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Archive 2023 · New Canon RF L Primes - 14, 20, 24, 35

PhilH
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · New Canon RF L Primes - 14, 20, 24, 35

So. Canon just announced their new native RF Mount CN-R Primes.

https://www.newsshooter.com/2023/09/12/canon-cn-r-rf-mount-cine-primes-announced/

Light history for those who aren't on the motion side of things. Canon released their CN-E Primes long ago based on the EF L-Series counterparts. They were optically identically.

Fast forward to now, it looks like the new CN-R lineup is:
- 14mm T3.1
- 20mm T1.5
- 24mm T1.5
- 35mm T1.5
- 50mm T1.3
- 85mm T1.3
- 135mm T2.2

Now the fun part. Currently in RF mount the 50 f/1.2, 85 f/1.2, and 135mm f/1.8 exist.

This to me means we likely will be seeing these primes on a near release:
- 14mm f/2.8
- 20mm f/1.4
- 24mm f/1.4
- 35mm f/1.4

The variance between T-Stop and f/stop is my educated guess, but that's very likely it. For me the moderate lesser smile on my face is the 35mm f/1.4 not being an f/1.2, not a huge deal. But I didn't see the 20mm f/1.4 coming and that will be very useful for astro peoples.

This is the first time Canon has announced more motion-centric glass ahead of still models. Sigma did similar partially through the way of the Sigma Cine releases, which are based on the Art primes.

There's no way of knowing if they plan on releasing the still versions of these, but I can't fathom why they wouldn't.

Anyways. This is good news for prime shooters and I'm very curious to see the quality and character of these new new lenses. The 50, 85, and 135 are absolutely stellar. Between Zeiss Otus and Sigma Art, Canon is right in there if not moreso in some categories. I'm hoping for both the still and motion versions they are reaching high in terms of IQ and ideally a beautiful rendering.

Sep 12, 2023 at 08:28 AM

action99
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · New Canon RF L Primes - 14, 20, 24, 35

Imo they are all simply CN-E primes rehoused with the integrated RF adapter.

As the 135 should be T2.0 if taken from the RF 135 1.8.

"Canon will offer their first modern cine lens series, the original CN-E EF-mount cine primes with native RF-mounts and the resulting name CN-R. The focal lengths and T-stops remain the same, but the native RF mount will allow communication between the RF lenses and cameras without the need for a lens adapter."

Sep 12, 2023 at 10:38 AM

comotionfilms
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · New Canon RF L Primes - 14, 20, 24, 35

Seems to be a lot of debate in the article’s comment regarding wether these are new rf lenses or just the old ones with RF mount built in. That said, Phil knows his stuff when it comes to motion lenses, so this isn’t the writings of a random poster. Also, the lengthy time between announcement and release date makes me wonder why it would take so long if it was just the old design with a new mount.

Sep 12, 2023 at 12:57 PM

steamtrain
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · New Canon RF L Primes - 14, 20, 24, 35

PhilH wrote:
This to me means we likely will be seeing these primes on a near release:
- 14mm f/2.8
- 20mm f/1.4
- 24mm f/1.4
- 35mm f/1.4

Well, that's in line with Canon historically refusing to provide us a decent 50mm f/1.4 like the Sony FE 50mm f/1.4 GM, so in that regard this prediction can't be anything but the absolute truth. All Canon did until now was providing an FD design dating back to the seventies ported over to the EF mount, so the last 50mm f/1.4 design from Canon is from more than half a century ago.

And that's where we still are today. It's either an el cheapo double gauss stm lens or a 950 grams f/1.2 behemoth...... or an adapted lens which optical design dates from 2 mounts and half a century ago.

How hard can it be? All it takes to make that RF-lens line up complete is a 500ish grams 50mm f/1.4 (IS) überUSM, just like that FE 50mm f/1.4 GM. You know, a 50mm that COMBINES the walk around purpose with the portrait purpose. Not everybody wants a behemoth or an el cheapo stm lens.

Sep 12, 2023 at 03:48 PM

rscheffler
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · New Canon RF L Primes - 14, 20, 24, 35

^ Yes, a modern, compact, high performance 50/1.4 would be extremely welcome! Would love to see Canon fill the massive price gap between the STM and L options.

PhilH wrote:
For me the moderate lesser smile on my face is the 35mm f/1.4 not being an f/1.2, not a huge deal. But I didn't see the 20mm f/1.4 coming and that will be very useful for astro peoples.

Is f/1.2 vs. f/1.4 really going to make a significant difference for anything? And the Sigma 35/1.2 mirrorless design is simply huge. How much more useful would it be for low light work? Sensors are already so good, it would only buy 1/3 of a stop (or maybe half a stop depending on how one measures these things). Bokeh won't be much 'better' in respect to how large the blur circles are compared to f/1.4. What I'd care more about is how Canon designs a possible RF 35/1.4's rendering characteristics rather than how much it blurs the background. I'd love to see considerably minimized cats-eyes towards the periphery and non-jittery rendering with subjects that are ~2m away with reasonable but not extreme background separation.

My disappointment is more that there might not be a 28/1.4. That said, I'm already super happy with the 28-70 at 28mm and f/2, so might just skip it, if it every materializes.

