"Canon is not happy with third party lens makers" is now officially confirmed

[ntblowz]

9 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

I don't know of any successful long established camera system that doesn't have a range of third party accessories and lenses for it.

So for Canon to be blocking this, and presumably companies like Sigma as well, shows they are prepared to harm their own ecosystem in order to protect the rip off pricing of their native lenses.

 

You can still adapt cheap EF lens if going on budget. That is what some of the people use on their RF system from what I see, and of course VND adapter is really useful for video.

Most of existing accessories still works too so it's not like you are start from scratch again going from EF to RF except if u want to go all RF.

And if you want to go Red then all ur RF will work fine on Red camera since they use RF mount as well, totally different story if you are native E mount or Z mount lens user and want to migrate Red camera.

[ntblowz]

On 9/1/2022 at 4:47 AM, Kisaha said:

Non L lenses don't even have a lens hood (not only the inconvenience, the added price also)..that is utterly tragic..not even protected by the elements a bit, so you have to buy L for all the bells and whistles, no, we need options. Just a couple of rubber flanges for God's shake, not make them IP67..

 

I don't think any of the cheap lens from Sony or Nikon have lens hood, I have to buy them myself.  And they are cheap anyway so no biggie..

What I do find is the lack of lens bag on cheap lens except Pansonic is disheartening, I been using their lens bag to hold accessories and stuff which is quite useful. 

[ntblowz]

13 hours ago, gt3rs said:

Can people read?

Absolutely not true, some zooms are better than primes as posted above the EF 24-70 and EF 70-200 are optically better than EF 50 1.2, 85 1.2 and on pair with 135 2.0. The EF 24-70 2-8 II at 24 2.8 is much better than the EF 24 1.4 II at 2.8. I have/had all these lenses. All expensive L lenses.

The new affordable RF 15-30 seems a tad better in the corner that the RF 16 2.8 (here we go again with a zoom better than a prime) and both better than the old 16-35 II L. Also, most of the EF L wide angle zooms are better than the EF 14 2.8 L v1.
 

Interesting to see EF 24-70 2.8 II @ 24mm 2.8 is better than EF 24mm 1.4 II at 2.8, I have RF 24-70 2.8 and got RF 24mm 1.8 a while back, on my test RF 24mm is definitely quite sharper on the corner than RF 24-70mm, does that mean RF 24mm is actually shaper than EF 24mm 1.4 II L on corner?!

There are 3 tier of RF prime, the L prime the IS prime (24/35/85) and cheap prime (16/50), I do find the 16/50 image quality is not as sharp as IS primes and L zooms.

[gt3rs]

On 9/3/2022 at 12:03 AM, ntblowz said:

Interesting to see EF 24-70 2.8 II @ 24mm 2.8 is better than EF 24mm 1.4 II at 2.8, I have RF 24-70 2.8 and got RF 24mm 1.8 a while back, on my test RF 24mm is definitely quite sharper on the corner than RF 24-70mm, does that mean RF 24mm is actually shaper than EF 24mm 1.4 II L on corner?!

There are 3 tier of RF prime, the L prime the IS prime (24/35/85) and cheap prime (16/50), I do find the 16/50 image quality is not as sharp as IS primes and L zooms.

The biggest problem is that the 24 L 1.4 II has tons of CA and wide open is quite soft, it improves at F2 and good a F2.8 but the 24-70 II is at least in my copy a tad better than the 24 II 1.4 so I don't use it a lot.... I brough for video on the 1Dx II with the 1.3x crop now in FF I use it even less.

If the RF 24 1.8 has less CA and a tad sharper than then 24 1.4 II then it will be up for sale....
The below is not really a fair comparison as is not the same camera 45mpx vs 50mpx but it seems that the RF is a tad better: 
https://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/ISO-12233-Sample-Crops.aspx?Lens=1625&Camera=1508&Sample=0&FLI=0&API=1&LensComp=480&CameraComp=979&SampleComp=0&FLIComp=0&APIComp=2

RF 50 1.8 I don't have it so is hard to comment but I tested a version of my friend and is not particularly good, one of the few RFs that I do agree is not better than EF counterpart and may even be a tad worst.

The new "affordable" wide primes relay a lot on software correction especially for barrel and vignetting thus they could optimize more sharpness and size, some people scream scandal, I don't care as the final image counts...
This also a problem if third parties reverse engineer and not officially supported as the trend is to use software to correct lens desinences....

Geometric distortion and vignetting are corrected also in RAW video, obviously CA is not.

 

[Django]

Its a little sad to see you guys argue like that, I'd expect that on dpreview forums but not here.

There is no absolute when it comes to lenses imo. We all have different goals and preferences.

I personally hate zooms, my brain just works better with primes. I'm all about that fixed focal length.

That said, I'm not shooting sports/action like gt3rs, where I gather getting the shot is the only thing that counts.

And that ties into his perspective of optically better is superior. I get that and his observations are interesting.

Again personally, none of that matters. In fact the more CA, vignetting, even softness can equate to lens character. There are also other factors like micro-contrast and 3D pop that I find are often better on primes.

