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Canon Germany addresses recent Viltrox RF mount lens demands, and it’s a case of patent infrigement
- Thread starter Canon Rumors
- Start date
Your welcome.
Pls see the table again as I added the remaining dSLR full frame bodies & lenses still being listed on BH Photo. This will help provide an idea what are the manufacturing challenges the camera makers have to deliver mirrorless equivalents & duplicates of dSLR bodies & lenses we are familiar with.
I also added Pentax's full frame bodies & lenses for both mirrorless & dSLR of what other brands are doing & provide links as to why they are doing it.
As for a RF equivalent to a 2004 Canon EF 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6L IS USM I expect it to come out within 4 years. To the best of my knowledge there are no Canon RF body or lens roadmaps. If there was then CR would not have a reason to be around.
While we wait why not use the Canon Mount Adapter EF-EOS R until the RF equivalent comes out?
I created the table to provide clarity as to where we are today after 4 years of RF & Z mount and what to expect in the next 4 years. Once 99% of transition bodies & lens SKUs are in-stores then I expect Canon & Nikon to halt any further production of EF & F mount products as the manufacturing plant resources & time are better spent with RF & Z mount products.
For the artists whose business experience is limited to their photo/video businesses should know that if a job/product/service is such low volume, too difficult, too boring or not worth your time is often outsourced to 3rd parties. That is why very unique lenses are often pioneered by 3rd parties and later replicated or make a near equivalent by Canon, Nikon & Sony.
This was a primary reasons why Sony Discloses Basic Specifications of the "E-mount" for Interchangeable Single Lens Cameras without Fee in 2011. This helped Sony taking the #2 spot from Nikon in 2019. Nikon appears to be copying Sony's business strategy with their Z mount lens in 2021. It would be interesting to see how the market will react to this before 2030.
Canon is not inclined to follow Sony or Nikon's business decision because they're the #1 interchangeable-lens digital camera brand for nearly 2 decades. You only compromise future margins when you have no choice.
It is like Apple sticking to the iPhone's Lightning connector for exactly a decade by Sep 12 rather than micro USB or USB-C.
They're the most profitable smartphone brand by taking 75% of smartphone profits. This is not worldwide shipping volume but pure profit margin.
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What you mentioned is covered by this YouTuber. It isn't a good business decision to keep switching systems unless you're a product endorser or a YouTuber trying to get clicks.
Other than increasing the stickiness to a system/brand it has to do also with IPs like patents. You can do something functionally identically similar but has to be done in an ideally 180-degree manner to avoid getting sued.
This is being done to provide incentive to creators to innovate. If there are no financial reward to think out of the box then why even get out of bed?
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I don't think that anyone would say that buying into a Canon ecosystem is a bad idea... or that you would be disappointed!
They have a wide range of APS-C and full frame bodies in both EF/EF-S/EF-M and RF mounts to choose from.
They have a very wide range of lenses for EF-M (fit for its purpose - low cost/weight/size), for EF-S for cost/size, for EF on DLSRs and EF/EF-S and RF on RF mount bodies. On top of that RF bodies can support third party adapted EF/EF-S lenses!
There will always be niches that any OEM may not want to play in and can induce switchers or photographers having multiple systems for different purposes.
Canon has shown to be very capable to play in multiple niches, be dominant and profitable.
Canon is now stating that the future is more rosy for them despite the decimation of the lower end of the market.
Where is all this angst coming from?!?
They have a wide range of APS-C and full frame bodies in both EF/EF-S/EF-M and RF mounts to choose from.
They have a very wide range of lenses for EF-M (fit for its purpose - low cost/weight/size), for EF-S for cost/size, for EF on DLSRs and EF/EF-S and RF on RF mount bodies. On top of that RF bodies can support third party adapted EF/EF-S lenses!
There will always be niches that any OEM may not want to play in and can induce switchers or photographers having multiple systems for different purposes.
Canon has shown to be very capable to play in multiple niches, be dominant and profitable.
