Canon RF-S 11-22mm f/4.5-5.6 IS STM coming first half of 2023

Dragon said:

The FD 800L is even heavier than my EF 800L and I don't think it will be any sharper than the RF800 f/11 and maybe just about match it after you stop the FD down to f/11 . Trust me, using an 800mm without stabilization is very challenging. You need a really good tripod and NO wind to get decent results. One of the big features on the EF 800L is that the IS is tripod sensing and continues to work correctly on a tripod. I haven't tried the RF 800 f/11 on a tripod to see if it has that feature, but I have seen no claim that it does. OTOH, it works so well handheld that I have never seen the need for a tripod. For astro, you would turn off the IS in most cases, but for terrestrial shots, it is awesome. I did look at an FD 800L before I bought the EF 800, but that was before Canon mirrorless and FD to EF has the same -2mm flange distance problem that M to R has so I passed. Also good to remember that there is no sensible way to get one of the big FD lenses repaired as all repair parts are long gone at Canon. That makes the investment less attractive.

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Very true about a 30+ year old FD lens. I probably will end up with the RF 800 f/11 eventually, I just want to look at alternatives. I have a 10" f/4.7 telescope (1200mm FL), but it's a dobsonian mount and the tube is too big for an equatorial mount, at least any mount that I would want to buy and lug around. I've thought about something like a 5" Celestron Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope (1250mm f/10), but I've had SCT's before and they need frequent collimation adjustment, and it's a constant struggle to keep dew from forming on the front corrector.

mdcmdcmdc said:

True on all counts. In fact, resolution or pixel density aren't true figures of merit because you'll rarely get features in your images whose boundaries align exactly with the pixel boundaries on the sensor.

I wish there was a straightforward way to quantify pixel density because I fell "crop factor" is an anachronism. Twenty years ago, when APS-C DSLRs became popular and most people viewed photos as 4x6" minilab prints, crop factor made some sense. But given that most high-end APS-C shooters do a lot of cropping in post anyway, it's less relevant. But mathematically, crop factor is easy. Just multiply by 1.6 (for Canon). Pixel density is a little more complicated.

In my experience, diffraction is often worried about more than it really needs to be. Yes, it's real, it can be calculated (I've done it), it can be measured, and sharp-eyed observers might be able to spot in an image viewed at 100% on a monitor. But in my experience, using the R7 at the f/8 to f/11 where I normally shoot, I've never felt limited by it. I'm not talking about f/22, but people on various forums who say the R7 can't be used at slower than f/5 in my opinion haven't tried.

I look forward to a day when diffraction limits me with the R7 at f/11, and not my own handling of the camera.

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Yes, you can get some very detailed results with the R7 and either the 800 f/11 or the 600 f/11. OTOH, when the R7 is at its absolute highest resolution, it is stunning https://www.the-digital-picture.com...eraComp=1619&SampleComp=0&FLIComp=0&APIComp=4 That RF 85L f/1.2 is scary sharp even wide open. I don't do many people shots, so 85 is not a FL that I use a lot and I have a perfectly good EF 85 f/1.8, but that RF 85 is tempting. In the end, pixel density is just one factor in system MTF. The higher the pixel density, the less the sensor contributes to the degradation of the overall system performance. Lens MTF, focus accuracy, air quality, system stability, and depth of field (i.e. f/FL) all contribute to the ability of a camera system to produce a "sharp" image. When you get all those things tuned up to the max for what you arre shooting, then, finally differences in pixel density are noticeable .

mdcmdcmdc said:

Very true about a 30+ year old FD lens. I probably will end up with the RF 800 f/11 eventually, I just want to look at alternatives. I have a 10" f/4.7 telescope (1200mm FL), but it's a dobsonian mount and the tube is too big for an equatorial mount, at least any mount that I would want to buy and lug around. I've thought about something like a 5" Celestron Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope (1250mm f/10), but I've had SCT's before and they need frequent collimation adjustment, and it's a constant struggle to keep dew from forming on the front corrector.