Not to the extreme or for every situation though, let's not get silly but case in point being the infamous EF 50mm F1.2.

I have to chuckle when gt3rs says its "useless for photo". A good friend of mine uses that lens exclusively for photography and has his work exposed in numerous exhibits.. I'm also a big fan of that lens both for photo & video (we nickname it the Hattori Hanzō).

I understand his perspective though, it's no secret the lens is soft wide open and has a bunch of CA. again, for sports/action its probably a terrible lens choice. But for artistic purposes, that dreamy look is key. Same goes I'm sure for Canon's FD "dream" lenses and all kinds of cult vintage lenses.

So there you have it really.. zoom vs primes, modern vs vintage lens designs. There is no right/wrong choice, just whatever suits you best. No need to insult one another over their personal preferences.

Getting back to the original discussion, thinking about it some more, Canon shutting down third lens manufacturers is going to hurt the system. I guess that means no more Sirui RF too, so no more native anamorphics etc. Bad move for us customers..

[independent]

Who died? Isn’t RF still the most versatile mount, even with the recent rumors/reports? 

And I still see 3rd party lenses being released. We’ll see what exactly is going on soon enough. Maybe this financial armageddon destroys all legacy camera manufacturers anyways. 

Anyways, the ef 50 is tolerable if you don’t shoot wide open, don’t need to finish 4K+, and don’t need to match lenses. If you do need a set, keep it consistent; the older 24, 35, 50, and 85. 

If you need 6k/8k or even sharp 4K, the 35mm ii, 85mm 1.4ii and the recent zooms all can hang with the RF lenses. If you need a wide fast prime, the sigmas (20, 28) matched relatively well. The hole at 50mm? Well, we had few choices so we tried out RF and Otus. We went with the RF for our workflow—the image was nearly indistinguishable. 

At some point, the RF L line will be complete. It’ll be expensive, as will Sony’s, as these remaining camera businesses evolve towards Zeiss/Leica’s path in a diminishing market. 

 

[Andrew Reid]

On 9/2/2022 at 10:19 PM, ntblowz said:

And if you want to go Red then all ur RF will work fine on Red camera since they use RF mount as well, totally different story if you are native E mount or Z mount lens user and want to migrate Red camera.

Only the Komodo is RF, the others have swappable mounts. For instance one of the best mounts for RED is EF, so completely incompatible with RF or mirrorless lenses. That's the Motion Mount with electronic variable ND built in. So what use is RF for RED users who want to use that?

You are far better off with either EF or PL lenses for the vast majority of RED's bodies, especially the proper high-end stuff. Komodo is entry level.

[BTM_Pix]

18 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

You are far better off with either EF or PL lenses for the vast majority of RED's bodies

You could argue that you are better off with EF lenses for all mirrorless bodies too.

Canon RF and M,Fuji-X and G, Sony-E, L, MFT, Nikon Z and even Hasselblad-X mount all have credible electronic adapters for EF so if you use mixed bodies or even just to soften the blow if you do a wholesale change from one brand to another then having lenses with such universal compatibility is a real boon.

Not to mention the massive choice of 1st and 3rd party options as well as the cost benefits of the 2nd hand market.

In the case of Canon, it also immunises you from potential shithouse behaviour of firmware blocking of other adapters because, of course, they make their own EF-RF adapter so they can't block that.

For similar reasons, I would recommend anyone looking at getting the new wave of full frame cine primes and anamorphics in EF mount where possible as it gives the same option of mounting on all the above mount cameras but, crucially, the adapters will purely be physical with no electronics (you don't need that anyway as they are all manual) so can't be shut out by firmware.

The broader perspective here is if you picked up something like the 24-105mm f4 L with the 5D MarkII at the start of the "revolution" almost a decade and a half ago, then that lens will have followed you on whatever journey you've been on ever since today no matter if you flipped between cropped MFT, APS-C and now full frame on whatever brand you have chopped and changed to. 

EF lenses have survived every scorched earth "game changer" flip to a new system that we've all made and is still very much standing.

It is very much the cockroach of the lens mounts !

Or, more generously, it is the most forgiving of all lens mounts because no matter which ill advised and ultimately disastrous camera system change you've made it will always be loyally by your side every step of the way.

Hang on, it might be a fucking jinx 😉

[BTM_Pix]

The German magazine Photografix has had a statement from Canon Germany to confirm that they have requested Viltrox to cease and desist.

Full article here 

https://www.photografix-magazin.de/canon-statement-rf-objektive-dritthersteller/

The translated statement is 
—————-

SHENZHEN JUEYING TECHNOLOGY CO.LTD, manufactures autofocus lenses for Canon's RF mount under the brand name "Viltrox". Canon believes that these products infringe its patent and design rights and has therefore requested the company to cease all acts that infringe Canon's intellectual property rights."
Canon Germany
————————-

[Django]

Another strong benefit of EF lenses on RF mount is it allows speed boosting on crop sensor cameras and the Vari-ND adapters, although sadly we will only have access to the official Canon ones now I guess.

