Tamron Working on an Internal Zoom 100-400mm f/5.6-7.1

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Tamron is working on some unique zoom lenses for full-frame sensors. While optical designs don't generally mention lens mounts, we cannot comment on any of these being future RF mount lenses.

One of the more interesting optical design choices is the internal zoom of a 100-400mm f/5.6-7.1. The physical lens is about195mm/7.6″, in comparison the Canon RF 100-400mm f/5.6-8 IS USM is 164mm/6.5″ when not zoomed, and about 245mm when it is.

So, the Tamron is a faster lens at f/5.6-7.1 along with it being an internal zoom and only about 3cm longer.

Tamron also has some longer super zoom optical designs in this patent. None of them have internal zoom, but there is a big market for these sorts of lenses.

100-400mm f/5.6-7.1

Focal length: 103.026-387.962
F value: 5.769-7.312
Half angle of view: 11.737-3.053
Image height: 21.633
Total length: 215.148
Back focal length: 36.406

One lens design that could very well become a product is a 28-400mm f/3.5-6.3, which would compete directly with the Nikon 28-400mm f/4-8 VR.

Canon doesn't currently offer such lens, there is only the 10x 24-240mm f/4-6.3 IS USM as far as a super zoom. Canon has never really embraced affordable lenses like this, even during the EF days. Though, there was the cult favourite EF 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6L IS USM, but that lens didn't fit the “affordable” metric.

Tamron will begin shipping the RF mount Tamron 18-300mm f/3.5-6.3 Di III-A VC VXD for Canon APS-C cameras in the near future.