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I have been talking about two more VCM lenses being on the horizon for a while now, with one of them being wider than the RF 20mm f/1.4L VCM and another longer than the RF 85mm f/1.4L VCM. It looks like we're going to get the wide lens first.
We can expect an announcement on February 4, 2026. This won't be the only thing Canon announces in the coming week. I want to verify the second lens that is may be coming, it's a wild one if true. (yeah, yeah, a rumour about a rumour…..)
Canon RF 14mm F1.4L VCM
This is an impressive feat of engineering on the surface. A 14mm f/1.4L VCM lens about the same size as the current line of 5 VCM L prime lenses?
I was told in September that it would be a 14mm f/2L VCM, but that isn't going to be the case. I'm happy to be wrong about the max aperture. This is going to be a wild lens. I'm sure there are some astrophotographers waiting to see how this lens is going to handle the night sky.
A couple of weeks ago Richard wrote about a possible RF 14mm f/1.4L VCM optical design from a recent patent. There are two embodiements in that patent, and I imagine one of those is what is coming next week.
Software Correction? Yes
If you look at the above patent, you'll see the image height is 18.68 instead of the usual full-frame 21.64. That means there will be software correction to to fill the frame. I don't think anyone will be shocked by that. For me? I don't care. For others, it's a big deal. Either preference is perfectly acceptable.
RF 20 F1.4L VCM / RF 14 F1.4L VCM Comparison
Canon RF 14mm f/1.4L VCM Patent
| Lens Length | 14.42 |
| F-Number | 1.46 |
| Half Angle Of View | 52.34 |
| Image Height | 18.68 |
| Total Optical Length | 118.50 |
| Back Focus Distance | 14.00 |
As you can see from the drawing above, this is going to be an extremely complex lens design. There are a lot of elements jammed into the small package of VCM prime lenses.
How Much Will it Be?
That's a great question that I don't have an answer for. The RF 20 F1.4L VCM is currently $1899 USD. Could the 14mm come in at $1999? That may be wishful thinking. I'm going to go with wishful thinking for the moment, it'll be on my want-to-buy list.
I don't know when the RF 14 f/1.4L VCM will begin shipping, but there is the possibility that this is one of the lenses that we reported was coming in March earlier in the week. Sometimes the announcement date and the ship date get mixed up.
More to come…
Have I read the patent correctly that it is about 140mm from the body in length?
The Sony 14/1.8 is100mm long, 450g and reasonably priced at USD1750.
The Sigma 14/1.4 is a beast at 150mm long/1.1kg ie double the weight of the Sony but about the same price.
The dew heater and locked focus would be handy on the Sigma.
AF would be great for some users but not useful for astro.
😡
😡 (Doh)
(I only wanted to be the first to complain, in order to put this sterile discussion to a well deserved end).
And also before asking my photo-store to put one aside for me as soon as Canon start delivery. 😛
https://www.canonrumors.com/canon-to-come-out-with-a-canon-rf-14mm-f-1-4l-vcm/
The image height is 18.68 instead of 21.64. I added that to the article.
I'll have you banned from this forum for life! 😡
The VCM lenses were all brilliant, just like the 14mm will be. I could compare my excellent Zeiss 21mm f/2,8 to the 20mm VCM. The Zeiss, though optically corrected, didn't stand a chance...🙂
As another example, here's a 100% crop from the post-correction extreme lower right corner of an image from the 20/1.4, and most of this image is from the part that was 'stretched' to wider than the original pixel width, as you can see from the full image in DxO showing the output size of 6492 x 4000 from the 6000 x 4000 sensor of the R1.