Canon is now stating that the future is more rosy for them despite the decimation of the lower end of the market.
Where is all this angst coming from?!?
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The same place it usually does around here – people want something that Canon isn't giving them, and they can't seem to accept the reality of the situation.
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Yes, you are correct that glass will always be more important/valuable in a camera system but the people thinking of investing in a USD6k body will already have or want to buy suitably expensive glass to go with it. Most RF buyers will be migrating from existing DLSR systems so glass is the key issue keeping them with Canon (as was the case for me). I have certainly spend well in excess of USD6k in my migration.
New buyers into Canon will see a range of RF bodies and RF + adapted EF/EF-S lenses to choose from... including adapted 3rd party EF/EF-S lenses.
I don't see many scenarios where someone would buy a R3 and only use 3rd party EF glass on it for instance.
"Limits" are a personal rationalisation. If you see a limit then that is your decision. If you must have xyz focal length/aperture etc then buy the system that best suits your need. Canon has a wide range of lens options and a much wider range again with adapted lenses.
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Probable reasons why
- they did not build their EF system with the help of lawyers
- they did not know the future
The digital still camera market has been decimated by smartphones pushing down worldwide shipment from an all time high of more than 121+ million in 2012 to near the all time low of under 7.9 million for 2022 forecast. 1999 worldwide shipment was under 5.1 million & 2020 was under 10.1 million.
The market for RF system is ~80% full frame & L lenses unlike before it was ~80% Canon Rebel & Kiss dSLR & consumer EF & EF-S lenses.
Brand | Canon | Sony | Nikon | |
Age of Full Frame Mirrorless Mount | 4 | 12 | 4 | 0 |
Mirrorless Full Frame Lens-only SKU with USA warranty | 30 | 63 | 29 | 0 |
Mirrorless APS-C Lens-only SKU with USA warranty | 13 | 22 | 3 | 0 |
Mirrorless Full Frame Body-only SKU with USA warranty | 5 | 9 | 4 | 0 |
Mirrorless APS-C Body-only SKU with USA warranty | 2 (RF-S mount) | 4 | 3 | 0 |
Future mirrorless lens roadmap by 2026 | 32 | N/A | 3 | 0 |
dSLR Full Frame Lens-only SKU with USA warranty | 34 | 4 | 59 | 23 |
dSLR Full Frame Body-only SKU with USA warranty | 5 | 0 | 3 | 1 |
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Just to point out a disconnect, you count EF-M lenses among Canon's APS-C MILC lenses, but you do not count M cameras under Canon APS-C MILC bodies. As you know, EF-M lenses don't mount on R bodies and RF/RF-S lenses don't mount on M bodies.
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Can you clarify this? EF was never even close to a "somewhat open system" in the past. EF/RF protocols have always been a closed system. Even Sony's E mount (closed system) was still licensed albeit at a symbolic price.
All systems are closed. there is no open source/open standards for lens protocols.So what to do now? The solution is quite simple.
If people only buy native Canon lenses, and are potentially happy to be part of a closed camera ecosystem, and accept whatever Canon throws out to them (at whatever price Canon chooses), then none of this matters at all, they can keep buying to their heart's content!
Canon offers a range of RF/EF/EF-S lenses at different quality and price levels and adapted 3rd party EF/EF-S lenses work better on RF than EF bodies (AF spread/IBIS etc)
True but the length of time that EF lenses will be actively sold and subsequently still maintained under warranty and then end-of-Canon-service date and the supported by 3rd party maintenance is very long. I can imagine that this will be at least a decade before any significant issues for more popular EF lenses take place.
By that time, multiple RF bodies will be updated and more RF glass added to the list.
I don't get that people are disappointed that adapted EF glass is cheaper than RF and also wouldn't have all the benefits of the RF protocols. They still have more benefits using them on RF body vs EF body.
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So what is the number of lenses that the RF bodies support ie Canon RF/RF-S/EF/EF-S lenses + adapted 3rd party EF/EF-S lenses currently available?
