mm was a stunning lens that Canon had no answer for and didn't consider the APS-C platform worthy of such a lens. Even with the RF-S system, if you want a small portrait lens, use the 50mm F1.8 and consider yourself lucky, peasant. Don't expect Canon to release lenses specifically tailored to your system – expect to have to compromise, but that's not necessarily a bad thing, especially for longer focal lengths.
I would be remiss if I didn't mention that small full-frame lenses that use digital image stretching to fit a full-frame image circle are usually very good on APS-C, perhaps even better than on full-frame cameras because they don't have to do as much digital manipulation. So I have to be honest here, lenses like the 16mm F2.8, 24mm F1.8, and 28mm F2.8 are uniquely suitable for the RF-S platform, and lenses like the 35mm F1.8 and the 50mm 1.8 find new uses on the RF-S platform from their traditional use cases on full frame.
So it's not all doom and gloom for RF-S users, however, in total Canon practice, Canon does a very bad job of explaining this to novices. Instead of selling kits with these lenses or even a white paper or video, etc. Canon is mute on this and there's a segment of the user base that doesn't read this article (shocking, I know) or online reviews that would detail this (and most reviews don't detail or suggest using these lenses primarily for APS-C either, users are assumed to know this fact because we are all old boomers that cut our teeth on EF-S.
As a step-up system, RF primes are a unique way to transition from cheaper RF-S systems to a full RF mount full frame system. So this needs to be explained better. But to be fair, the crop factor gets in the way, and even Canon's widest cheap prime the 16mm F2.8 is 26mm on a Canon RF-S camera.
So why am I griping about a Sigma Patent Application then? Well, this Sigma patent details 10mm F1.4 lens. This is a lens that would never be done by Canon for RF-S and a 6mm F2.8 full-frame lens would be both ridiculously large (if it's even possible) and insanely costly. Is this an APS-C lens that Sigma will develop? It has all the hallmarks of a lens that most certainly Sigma will develop for the Nikon, Sony, and Fuji mount since Sigma already has a wide array of F1.4 APS-C lenses. This would make it 3 prime lenses that are wider than any Canon prime for APS-C (10, 16, and 23mm), and RF lenses with those equivalent full frame focal lengths, would be prohibitively more expensive than APS-C counterparts. We won't even get into their nice compact APS-C 10-18 F2.8 and 18-50mm F2.8 either.
Now there are rumors that Canon is relenting with Sigma and Sigma is expected to come out with lenses for the RF mount “soon™“, but there's no communication from Sigma and no communication from Canon still on how or when this is to occur.
Here is hoping that Canon ends this silence during CP+ or sometime shortly as it serves no purpose to Canon and creates more uncertainty about the future of the platform. Canon's EF mount enjoyed a vast array of third-party lenses, RF needs to follow. With recent Sigma announcements, I have slowly turned my eye back to Fuji's APS-C line-up to see what is happening over there, even though I have a very high degree of resistance to any camera not made by Canon. I know that some readers will state that this subject has been talked about for the past 2 or so years, but that's part of the problem. We users have been doing the talking, no one else is filling in the details.
Canon sliding to 2nd in mirrorless in Japan, and not even placing in the top 3 of lens sales in Japan indicates that even though Canon may enjoy a fantastic market share and excellent profits, that can quickly turn on them – ask Nikon about that.
consider this more just keeping this topic recent as it should be and also that's a sweet 10mm F1.4 patent application.
have at it folks - be gentle ;)
And yes, I also use the sigma 56mm a lot, it’s a joy to use.
Can I ask an honest question: Why?
Having used cameras from all major manufacturers throughout the last two decades, I always found it interesting to try out new systems, sensor sizes, lenses etc. They were all great in their way, some more useful than others (shoutout to the Nikon 1 V1 - what a great cam it was). Sticking to only one brand is like eating the same food every day forever IMHO. I use Canon now, but I know that in a year or two I will want to try something new.
It especially seems to not make sense if other companies offer something that you would enjoy using; in this case the Sigma APS-C lenses. It's not like Canon pays us to use their gear, quite the contrary :D So just get a nice X-T30 and have fun - I promise there will be no penalty.
I've used Canon since the mid 80's .. and I've gotten used to how they work. from the UI, controls, etc. even their usual image output prioritization.
I have at one time or another used most of the other brands, I just always have preferred Canon's approach. I find that I want the camera to get out of my way as quickly as possible, and that tends to be one with a high degree of familiarity.
With today's sensors that's probably less of an issue because you have far more output slop than ever before. But I tend to think of the camera is just a tool. I like my brand of tools to be Canon.
and yeah I've been having serious thoughts about getting an X-T30 already ;)
I did like the Nikon Z bodies a lot, but at that point I already had an R body, so switching would be €€€€.
The Fuji bodies have great specs, but are 2 to 3 times the price of equivalent EF-M bodies and lenses. And for APS-C, they are HUGE.
With the 100-500L and 100L macro I have great autofocus lenses for the type of photography I like, no other system offers equivalent lenses.
I wish proper 1:1 or better macro was more popular, I don’t mind manual focus, but I do want an electronically controlled aperture!
I'll speak just for myself: after my first SLR camera, an Eos 300 that was gifted to me, I bought on my own the EOS 33, which was controlled by a front dial, close to the shutter button, for the Tv, and a back dial for the Av.
I found that very same dial setup when I bought my first DSLR, the 10D in 2006, my first FF DSLR, the 5D in 2009, and my first ML, the R6 in 2021 (which also added the third dial on top, that I use for iso, closing the circle of "having all the exposure triangle on dials without using buttons/combinations/touch/menu"). And the menu UI is the same since I bought the 5D II, in 2010.
To date I don't remember ever taking a single photo with a non-Canon ILC camera since I laid hand on that Eos 300, 25 years ago; I actually touched a Sony ML, because one of my second shooters uses Sony, while I think I've never physically touched a Nikon ILC camera in those same 25 years.
(But I used film medium format, and was only last summer that I sold my entire Hasselblad V kit after being taking dust for too long).
Canon has always made me feel at home, so I frankly have never even remotely considered not to switch, but to even try something else for the sake of seeing what was on the market; I'm considering a possible switch only in the last couple of years (I thought about Sony when moving from DSLR to ML), but it's just for the third party lens issue.
Other than that, I have to say Canon never let me down, and I have never found anything missing that could lead me to look outside the Canon world when purely looking at camera bodies.
They're just perfect for me, for what I do, for how I do it; I used the same body controls for almost 25 years and the same menu for 14 years; that's what any professional will look at when evaluating a work instrument. I can handle (almost) any Canon ILC of the last 25 years and getting to be using it at 90% of its potential in the next 15 minutes, and refine the buttons and dials muscle memory in half day of work with it. Can't ask for anything better.
Wouldn't it be 16mm f2.0, actually?
Sure one can get away with primes as stated, there are plenty of RF primes that can be used with RF-S as well, just no ultra wide option. Even with zoom there’s the 10-20 f4 that becomes a very expensive 16-32 on crop. The new 10-18 is fine, just that. But many users would prefer a faster lens.
No better zoom option to be seen. I still have my G1X III partly because it has that 15-45 f2.8-5.6 lens. The EF-M equivalent is an f3.5-6.3 and no such zoom with RF-S.
And we feel that the R7 is just there to bring more reach for the RF telephoto lenses, just like the 7D II did before it.
The R10 and R50 are in the BCN top 10 for 2023, so apparently the customers buying these camera’s don’t mind the lack of “high end” RF-S lenses.