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I have several shelves loaded with old FD, Minolta MD, and Nikon F lenses and I love to experiment with them, but none were expensive enough to make me cry if they quit and I have the tools to repair at least the simpler ones. I just drew the line on the 800 FD as I think the owner wanted about $1500 at the time. I have a friend with an 8" Celestron Schmitt and the EF 800L seems to outperform it by a pretty good margin, and yes, he is always fussing with collimation. The Schmitts can be very good if everything is tuned up and better with correction lenses (e..g Celestron Edge line), but if is a big word in this context. I have several older Mirror lenses (Canon FD 500mm, Minolta MD 500mm, Sigma 600mm, Nikon 500mm, and Nikon 1000mm). They are a blast to experiment with, but the 800L will smoke them all looking through samples, I would say the RF 800 f/11 does also. The Nikon 1000mm comes the closest, but it still needs a lot of sharpening to get close to the refractors and then you have the challenge of actually taking the shot. The Mirrors need a stable platform (most tripods are marginal) and then focus (particularly on long distance) is VERY touchy and hard to optimize, whereas with the 800 f/11, the same shot can be handheld and taken in a couple of seconds. I think the biggest challenge with mirrors is accurate focus. It is very hard to determine (even with focus peaking) just where the optimum point is. I believe that is because the secondary mirror effectively blocks the center (and therefore the peak) of the airy disc, so when focusing, you are actually looking at bunch of tiny doughnuts rather than something that looks like a gaussian curve. This means the focus adjustment has a flat spot on top rather than a peak. It also means that the depth of field is very shallow because you don't have the advantage of that peak to broaden the DOF. Here are a few comparison shots. Note that this pole is about a mile away and much of the time is heavily distorted by thermals. These shots were taken at different times and even different years, but the seeing conditions were pretty good in each case. The time-of-day differences make direct comparison more difficult, but you can get the idea. The R5 likes the big Nikon Mirror better than any other body I have tried it on but it is still a bear to focus and this shot was with a 10 second delay to let the tripod settle down and probably the sharpest shot I have ever taken with that lens. The 800L was on a tripod with the stabilizer on and shot with an SL-2 (200D) by simply hitting the shutter button. The 800 f/11 shot was with an R7 handheld (leaning against a post) and the easiest to set up by a mile. All the shots are quite usable with a little post work, but you can see that the RF 800 does not lose the contest by any means, particularly considering it was shot with the high res R7, but that is offset by the 1.4 TC as opposed to 2x (I don't have an RF 2x converter). All shots are 100% crops.



Nikon 1000mm Mirror with 2x TC (f/22) and R5.


EF 800 f/5.6L with 2x TC (at f/14) and SL2


RF 800 f/11 with 1.4x TC (f/16) and R7

Dragon said:

I think the biggest challenge with mirrors is accurate focus. It is very hard to determine (even with focus peaking) just where the optimum point is. I believe that is because the secondary mirror effectively blocks the center (and therefore the peak) of the airy disc, so when focusing, you are actually looking at bunch of tiny doughnuts rather than something that looks like a gaussian curve. This means the focus adjustment has a flat spot on top rather than a peak.

View attachment 207078

Nikon 1000mm Mirror with 2x TC (f/22) and R5.
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EF 800 f/5.6L with 2x TC (at f/14) and SL2

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RF 800 f/11 with 1.4x TC (f/16) and R7

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I don't understand your argument about the Airy disk. Do you have a link to where it is explained or are you just surmising?

Canon is doing everything to kill it\'s EF-M system. Their M-series cameras are wonderful for travelling in terms of portability (small and lightweight bodies/lenses) and they are very capable cameras. This small 11-22 lens will be ridiculously looking small on much larger R10 or R7 than on M50 or M6. Canon is making a lot of mistakes in last years. From locking their RF system to 3rd party lens manufacturers to recycling their old lenses to new mounts. Sorry Canon, you do not deserve anymore to be No.1 in terms of sales.

depth said:

Canon is doing everything to kill it\'s EF-M system. Their M-series cameras are wonderful for travelling in terms of portability (small and lightweight bodies/lenses) and they are very capable cameras. This small 11-22 lens will be ridiculously looking small on much larger R10 or R7 than on M50 or M6. Canon is making a lot of mistakes in last years. From locking their RF system to 3rd party lens manufacturers to recycling their old lenses to new mounts. Sorry Canon, you do not deserve anymore to be No.1 in terms of sales.

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Canon is a business, and an extremely successful one. Although many of us would like to have the option of Tamron/Sigma RF glass, Canon will make far more money by restricting the mount and selling their own glass. What's wrong with buying EF mount glass anyway? It works absolutely perfectly via the Canon adaptor, and you can buy a mint used EF lens for about the same price that you'd have to pay for a new Sigma or Tamron.