Sep 12, 2023 at 04:24 PM

comotionfilms
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · New Canon RF L Primes - 14, 20, 24, 35

steamtrain wrote:
Well, that's in line with Canon historically refusing to provide us a decent 50mm f/1.4 like the Sony FE 50mm f/1.4 GM, so in that regard this prediction can't be anything but the absolute truth. All Canon did until now was providing an FD design dating back to the seventies ported over to the EF mount, so the last 50mm f/1.4 design from Canon is from more than half a century ago.

And that's where we still are today. It's either an el cheapo double gauss stm lens or a 950 grams f/1.2 behemoth...... or an adapted lens which optical...Show more →

They aren’t going to use a 50 1.4 as their base lens for their Cine line, so I wouldn’t look to much into this regarding a future 50 1.4.

Sep 12, 2023 at 05:55 PM

exdeejjjaaaa
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · New Canon RF L Primes - 14, 20, 24, 35

comotionfilms wrote:
Seems to be a lot of debate in the article’s comment regarding wether these are new rf lenses or just the old ones with RF mount built in. That said, Phil knows his stuff when it comes to motion lenses, so this isn’t the writings of a random poster. Also, the lengthy time between announcement and release date makes me wonder why it would take so long if it was just the old design with a new mount.

clearly optical schema in new CN 85 is different from RF85/1.2... same goes for new CN135 vs RF135/1.8 ... just use RF mount diameter as a reference and compare then distance from mount flange to the front element

Sep 12, 2023 at 06:38 PM

rscheffler
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · New Canon RF L Primes - 14, 20, 24, 35

The funny thing is in the brief search I made, it seems Canon does not generally publish optical formula info for their cine lenses, not even number of groups and elements, making it difficult to compare the new CN-R against the old CN-E.

A lot of the comments to the newshooter article seem to believe the CN-R lenses are optically the same as the CN-E with just a permanently mounted RF base.

For example:

If this is the case, like what Canon did with the RF 400/2.8 and 600/4, then there's nothing to get excited about in respect to this foreshadowing RF stills primes in the near future.

Sep 12, 2023 at 09:55 PM

PhilH
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · New Canon RF L Primes - 14, 20, 24, 35

Interesting. If these are indeed based on the CN-E and older EF-L glass, then this would be a huge miss. Like by 1000 miles. I'll actually ask Canon tomorrow for some clarity here.

Sep 12, 2023 at 11:05 PM

IlyaSnopchenko
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · New Canon RF L Primes - 14, 20, 24, 35

Kind of like the RF supertele primes or the first generation Sigma primes for E mount, right. But interestingly enough, there's never been a Canon 20/1.4 lens that could be the "stills" counterpart for the 20 T1.5, and there still isn't. :-)

Sep 13, 2023 at 12:46 AM

action99
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · New Canon RF L Primes - 14, 20, 24, 35

Not sure why people would think that they are RF rehoused.
They are the same spec as the CN-E counterpart same size (+ adapter) same weight (+adapter).

EF 50 1.2 580g -> CN-E 50 1100g
RF 50 1.2 950g -> CN-R 50 1200g (is almost impossible to stay in this weight in that heavy cine case)
Canon RF 135 1.8 rehoused would be T2 or T2.1 max... different from the CN-E 135 T2.2

Sep 13, 2023 at 04:09 AM

PhilH
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · New Canon RF L Primes - 14, 20, 24, 35

Whelp. I have confirmed with Canon that this is the same glass found in the CN-E primes with a new mount adapter w/ electronics for RF.

I would hope, down the line when possible, they examine doing this with the actual new and rather excellent RF L Series primes.

On the positive side, perhaps it will be a 35mm f/1.2L RF. Again, not a big deal if it's f/1.4 either. We just have this shorter flange distance that could be used for it's advantages.

Sep 13, 2023 at 06:24 PM

EB-1
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · New Canon RF L Primes - 14, 20, 24, 35

rscheffler wrote:
The funny thing is in the brief search I made, it seems Canon does not generally publish optical formula info for their cine lenses, not even number of groups and elements, making it difficult to compare the new CN-R against the old CN-E.

A lot of the comments to the newshooter article seem to believe the CN-R lenses are optically the same as the CN-E with just a permanently mounted RF base.

If this is the case, like what Canon did with the RF 400/2.8 and 600/4, then there's nothing to get excited about in respect to this foreshadowing RF stills...Show more →

It's not the same though I'm sure some were hoping for new designs. 11-12 years is a long time, but the RF 400/2.8 and RF 600/4 arrived a scant 3 years after the latest EF lenses, so a whole new design would not have been feasible or else they would have to wait a few years with people complaining about adapters and TCs in the interim.

EBH

Sep 13, 2023 at 08:14 PM

action99
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · New Canon RF L Primes - 14, 20, 24, 35

The real miss imo is that they did not add AF motors. With all the RF cinema cameras and REDs RF having AF is a big oversight.

Sep 14, 2023 at 03:13 AM

bridow
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · New Canon RF L Primes - 14, 20, 24, 35

The Sony 20mm 1.8 is pretty amazing. A Canon 20mm 1.4L would be a photojournalist's dream lens.

Sep 20, 2023 at 11:20 AM


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