Interview With Sigma CEO, Company Might Make Native Lenses For Canon EOS R

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Imaging Resource had the chance to interview Sigma’s CEO Kazuto Yamaki during the CP+ tradeshow in Tokyo.

While most of the interview is about the “L-Mount Alliance“, there are also some bits about the competition. Some excerpts:

IR: I don’t know if this is information you can share or not, but we’re curious because you make lenses that fit a number of manufacturers: Can you share any information about the sales of different mounts? Do you sell a lot more Canon than Nikon, or vice versa, or…?

Kazuto Yamaki: I can’t tell you the exact numbers, but the most popular right now is Canon, and next is Nikon. Sony E-mount is growing.

[…]

IR: I have another question: Have there been any plans to make lenses in Canon RF or the Nikon Z-mount?

Kazuto Yamaki: We are still checking their systems, and it’s a bit too early to make comment. But right now, we’re checking the compatibility between our lenses and their mount adapter. We already know that it works almost perfectly, but in some specific settings and [for some] operations, our lens does not work perfectly [with their adapter yet], like continuous burst mode…

Read the interview at Imaging Resource

The Lens “Holy Trinity” for Canon EOS R Might be Released In July 2019

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While we are now rather confident that Canon will announce the RF 85mm f/1.2L lens on May 9, 2019, there is a new rumor about more lenses for the EOS R system.

Canon might release what is commonly called the “Holy Trinity” of lenses (because of the focal lengths and f/2.8, which are more or less standard on a full frame system), i.e. the RF 15-35mm f/2.8L IS, RF 24-70mm f/2.8L IS and RF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS, before the end of July 2019.

Canon already announced the development of these and other lenses.

Stay tuned.

Source: Canon Rumors

In Japan the Sony a7 III Outsells All Competitors Put Together

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Latest BCN retail data shows an interesting picture of the full frame mirrorless market in Japan.

If you have a look at the image on top, you’ll see that the Canon EOS RP had a very good start when it was launched, and then started to sell less. The graph also shows that in Japan the Sony a7 III sells better than all its competitor put together. In other words, in April 2019 there were more Sony a7 III sold than the sum of sold Canon EOS R, Canon EOS RP and Nikon Z6 cameras.

Still, professional photographers and news photographer prefer Canon and Nikon cameras. Apparently, even Leica doesn’t mind using pictures shot with a Nikon.

Canon EOS R Banding Issue Seems Solved By Latest Firmware Update

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Some Canon EOS R users have reportedly experienced banding issues with their new camera.

Michael The Maven discovered that artefacts appear as banding in RAW files when lifting shadows. After Canon release firmware ver. 1.2.0 for the EOS R, Michael tested again and compared firmware ver. 1.1.0 vs firmware 1.2.0., and found that the banding issue was gone.

Most user will likely never have an issue with banding but we recommend you update your EOS R asap.

Canon EOS R:

America: B&H Photo, Adorama, Amazon USA, Amazon Canada, Canon Canada, Canon USA
Europe & UK: Amazon DE, Amazon UK, Amazon IT, Canon IT, WEX Photographic, Canon FR, Canon UK, Canon DE

Next Canon Announcement in May For RF 85mm f/1.2L Lens (EOS R System)

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We were told Canon would make a camera related announcement at the end of April. It seems our source got the date wrong. And while being “camera related” it is not about a new camera.

The Canon announcement we were reporting doesn’t concerns a new Powershot or new EOS M camera. It is for the Canon RF 85mm f/1.2L USM lens for the EOS R system. At the time of writing we do not know if the version with “Defocus Smoothing” will be announced or the versions without it.

We expect Canon to announce the RF 85mm f/1.2L lens around May 9.

Tamron Confirms Lenses For Canon EOS R and Nikon Z Systems Are Coming

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In a recent interview with DPReview, Tamron execs confirmed the company will release lenses for Canon’s and Nikon’s full frame mirrorless systems.

Question: Do you have plans to create lenses for Canon RF and Nikon Z?

Answer: Yes, we’re also looking at that area. We have to do a lot of research and development into the reverse engineering, because they don’t disclose the details of their systems, so it’s a really hard job for us.

One size fits all?

Question: There are now four main full-frame mirrorless systems with different mount dimensions. Will you make completely different designs for the different mounts?

Answer: Each system has a different flange back distance and diameter. We need to do more research to see if we can use the same optical designs for the different mounts. But basically our approach will be the same as it is for DSLR. When we launch DSLR lenses we have the same optical design, and we customize for the different mounts. Even if the systems are totally different we’ll try to make a unified optical design.

If we design optics for a long flange back, we can adapt them for short flange back systems. It doesn’t work the other way around.

What about APS-C vs full frame sensors?

APS-C is still important to us, but when we think about the [industry], the full-frame market is expanding, so we’re looking at that market first – that’s the first priority. So gradually we’ll create a [full-frame] line and then at another time we can launch more APS-C lenses. The APS-C market is shrinking quite fast.

[via DPReview]