Just Beautiful: Canon’s New RF mount Cinema Prime Lenses

In all the excitement of IBC and the new iPhone launch you may have missed a seriously impressive announcement by Canon. Canon’s first cinema lenses equipped with RF Mount are coming your way early next year. Adding to its existing stock of EF mount CN-E Primes and PL mount Sumire Primes, Canon is offering seven new RF Primes.

Key features of the RF mount Cinema Prime lenses:

• Genuine RF mount for stable operation without a converter
• High speed lens communication offering advanced metadata support from the lens to camera
• Geared rings offer greater control via hand operation and third party follow focus accessories
• High optical performance and high image quality for 4K, 8K and HDR productions
• T-stops up to T1.3 with broad focal lengths covering ultra-wide to telephoto
• Minimal focus breathing
• 11-blade iris for cinematic bokeh and softly diffused highlights

The RF Prime series covers seven focal lengths, with lenses at 14, 20, 24, 35, 50, 85, and 135 millimetres, and share a common gear positioning and diameter across all seven lenses.

• CN-R14mm T3.1 L F
• CN-R20mm T1.5 L F
• CN-R24mm T1.5 L F
• CN-R35mm T1.5 L F
• CN-R50mm T1.3 L F
• CN-R85mm T1.3 L F
• CN-R135mm T2.2 L F

The native RF mount allows for high speed communication between the lens and camera body. They are compatible with the EOS C70 and EOS R5 C RF Cinema cameras. Fully compatible with the transmission protocol of the RF mount, and as with EF mount Prime series lenses, operators can control magnification, chromatic aberration correction, peripheral light correction, and a dual pixel focus guide via camera body operations. The new lenses also feature distortion aberration correction.

These fully manual lenses are suitable for use with 4K and 8K cameras – optimally positioning large-diameter aspherical lens elements and lens elements with anomalous dispersion glass. The use of 11 aperture blades gives a shallow depth of field for subjects, natural round blurring, and soft image expressions.

Due to the unified design across the series, including the gear position of the operation ring, the diameter of the lens and the rotation angle (operation angle), the lens can be exchanged smoothly without the need to adjust the mounting position of the matte box or external follow focus accessories for each model. A new knurled surface near the mount provides a comfortable fit in the user’s hand, allowing the lens to be held securely without gripping the operation ring when attaching and detaching different lenses.

The lens markings are phosphorescent. This ensures easy use when shooting a low light scene. The markings are available in metric or imperial.

Availability

Pricing for the lenses will be set at dealers’ discretion closer to availability in Australia: