With all the work Canon has been doing in their R&D over the past few years to bring affordable 8K video to the masses with their flagship Canon R5 and their new line of EOS R mirrorless cameras, you’d think that cinema prime lenses would have been here already.
Better late than never, Canon has officially—and finally—announced the introduction of the company’s first RF-Mount Cinema Prime Lenses for the Cinema EOS system.
Let’s look at these new lenses and how they’ve been tailored for high optical performance for 4K and 8K shooting, cinema-style operability, and a full RF mount communications.
Introducing Canon’s RF-Mount Cinema Prime Lenses
As we’ve covered before, prime lenses are pretty much the cheat code for turning your regular videos into much deeper and more beautiful cinematographic projects. Unlike your kit zoom lenses which usually come with your cameras, these primes sacrifice zoom mechanics and mechanisms for a full focus on optical quality, and you can see the difference immediately.
Canon is introducing seven Canon CN-R lenses with focal lengths and T stops of 14mm T3.1, 20mm T1.5, 24mm T1.5, 35mm T1.5, 50mm T1.3, 85mm T1.3, and 135mm T2.2 with all being compatible with the two existing RF-Mount Cinema Cameras in Canon’s lineup: the Canon EOS C70 and the Canon EOS R5 C.
These lenses will allow for full RF mount protocol transmission where shooters will be able to control magnification, chromatic aberration correction, peripheral light correction, and even a dual-pixel focus guide via the camera’s body operations.
Optimized for 4K and 8K Video
What’s most interesting about these seven new Canon RF-mount cinema lenses is that they’ve been designed specifically for 4K and 8K cameras like the two mentioned above, plus perhaps more in the future.
By optimally positioning large-diameter aspherical lens elements and lens elements with anomalous dispersion glass, these new lenses will be ideally compatible with full-frame large-format sensors to provide a shallow depth of field, natural round blurring, and soft image expressions.
These lenses will also be seeing Canon’s signature unified Cinema EOS color balance throughout the lens series to help keep consistent color, even when changing lenses on your shoots.
Also, designed with an ideal level of ring torque, these new Canon cinema lenses should be able to provide all of the precise and smooth adjustments you might need during cinematic video production.
There are also new tactical improvements with a new coarse surface near the mount that will provide a comfortable and ergonomic fit in a shooter’s hand, which should allow the lens to be more securely gripped when using the operating ring and hot swapping quickly between lenses.
A Canon CN-R lens on a Canon camera
Credit: Canon
Price and Availability
The seven new Canon RF-Mount Cinema Prime Lenses are available for preorder now and should be shipping beginning in late January 2024 for most lengths.
- RF Mount Prime Designed for Cine Use
- For Full-Frame Sensors
- 11-Blade Iris, Multicoated Lens
- 8K HDR Image Capture
- Dual-Pixel Focus Guide, Metadata Capture
- 300° Focus Rotation
- Distortion Correction with Select Cams
Canon CN-R 14mm T3.1 L F Cinema Prime Lens
Suited for full-frame cinema cameras with RF lens mount compatibility, the Canon CN-R 14mm T3.1 L F Cinema Prime Lens renders crisp images with rich contrast. An 11-blade iris and maximum T3.1 aperture make for a natural bokeh effect with a wide depth of field and smooth image falloff.
Jourdan AldredgeCanon CN-R 20mm T1.5 L F Cinema Prime Lens
Suited for full-frame cinema cameras with RF lens mount compatibility, the Canon CN-R 20mm T1.5 L F Cinema Prime Lens renders crisp images with rich contrast. An 11-blade iris and maximum T1.5 aperture make for a natural bokeh effect with a wide depth of field and smooth image falloff.
Jourdan AldredgeCanon CN-R 24mm T1.5 L F Cinema Prime Lens
Suited for full-frame cinema cameras with RF lens mount compatibility, the Canon CN-R 24mm T1.5 L F Cinema Prime Lens renders crisp images with rich contrast. An 11-blade iris and maximum T1.5 aperture make for a natural bokeh effect with a wide depth of field and smooth image falloff.
Jourdan AldredgeCanon CN-R 35mm T1.5 L F Cinema Prime Lens
Suited for full-frame cinema cameras with RF lens mount compatibility, the Canon CN-R 35mm T1.5 L F Cinema Prime Lens renders crisp images with rich contrast. An 11-blade iris and maximum T1.5 aperture make for a natural bokeh effect with a wide depth of field and smooth image falloff.
Jourdan AldredgeCanon CN-R 50mm T1.3 L F Cinema Prime Lens
Suited for full-frame cinema cameras with RF lens mount compatibility, the Canon CN-R 50mm T1.3 L F Cinema Prime Lens renders crisp images with rich contrast. An 11-blade iris and maximum T1.3 aperture make for a natural bokeh effect with a wide depth of field and smooth image falloff.
Jourdan AldredgeCanon CN-R 85mm T1.3 L F Cinema Prime Lens
Suited for full-frame cinema cameras with RF lens mount compatibility, the Canon CN-R 85mm T1.3 L F Cinema Prime Lens renders crisp images with rich contrast. An 11-blade iris and maximum T1.3 aperture make for a natural bokeh effect with a wide depth of field and smooth image falloff.
Jourdan AldredgeCanon CN-R 135mm T2.2 L F Cinema Prime Lens
Suited for full-frame cinema cameras with RF lens mount compatibility, the Canon CN-R 135mm T2.2 L F Cinema Prime Lens renders crisp images with rich contrast. An 11-blade iris and maximum T2.2 aperture make for a natural bokeh effect with a wide depth of field and smooth image falloff.
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