Re: First licensed(?) 3rd party Canon RF lens(es?) to be announced at CP+ Feb. 23
Deathchant wrote:
By the way, is there any reason why 3rd parties always seem to stop at 135mm and almost never produce primes like a 200/2.8, or 300/4? Canon has a 200/2.8L (which is in deseperate need for a mark II upgrade by the way), but Zeiss' longest prime, at least for Canon EF mount, was 135mm
My guess is the majority of the market for such lenses wants autofocus. A high performance, relatively expensive, moderately fast manual focus telephoto would be a very niche product. Another factor could be that most efforts at these focal lengths are being put into zoom lenses with optical performance at a comparable level. Or at least close enough for the price point, with the additional features/benefits of a zoom. I think it's a reason you see a number of mid-price range zooms topping out at 400-500-600mm and not so many topping out at 200-300, other than the requisite 70-200/2.8 style, or as 'kit' zooms at the lower end of the price/performance range.
A possible advantage for moderately fast manual focus lenses is that they can be a lot smaller than AF counterparts (for example some from Voigtlander, but not necessarily Zeiss's Milvus and the Classic line that preceded it). This seems to hold up mostly in the wide to short tele range. However, Sigma's "i" series is impressively compact with AF. Once you're at 135mm and longer, there's less size difference compared to AF options. And AF conveniences are very compelling with telephoto lenses.
But if there is a company that seems to like niches, it's Cosina. There's hope they'll eventually reintroduce a 180 APO. I'd prefer a compact f/4. But for me it would be a difficult choice between it and Canon's RF 70-200/4. The zoom would give me a broader use envelope and would probably be optically close enough.
My feeling is that at least as far as Canon is concerned, the 200mm+ moderate speed prime market has been replaced by zooms. The 600/11 and 800/11 are obvious exceptions, but those make more sense as primes to achieve the desired price point. I'd like to see Canon put DO and other size reducing features into moderate speed 200, 300 and 400 primes, but with high optical performance.
Feb 20, 2023 at 09:36 AM
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