Perhaps the best solution is a complete list for people to see how "closed" the ecosystem is if they buy a R full frame mount body
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1st party is below
Compatibility Guide for Lenses
Browse through our technical guide to find out everything about mounts & lenses compatibility with Canon's range of cameras.
www.canon.ie
3rd party I outsource to 3rd party owners.
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YMMV of course but I disagree completely.
The predominant reason that my personal PC and whole family got into the Apple ecosystem (iMac, MBP, MBA,iPad, iPod, iWatch, airpods, appleTV etc) is simply because they work nicely together. I purposely decided that I didn't want to be the system admin for a disparate range of OEMs and products.
I use Windows PCs at work and would never want to at home.
The number of times that I have wanted to airdrop a file etc to someone else's device only to be told that they don't have an apple has been disappointing.
Apple sells equipment and charges a premium but I have recovered that premium just in the length of time that I can use their products rather than buying other more frequently. Apple also makes money out of the app store of course.
There hasn't been an app that I have desperately needed that I wouldn't have thought I needed to jailbreak or somehow sideload onto my iPhone.
You can buy 3rd party EF lenses and adapt them onto R bodies. Canon doesn't prevent you from doing this.
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Same here. Collectively at home, we have 4 MBPs, 2 MBAs, 3 iPad Pros, 5 iPhones, 3 Apple Watches, 3 AirPods Pros, an Apple TV, and a partridge in an apple tree. They all work flawlessly together, and I need to do almost nothing to keep it that way. I'm also fortunate that I get to decide what we use at my company – the policy I put in place allows people to choose Mac or PC (I pay someone else to administer them, manage the MDM, etc.), and 80% of people choose Macs (which, of course, means nothing as far as market share or installed base).
As an example of working together, I have my personal MBP open on my desk, and my work MBP closed but connected to an 5K:2K external display along with an Apple external keyboard/trackpad. If I want to copy a file from my personal Mac to my work Mac, I can literally drag it off the edge of the edge of the open laptop and onto the external display. I can use the trackpad and keyboard on my open laptop or the trackpad and keyboard connected to the closed Mac to control either Mac – the cursor literally just floats from the laptop display to the external display like you'd expect if the open laptop was connected to the display...except that it's not, my other Mac is. I open a webpage on my iPhone, and with one click on either Mac I can pick up where I left off. If I have my AirPods in and I get a call, I can accept it on my phone or on either Mac (or on the AirPods themselves) and the call just connects. Really an amazing level of interconnected productivity, and not something even remotely possible on Windows.
Fine, it's a closed system / walled garden. But if everything I need is growing harmoniously inside the garden, I have nothing to complain about.
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And their previous efforts (besides 16/2.8) have been very expensive and haven't had good coma in the corners.
Canon does go to 14mm @ f4 and 15mm @f2.8 though with their zooms which should meet most needs albeit at a cost.
No one is going to beat the bang/buck value of the Samyang 14mm primes though.
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Hi Dolina,
I'm sorry if this message has accidentally been published twice.
While I am certainly well aware of the option to use the old and outdated 2004 Canon 28-300mm with an EF to RF converter, with my Canon EOS R3 bodies, I came from 50 years of shooting with Nikon (with an intervening and hugely costly detour to Sony's A1, lenses, etc.). I had no Canon EF lenses or the converter. To waste even more money now by purchasing Canon's old, poorly rated and very expensive 28-300mm EF lens, plus an EF to RF converter, when what I really want (and am reluctantly willing to continue waiting for) is a Canon 28-300mm (or similar) RF lens — preferably L-Series, with weather-sealing, etc. for shooting on dusty race tracks, with rubber particles and sometimes heavy rain.