I do tend to agree about the M system, it's a great design, but the difference in size/weight isn't as dramatic as you imply. If you have an M, and like it, just keep it and enjoy it. No one is forcing you to buy an APS-C.

depth said:

Sorry Canon, you do not deserve anymore to be No.1 in terms of sales.

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Deserve it or not, they have been for two decades and it does not look like that will be changing anytime soon.

mdcmdcmdc said:

Even if it wasn't a single exposure, so what? That's what HDR is.

Similar to what @Dragon said, the lunar eclipse image I posted a couple of pages back was a single exposure, but I used a mask in LR to tone down the brightness of the non-totally eclipsed limb. I was really surprised by how much detail became visible on that part. Kudos to the R7 sensor!

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I wasn't criticising it, it's just handy for people to know how images are created. I'm a big fan of computational imaging, and most astrophotography requires it, but I think transparency around the process is valuable.

(Edit: and in this case it meant I learned the DR of the R5 provides opportunities in single exposures that may have required multiple ones with older equipment)

AlanF said:

I don't understand your argument about the Airy disk. Do you have a link to where it is explained or are you just surmising?

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It's not that it has a mirror but that it has a central obstruction which spreads light from the central peak of the airy disk to the outer rings. But the reality of such a comparison is far more complicated. See telescopeOptic.net chapter 7. See for example the concluding remarks at the end of: https://telescope-optics.net/telescope_central_obstruction.htm

This small 11-22 lens will be ridiculously looking small on much larger R10 or R7 than on M50 or M6.

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I have to say I've never understood why people gripe about how a camera looks as if that's a fatal flaw. (Obviously, from a marketing standpoint ugly gear won't sell as well, all other things being equal.) It's not as if you're taking pictures of the camera; you're taking them with the camera.

AlanF said:

I don't understand your argument about the Airy disk. Do you have a link to where it is explained or are you just surmising?

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That was based on an article I read and may not be quite correct. If you scroll down to the section on "obstructed airy disk" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airy_disk , you will find the equations and the description that the central point gets smaller and there is more energy in the diffraction rings which still has the effect of flattening the focus control, and once you are ever so slightly off peak focus you have to deal with doughnuts that behave much as I described. A simpler way to describe the focus challenge with Mirrors is to say that the low contrast makes it hard to find the peak focus point. BTW, I don't think anyone who has used mirror lenses will even suggest that mirrors have as much DOF as refractors at the same aperture and FL. From an image perspective, I find the doughnuts kind of fun, but accurate focus is tricky, particularly without stabilization.

depth said:

Canon is doing everything to kill it\'s EF-M system. Their M-series cameras are wonderful for travelling in terms of portability (small and lightweight bodies/lenses) and they are very capable cameras. This small 11-22 lens will be ridiculously looking small on much larger R10 or R7 than on M50 or M6. Canon is making a lot of mistakes in last years. From locking their RF system to 3rd party lens manufacturers to recycling their old lenses to new mounts. Sorry Canon, you do not deserve anymore to be No.1 in terms of sales.

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It looks like R8 may indeed be what we expected to have with R100. Lets hope for 22f2.0 soon

depth said:

Canon is doing everything to kill it\'s EF-M system. Their M-series cameras are wonderful for travelling in terms of portability (small and lightweight bodies/lenses) and they are very capable cameras. This small 11-22 lens will be ridiculously looking small on much larger R10 or R7 than on M50 or M6. Canon is making a lot of mistakes in last years. From locking their RF system to 3rd party lens manufacturers to recycling their old lenses to new mounts. Sorry Canon, you do not deserve anymore to be No.1 in terms of sales.

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The R10 is not the smallest R that can be made, but it is not all that much bigger than the M50. It is 6mm wider, a tiny bit shorter, and on paper looks deeper, but that is mostly due to the deeper grip and extended eyepiece. When you put a lens on it, it is pretty close to the same. https://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Camera-Product-Images.aspx?Camera=1523&CameraComp=1620 I was very fond of the M5 but gave to a granddaughter and got an M6 II. I have all the M series lenses and the M6 is still my preferred ultra-portable kit, but an R10 with similar lenses (and they will come) wouldn't be that much bigger. OTOH, the R7 is in a whole different league and needs to be bigger to support the long lenses that will get attached to it. The R7 and both the 600 f/11 and the 800 f/11 make an amazing combination for all sorts of wildlife work. The big downside of the M cameras is that they just aren't big enough, nor do they have enough grip to support lenses much bigger than those little M lenses. Another catch is that the small battery used to keep the M bodies small will not support the feature set of the R7, so there was no way to build a tiny equivalent M7 and have any meaningful battery life and I love the R7.

