Chinese Lens Makers May Bring the First Third-Party Full-Frame RF Lenses

[SNJ Ops]

Reverse engineering by itself is not illegal. Legal action would only be possible if the third party had illegal access to Canon’s own code and the third party had used that.

Canon' legal team chased off Samyang and very publicly which may have put off other manufacturers from attempting to reverse engineer the RF mount.

 

[AlanF]

Canon' legal team chased off Samyang and very publicly which may have put off other manufacturers from attempting to reverse engineer the RF mount.

Yes, but the legal threat would only have had any substance if Samyang had somehow or other got hold of Canon's own code rather than have done honest reverse engineering. We do not know what had been going on or any behind the scenes negotiations, or whether Samyang decided it was simpler to knuckle under even if they were in the right.

 

[Ozarker]

The Laowa lenses interest me the most, I’d settle for electronically controlled aperture on most of their lenses, though.

I've always been impressed by the ultra wide angle shots I've seen of terrestrial wildlife.

 

[HarryFilm]

Here is a little rumour in that ZEISS wants to update their OTUS series of 28 mm, 55 mm, 85 mm and 105 mm manual focus and manual iris lenses with RF mount at those same focus lengths BUT will be adding a 14mm and a 135 mm focal length set of lenses to the lineup for the RF mount! Since there is no motor control (i.e. the OTUS lenses are fully manual!), ZEISS won't be having an Intellectual Property issue since Canon cannot patent the mount specifics themselves -- just the electronic control systems and internal optics design!

If that were to happen, for my PERSONAL camera and lens collection, I would Loooooooove to have a full set of ZEISS Otus fully manual lenses since I have been shooting pretty much fully manual for most of my professional video and still-photo imaging life (35+ years now!). Otus lenses are sooooooo SHARP and CRISP that the images are almost surreal in their quality and at f/1.4, they are GREAT for Astrophotography!

They are big and very expensive lenses BUT their heavy-duty weight and quality construction plus fully-manual-nature actually HELP your still/video shooting!

I wouldn't be surprised to see such an update from ZEISS by early next year!

V

 

[steen-ag]

Unless there has been a strategy change within Canon I don't see this happening. 7 years of the RF mount and not a single FF AF lens from a 3rd party has been licensed to date. Canon appear to want a largely closed system for FF, time will tell if remains that way or not. May be good for Canon's profit margins but many Canon users are missing out big time on what's available. Recently picked up the Sigma 28-105mm f2.8 Art and its a great one lens solution for studio portraits.

canon did what nikon did