In case you are curious, my reason for switching cold turkey from 50 years of shooting Nikon (most recently with a D5, D4S and Z6, a large group of Nikon and Tamron lenses, and all sorts of accessories) which I prematurely and foolishly sold at a huge loss, was because of a friend's demonstration of the Sony A1's incredible focus tracking of a hummingbird in flight. I wrongly assumed that since the A1 could track a tiny hummingbird in flight so well, then surely it would do an awesome job tracking race cars on the track. I sold my Nikon and Tamron gear and bought a two-camera A1 system and accessories, only to discover through experience that it would lose the cars if anything came between me and them.
That is when I had to make a critical decision: to start all over again with Nikon (the Z9 was not yet available) or try Canon by ordering two EOS R3 bodies. That is what I chose to do.
Now I have a small selection of RF glass, Canon flashes, batteries, memory cards, etc., and I have been trying hard to learn how to shoot with Canon and overcome decades of muscle memory experience with Nikon. Rotating the zoom ring on lenses the Canon direction instead of the Nikon direction continues to be a recurring problem, when I have to react quickly to get shots. I am also unable to change important settings nearly as quickly as I did with Nikon.
All that said, the EOS R3 has been great for shooting car racing, as is (for the first time) having two identical camera bodies. When shooting car races, I quickly switch back and forth between a long zoom lens on one body and a wider zoom lens on the other.
Changing lenses while on the track is not a viable option, due to the likelihood of flying dust and rubber contaminating the image sensor.
You can see the results of me shooting with Canon R3 bodies and (mostly L-Series) glass by searching for my most recent (2022+) auto racing coverage on my AutoMatters.net website.
Jan
I'm sorry if this message has accidentally been published twice.
While I am certainly well aware of the option to use the old and outdated 2004 Canon 28-300mm with an EF to RF converter, with my Canon EOS R3 bodies, I came from 50 years of shooting with Nikon (with an intervening and hugely costly detour to Sony's A1, lenses, etc.). I had no Canon EF lenses or the converter. To waste even more money now by purchasing Canon's old, poorly rated and very expensive 28-300mm EF lens, plus an EF to RF converter, when what I really want (and am reluctantly willing to continue waiting for) is a Canon 28-300mm (or similar) RF lens — preferably L-Series, with weather-sealing, etc. for shooting on dusty race tracks, with rubber particles and sometimes heavy rain.
In case you are curious, my reason for switching cold turkey from 50 years of shooting Nikon (most recently with a D5, D4S and Z6, a large group of Nikon and Tamron lenses, and all sorts of accessories) which I prematurely and foolishly sold at a huge loss, was because of a friend's demonstration of the Sony A1's incredible focus tracking of a hummingbird in flight. I wrongly assumed that since the A1 could track a tiny hummingbird in flight so well, then surely it would do an awesome job tracking race cars on the track. I sold my Nikon and Tamron gear and bought a two-camera A1 system and accessories, only to discover through experience that it would lose the cars if anything came between me and them.
That is when I had to make a critical decision: to start all over again with Nikon (the Z9 was not yet available) or try Canon by ordering two EOS R3 bodies. That is what I chose to do.
Now I have a small selection of RF glass, Canon flashes, batteries, memory cards, etc., and I have been trying hard to learn how to shoot with Canon and overcome decades of muscle memory experience with Nikon. Rotating the zoom ring on lenses the Canon direction instead of the Nikon direction continues to be a recurring problem, when I have to react quickly to get shots. I am also unable to change important settings nearly as quickly as I did with Nikon.
All that said, the EOS R3 has been great for shooting car racing, as is (for the first time) having two identical camera bodies. When shooting car races, I quickly switch back and forth between a long zoom lens on one body and a wider zoom lens on the other.
Changing lenses while on the track is not a viable option, due to the likelihood of flying dust and rubber contaminating the image sensor.
You can see the results of me shooting with Canon R3 bodies and (mostly L-Series) glass by searching for my most recent (2022+) auto racing coverage on my AutoMatters.net website.
Jan
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I just went through the list of the 30 RF lenses (certainly more than listed in the "Canon RF Lens Roadmap") and it is already pretty comprehensive. More to go of course!1st party is below
3rd party I outsource to 3rd party owners.Compatibility Guide for Lenses
Browse through our technical guide to find out everything about mounts & lenses compatibility with Canon's range of cameras.