Dragon said:

That was based on an article I read and may not be quite correct. If you scroll down to the section on "obstructed airy disk" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airy_disk , you will find the equations and the description that the central point gets smaller and there is more energy in the diffraction rings which still has the effect of flattening the focus control, and once you are ever so slightly off peak focus you have to deal with doughnuts that behave much as I described.

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Thanks for the link and also that from @RaPhoto. My thoughts were that the physics behind this is that the diffraction is caused by light from the the circumference of the outer circle of the lens or mirror. For a lens or mirror that doesn't have an obstruction, you have the standard Airy disk with radius proportional to the f-number. If you have have a circular obstruction in the centre, that will produce another Airy disk from the circumference around the obstruction. Its Airy disk will have a larger radius because the f-number is larger. The intensity will also be smaller because the circumference is shorter and less light is diffracted. So there will be a less intense Airy disk superposed on the major pattern, and I didn't understand how this would affect the AF.

I would prefer to see something faster with wider range, like RF-S equivalent of EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM (I loved it with 350D), but looks like Canon is all about portability now.

SteveC said:

I have to say I've never understood why people gripe about how a camera looks as if that's a fatal flaw. (Obviously, from a marketing standpoint ugly gear won't sell as well, all other things being equal.) It's not as if you're taking pictures of the camera; you're taking them with the camera.

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Because if the camera works really well, than you have to find other things to gripe about here on Camera Whiners.

depth said:

... Canon is making a lot of mistakes in last years. From locking their RF system to 3rd party lens manufacturers to recycling their old lenses to new mounts. Sorry Canon, you do not deserve anymore to be No.1 in terms of sales.

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If I am wrong, someone please correct me, but the issue of 3rd party lenses seems to be misunderstood probably due to misinformation, whether intentional or otherwise, but so far, Canon has told only those lens makers who violated their patents to stop making AF lenses. I don't think there has been any mention from Canon that they won't negotiate license agreements with 3rd party lens makers at some time in the future. They may well follow the lead of Nikon, who in the past year negotiated such an agreement with Tamron and is rumored to be in negotiations with Sigma. We just don't know if Canon plans to do the same. So we can't say for sure (and I personally doubt that they will) that they are locking out 3rd party lens makers. It seems likely, given that Nikon is doing so, that Canon will do so as well when they feel that they have built up their own lens lineup sufficiently.

AlanF said:

Thanks for the link and also that from @RaPhoto. My thoughts were that the physics behind this is that the diffraction is caused by light from the the circumference of the outer circle of the lens or mirror. For a lens or mirror that doesn't have an obstruction, you have the standard Airy disk with radius proportional to the f-number. If you have have a circular obstruction in the centre, that will produce another Airy disk from the circumference around the obstruction. Its Airy disk will have a larger radius because the f-number is larger. The intensity will also be smaller because the circumference is shorter and less light is diffracted. So there will be a less intense Airy disk superposed on the major pattern, and I didn't understand how this would affect the AF.

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Here is an old article that among other things describes the MTF alteration due to the central obstruction in Mirror lenses https://www.bobatkins.com/photography/tutorials/mirror.html . I have a copy of the mentioned Tamron (actually a slightly later version that does have a tripod mount), and it performs very similarly to the Canon 500, the Nikon 500, and the Minolta 500. The Sigma 600 is the washout. I bought one and was disappointed, so I picked up a second to see if I had a bad copy. The second copy was not an improvement. The Tamron has the notable feature of close focus (down to about 5 ft) making it almost a macro lens (the rest are more like 15-20 ft with the Nikon being the worst in that regard). I wasn't able to find any charts that show the OOF behavior of the PSF with a central obstruction, but here a couple of shots that make what is happening pretty obvious. The first is from a Canon FD 500mm f/8 mirror lens. The second is from a Canon FD 200mm f/4 normal lens wide open. The scene is similar (different flower, same fence). As you can see, when the standard lens goes out of focus, the fence wires blur, but they are still brightest in the center (the green lines are LOCA). With the Mirror, the edges brighten and center darkens, reflecting the double peak in the PSF as lens goes out of focus (a bright point first flattens and then turns into a doughnut). This does seem to make finding the peak focus more difficult and is aggravated at long distances by the very sensitive focus behavior near infinity on all mirror lenses that I have encountered (I can't speak to telescopes as I don't have any). Note that I am talking about manual focus here since the only AF mirror ever made was a Sony A-mount version of the Minolta Mirror and it wasn't around for very long and AFAIK the A-mount cameras at the time were all contrast detect AF. I can't say for sure, but I strongly suspect that the double peak would be very confusing to a PDAF system. It would be interesting to know if someone has tried bolting that A-Mount mirror onto a modern PDAF Sony body and what the results were. As a last note, you can see that the Canon FD 500 is quite sharp when in focus (actually much sharper than the old f/4). The last shot is from the Tamron against the same fence, but with a little less distance from the focal point to the fence so you can see the double peak starts very early in the OOF region.



