A look back at 2024

Richard CN

Canon Rumors Premium
Dec 27, 2017
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It's been a fun year, and as I sit here in Asia waiting for the clock to strike 12 in less than 6 hours, I thought I'd write up a summary about 2024 here at CanonRumors.

 
The 50VCM and R8 are a surprisingly great combination, great for the indoor season. The highlight of the outdoor season for me this year was the R5II, it addressed all the things I wanted improved in the R5.

I really liked the more varied reporting and the influx of new people commenting.
 
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The only piece instantly hitting my bag is the RF 24 1.4 - and I really like to work with it.
Is a lens like the EF35 1.4 II (which is the wide angel 1.4 in the arsenal really a "better lens"?

I expect those RF 1.4 primes to fall in price while remaining to generate revenue as the RF 28-70 2.8 will do.
Is it really bad to produce happy shooters while generating money?
(Yes, the fans of Summilux or Otus might live with hotter hearts, but down this path I might stop at Voightländer ....)

The 24 is a nice one
Full Stop
 
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I want fast f/1.4 prime in the 14mm to 20mm range that can compete with the excellent Sigma offerings when it comes to excellent star shapes in the corners, to be used for nightscape photography. Or just let Sigma produce its excellent full frame 14mm and 20mm offerings for the RF mount. I don't care which. If this does not show up soon I am seriously thinking of buying a sony A7c II and one of the Sigma lenses for nightscape. How is it that Canon, a company that was at the forefront of producing astrophotography-centric camera bodies for a while cannot put out a low distortion fast UWA lens for this purpose? The new 24mm f/1.4 VCM looks to have poor corner stars and is borderline not wide enough. Come on Canon, fix this hole in your lineup please.
 
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I want fast f/1.4 prime in the 14mm to 20mm range that can compete with the excellent Sigma offerings when it comes to excellent star shapes in the corners, to be used for nightscape photography. Or just let Sigma produce its excellent full frame 14mm and 20mm offerings for the RF mount. I don't care which. If this does not show up soon I am seriously thinking of buying a sony A7c II and one of the Sigma lenses for nightscape. How is it that Canon, a company that was at the forefront of producing astrophotography-centric camera bodies for a while cannot put out a low distortion fast UWA lens for this purpose? The new 24mm f/1.4 VCM looks to have poor corner stars and is borderline not wide enough. Come on Canon, fix this hole in your lineup please.
Have you seen this thread https://www.canonrumors.com/forum/threads/coma-test-for-the-rf-24mm-f1-4l.44234/#post-1017870 ?
 
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TDP has coma performance comparisons. Looking at the photos, the 24L VCM seems better than the Sigma 24 Art, and worse than the Sigma 14 Art, 20 Art and Sony 24GM. All photos below from their respective reviews on TDP.

Canon 24L VCM
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Sigma 24 Art
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Sony 24GM
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Sigma 20 Art
1735945277668.png

Sigma 14 Art
1735945296623.png
 
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Always a fan of what Bryan does over at TDP....but I also like Lenstip quite a bit an in this instance they have a controlled coma test. Unfortunately, they still seem to have not tested any RF lenses, but regarding the Sigma lenses:

Sigma 14 f/1.8

1735995647629.png

Sigma 20 f/1.4
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Sigma 24 f/1.4
1735995819269.png

And, for good measure as they have measured EF lenses:
Canon EF 24 f/1.4 II top: @f/1.4 and below @ f/2 -- not much difference stopping down.
1735995925339.png

I am one of the people that picked up the RF 24 f/1.4 VCM. What I am seeing so far is along the lines of the 14 f/1.8 or better (I think better). I'll be interested in seeing what Lenstip shows in their test once they get around to testing RF lenses.

You can see mine and a KirkD's photos in this thread.
 
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As stated in the article, 2024 started awfully slow for Canon. In the end, they did catch up with a couple of great cameras and especially the VCM lenses. For me personally, the 28-70mm might become interesting at some point. Other than that, nothing "new" in the bag for me so far. For 2025, I´m hoping for a (light) 20mm F1.4 with an affordable price tag. A 12 or 14mm prime would also be nice, but probably not in my ballpark considering the price. Maybe Canon can also finally fill some wholes with lenses rumored so long, it seems forever. TS-lenses and the 200-500mm come to mind, also a new F2 halo zoom lens. Probably won´t come within a year, but maybe one or two
 
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Overall, 2024 was a solid year for Canon, but the first half was quite slow. Releasing two professional grade FF cameras and releasing two fast 1.4 primes and the internal zooming 70-200 mm f2.8 Z is good enough.

In 2025 and beyond, a nice internal zooming L-series super telephoto lens in the $5-6K range would be nice. Keep the front element at 100 mm so cost can be contained. A 200-500 f5 or 300-700 mm f5-f7 would be nice IMO
 
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