Canon Cine Primes vs L-Primes

[Maik Müller]

Is it save to assume that Canon does it like Zeiss with their CP.2-primes, by mainly re-using optics from their still-lenses for the new cine-primes?

 

[Shaun Cammack]

I'd find it hard to believe that Canon could get away with charging many times more for a conversion than Zeiss does. Zeiss CP.2's are roughly 4-6 times the price of their ZE line. From what I remember about the Canon Cine pricing (some of them $45,000 each), that would put them at like 15+ times the price of one of their L-series lenses (the 28-300mm L-series). Plus, I thought I read that they had designed entirely new optics for these lenses.

Edit: Sorry, just re-read your post and saw that it was in reference to the primes...can't tell you on those.

 

[Maik Müller]

Hehe, yeah, the zooms look new. I don't think they're just converted still lenses. But the primes are suspicious. They do cover FF, the 50 and 85 is faster than the 24 (its the same with the Ls) and even the absence of a 35mm makes a bit of sense, because there have been rumors about a refresh of the 35L 1.4 for some time later this year.

 

[Shaun Cammack]

Yes, they could be. I wonder what the pricing on the primes is?

 

[Maik Müller]

List price is 6800USD per lens.

 

[Jacek Zakowicz]

Funny that they removed the most advanced technology from the primes -the USM and are charging triple the price.
Of course the economies of scale are a big factor here but the fact that they even tried says a lot about our industry perception of "PRO" gear....

 

[Maik Müller]

Hehe, so true... Not going to include AF on their pro-cameras with EF-mount (C300/C500) and their cine-lenses was a wrong decision. Guess the perception of "pro" must have been a big part of that, because now they even have moved forward with AF-support during video-recording on their newest Rebel DSLR and the EOS-M.

I don't care much about their pro-cameras, but Cine-Lenses with AF would have been interesting, because we already have a (much better) camera that supports it.

RED doing AF on still lenses for a while and Canon not being able to support it on their pro-cameras, says lot.

 

[Yousuf Abbasi]

Funny that they removed the most advanced technology from the primes -the USM and are charging triple the price.
Of course the economies of scale are a big factor here but the fact that they even tried says a lot about our industry perception of "PRO" gear....

Jacek, have you seen any aspherical cine lenses better than the original canons primes at their price point?

 

[David W. Jones]

Having owned and shot with a set of the original Canon K35 cinema primes and zoom, I will give Canon the benefit of the doubt when it comes to these lenses. At least until they are available for inspection and testing.

All the Best!

Dave

 

[Yousuf Abbasi]

Having owned and shot with a set of the original Canon K35 cinema primes and zoom, I will give Canon the benefit of the doubt when it comes to these lenses. At least until they are available for inspection and testing.

All the Best!

Dave

Exactly

 

[Mark K.]

Funny that they removed the most advanced technology from the primes -the USM and are charging triple the price.
Of course the economies of scale are a big factor here but the fact that they even tried says a lot about our industry perception of "PRO" gear....

When the C300 came out and the new lenses were announced I read in a couple of interviews (somewhere on the internet) that Canon approached something like 100+ ASC members and asked them what features the wanted in cine-lenses (and cameras), and every single one of them said they just want good fully-manual lenses.

That's not staying intentionally archaic, it's delivering what your target market is asking for.

 

[Steve Phillipps]

Cine-Lenses with AF would have been interesting, because we already have a (much better) camera that supports it.

RED doing AF on still lenses for a while and Canon not being able to support it on their pro-cameras, says lot.

I would guess, I'm pretty sure, that including AF in these lenses would have compromised their manual focussing abilities - you would need different mechanisms presumably - this is evidenced with simple MF stills lenses vs their AF counterparts, the focussing in the MF lenses is much nicer, and it's better again on the cine lenses.
As for the price, yes economies of scale, but they're definitely also charging what they know they can just about get away with - simple business I suppose but still not pretty!
Steve

 

[Mitch Gross]

The Canon Cine primes and zooms have 330 degrees of rotation in their rings. They are made for the design of standard professional cine use. If you want stills style glass, the L-series are an excellent option.

The Cine lenses are all a "ground-up" design. I have tested some prototypes of the primes and both the prototypes and production versions of the zooms. I won't comment on protos as that's unfair good or bad (that's why they are protos!), but I will say that the zooms are some of the finest optics I have ever seen in 35PL. Top notch stuff, and miles beyond a "re-purposed stills design."