[BTM_Pix]

2 hours ago, Django said:

Another strong benefit of EF lenses on RF mount is it allows speed boosting on crop sensor cameras and the Vari-ND adapters, although sadly we will only have access to the official Canon ones now I guess.

It will be interesting to see if this also applies to the Viltrox speed boosters and if so will Canon go after Metabones with the same vigour.

It could well be that the contention here from Canon is more related to alleged theft/cloning by Viltrox than it is about reverse engineering.

[Avenger 2.0]

3 hours ago, BTM_Pix said:

It will be interesting to see if this also applies to the Viltrox speed boosters and if so will Canon go after Metabones with the same vigour.

It could well be that the contention here from Canon is more related to alleged theft/cloning by Viltrox than it is about reverse engineering.

Since the Metabones is more expensive then the Canon one, I doubt it. The Viltrox speedbooster has already been pulled from their site.

 

[BTM_Pix]

1 hour ago, Avenger 2.0 said:

Since the Metabones is more expensive then the Canon one, I doubt it. The Viltrox speedbooster has already been pulled from their site.

 

The regular Metabones version is actually 20% cheaper than the Canon one.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/compare/Metabones_T_Speed_Booster_Ultra_0.71x_Adapter_for_Canon_Full-Frame_EF-Mount_Lens_to_Canon_RF-Mount_Camera_vs_Canon_Mount_Adapter_EF-EOS_R_0.71x/BHitems/1526307-REG_1595393-REG

The Cine version with the locking mount is $20 cheaper than the regular Canon one too and Canon has no comparable version.

On that basis, if I was in the market for an EF>RF converter, then I think Metabones has them beat on price for both (significantly so on the regular one) and beat on a significant feature on the Cine version, which would make them a threat to Canon's sales of their own adapters?

If anything, the near decade long history of the Metabones Speedboosters would also take away any issues of "brand respectability" versus Viltrox so would make them even more of a threat in my view.

On the product page, Metabones state "Disclaimer: we are NOT licensed, approved or endorsed by Canon." so we can rule out that being a difference too. 

Its almost like Canon have granted an exclusive license to use RF products to a company with a very long track record of litigious actions isn't it ?

So perhaps Metabones are going to be treated the same but they just haven't opened the letter from Canon yet 🙂

 

 

[Ty Harper]

Any idea whether this is aimed specifically at Vitrox? Will companies like Meike and Kolari be impacted too? They both make better and cheaper EF-RF VND filter/adapters but I don't have the $$ to pick one up just yet.

[hoodlum]

While Nikon is licensing their mount, it looks like they are charging a large fee based on the difference in pricing for Tamron lenses between Nikon and Sony.  This will not bode well for both Nikon and Canon. 
 

https://www.zsystemuser.com/nikon-z-system-news-and/the-z-mount-tax.html

[BTM_Pix]

7 minutes ago, Ty Harper said:

Any idea whether this is aimed specifically at Vitrox?

It could be because Viltrox are the only one that have acquiesced and gone public about it or that they were first on the list and the others will follow.

If it is aimed solely at Viltrox then it could be that Canon consider that actual wrongdoing has happened in terms of the acquisition of the protocol and/or lens design.

10 minutes ago, Ty Harper said:

They both make better and cheaper EF-RF VND filter/adapters but I don't have the $$ to pick one up just yet.

Its a tough call because on the one hand the temptation to buy them before they disappear (BH already show the Viltrox as discontinued) but on the other hand they might well be rendered useless by a future firmware update.

I suppose it comes down to whether you have a Canon camera with a settled/finished firmware version so you don't have to upgrade to a future firmware that potentially could contain a countermeasure.

 

[Eric Calabros]

16 minutes ago, hoodlum said:

While Nikon is licensing their mount, it looks like they are charging a large fee based on the difference in pricing for Tamron lenses between Nikon and Sony.  This will not bode well for both Nikon and Canon

Initial price+inflation 

[markr041]

Doesn't the Canon Speedbooster have a blue dot problem?

Anyway, given the above and the enormous price differential between the Canon and Viltrox Speedboosters, I bought the Viltrox just before it was banned.

I shot this 4K HDR test video in the dark using the Canon EF 35mm f2.0 lens, now becoming an f1.4 lens:

 

[Kisaha]

On 9/3/2022 at 12:31 AM, ntblowz said:

 

(The "quote" above is irrelevant).

The Canon vND is terrible and very expensive. I bought the Meike one.

The speed booster got mixed reviews and very expensive. I got the Viltrox one.

These 2 adaptors are the biggest benefit of me adopting RF at the moment.

I will be very reluctant with future upgrades..

[Ty Harper]

5 hours ago, BTM_Pix said:

I suppose it comes down to whether you have a Canon camera with a settled/finished firmware version so you don't have to upgrade to a future firmware that potentially could contain a countermeasure.

I just bought an R5C and considering the battery life issues I guess that will basically be a no... although come to think of it these adapter/filters are strictly mechanical things no? So there wouldn't be anything firmware related that would affect them... I hope!