There are 46 3rd party RF lenses (non cinema) listed in the "Third Party Lenses for RF" excluding Viltrox. I am assuming that they are currently conforming to the EF protocols on a RF mount and not infringing on RF protocols.
There are at least 230 lenses listed on B&H's Canon EF search page including 3rd parties. But I notice that some lenses should be added eg the EF pinhole lenses and Laowa lenses for instance
There are lots of weird and wonderful stuff out there!
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Now that is a story of the cost/difficulty with switching systems!
You have a very specific genre though it looks like you have found a solution but it is really hard to unlearn the zoom direction from Nikon.
I don't see a solution for your 2 body/lens combo though.
Even if Canon released a new 28-300mm L lens, the AF focus speed would be compromised over that focal length. I think that getting a sufficiently sharp image across that focal range would either be difficult or very, very expensive.
I have only seen one of those in the wild and it was heavy and unwieldy. I am not surprised that it didn't sell very well... too many compromises.
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Thank you for doing the work.
All 3rd party EF lenses are all unlicensed by Canon.
I remember RED cameras tried to license the EF mount but were denied.
Why? Because Canon came out with Cinema EOS a few years later.
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Hi Jan,
You have a long and storied history in shooting.
If I were in your position I'd get a used babied copy of the lens that is being sold at a great discount because everyone's in a rush to move to mirrorless.
I am fairly certain the RF equivalent will be released within 4 years will delight you always.
Unload the EF copy at the equivalnent of rent expense of less than 4 years.
It is a herculean task to output 8 new lens SKUs per year for the past 4 years & the next 4 years.
Canon & Nikon need to match Sony's lens system. That was the selling point of their EF & F mount.
If I were starting from scratch to do bird work I'd opt for the Nikon Z system because their lenses are lighter on the back & in the back pocket.
But like you I have concerns about relearning how to ride a bike with the different physical button placements & menu system other brands use.
This is what I discovered with the 2015 Sony a7R II & my worry with the 2021 FujiFILM GFX 100S medium format
BTW how do you like the 2021 EOS R3 for bird photography? I would like to hear your thoughts on it.
I copy pasted your site and your body of work is worth emulating.
Paolo
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Hi Paulo,Hi Jan,
You have a long and storied history in shooting.
If I were in your position I'd get a used babied copy of the lens that is being sold at a great discount because everyone's in a rush to move to mirrorless.
I am fairly certain the RF equivalent will be released within 4 years will delight you always.
Unload the EF copy at the equivalnent of rent expense of less than 4 years.
It is a herculean task to output 8 new lens SKUs per year for the past 4 years & the next 4 years.
Canon & Nikon need to match Sony's lens system. That was the selling point of their EF & F mount.
If I were starting from scratch to do bird work I'd opt for the Nikon Z system because their lenses are lighter on the back & in the back pocket.
But like you I have concerns about relearning how to ride a bike with the different physical button placements & menu system other brands use.
This is what I discovered with the 2015 Sony a7R II & my worry with the 2021 FujiFILM GFX 100S medium format
BTW how do you like the 2021 EOS R3 for bird photography? I would like to hear your thoughts on it.
I have been photographing birds since Jan 2009 with an
I provided links for you perusal.
I copy pasted your site and your body of work is worth emulating.
Paolo
Sorry but I did not explain my predicament sufficiently.
I do not do bird photography. What I most enjoy shooting is car racing. Someone showed me that the Sony Alpha 1 was great for bird photography, so I just assumed it would be great for car racing photography also. That is why I switched from 50 years of shooting Nikon to the Sony Alpha 1. I should have tried it before selling my Nikon gear, because after using it for three months, I concluded that its autofocus system was not very good for shooting car racing. That is why I switched again — this time to the Canon EOS R3. Its CAR MODE AUTOFOCUS is GREAT for car racing photography. I have no idea how good it is for bird photography.
Jan
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