Canon FD 500mm Mirror



Canon FD 200mm f/4


Tamron 500 mirror.

Czardoom said:

If I am wrong, someone please correct me, but the issue of 3rd party lenses seems to be misunderstood probably due to misinformation, whether intentional or otherwise, but so far, Canon has told only those lens makers who violated their patents to stop making AF lenses. I don't think there has been any mention from Canon that they won't negotiate license agreements with 3rd party lens makers at some time in the future. They may well follow the lead of Nikon, who in the past year negotiated such an agreement with Tamron and is rumored to be in negotiations with Sigma. We just don't know if Canon plans to do the same. So we can't say for sure (and I personally doubt that they will) that they are locking out 3rd party lens makers. It seems likely, given that Nikon is doing so, that Canon will do so as well when they feel that they have built up their own lens lineup sufficiently.

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My understanding--and this might only be heresay--is that Canon doesn't license their mount technology to anybody. I think they once licensed it to Sigma many years ago for a specific purpose, but other than that, the third parties have had to reverse engineer it. That's why incompatibilities occasionally crop up with newer Canon bodies; if it were licensed, the third parties would have access to all of the protocol information. That's also why Canon can assert patents to stop them from doing it.

Dragon said:

Here is an old article that among other things describes the MTF alteration due to the central obstruction in Mirror lenses https://www.bobatkins.com/photography/tutorials/mirror.html . I have a copy of the mentioned Tamron (actually a slightly later version that does have a tripod mount), and it performs very similarly to the Canon 500, the Nikon 500, and the Minolta 500. The Sigma 600 is the washout. I bought one and was disappointed, so I picked up a second to see if I had a bad copy. The second copy was not an improvement. The Tamron has the notable feature of close focus (down to about 5 ft) making it almost a macro lens (the rest are more like 15-20 ft with the Nikon being the worst in that regard). I wasn't able to find any charts that show the OOF behavior of the PSF with a central obstruction, but here a couple of shots that make what is happening pretty obvious. The first is from a Canon FD 500mm f/8 mirror lens. The second is from a Canon FD 200mm f/4 normal lens wide open. The scene is similar (different flower, same fence). As you can see, when the standard lens goes out of focus, the fence wires blur, but they are still brightest in the center (the green lines are LOCA). With the Mirror, the edges brighten and center darkens, reflecting the double peak in the PSF as lens goes out of focus (a bright point first flattens and then turns into a doughnut). This does seem to make finding the peak focus more difficult and is aggravated at long distances by the very sensitive focus behavior near infinity on all mirror lenses that I have encountered (I can't speak to telescopes as I don't have any). Note that I am talking about manual focus here since the only AF mirror ever made was a Sony A-mount version of the Minolta Mirror and it wasn't around for very long and AFAIK the A-mount cameras at the time were all contrast detect AF. I can't say for sure, but I strongly suspect that the double peak would be very confusing to a PDAF system. It would be interesting to know if someone has tried bolting that A-Mount mirror onto a modern PDAF Sony body and what the result were. As a last note, you can see that the Canon FD 500 is quite sharp when in focus (actually much sharper than the old f/4). The last shot is from the Tamron against the same fence, but with a little less distance from the focal point to the fence so you can see the double peak starts very early in the OOF region.


View attachment 207101
Canon FD 500mm Mirror


View attachment 207102
Canon FD 200mm f/4

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Tamron 500 mirror.

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Thanks, most illuminating.