New Canon Lenses. 16-35 F4.0L IS & 10-18 F4.5-5.6 IS STM. Interested?
Canon EF 16-35mm f/4L IS USM Lens
When I heard Canon had a couple new lenses coming out I of course got a little excited. I love new lenses. My bank account doesn’t but my cameras sure do! Then I found out what they are. Canon 16-35mm F4.0L IS. Interesting & 10-18mm F4.5-5.6 IS STM. Maybe?The excitement settled down a little. I like zoom lenses a lot. They are pretty much my go to lenses for faster shooting situations. The Canon 24-105 F4L IS for example is one of the most used lenses in my kit. It’s an all around good lens for handheld and the range is great. The only down side for me is F4. Now the F4 limitation is helpful when you want to keep the weight down and a lens with that range in an f2.8 would be a beast. At 105 f4 doesn’t matter that much since the compression makes the background nice and soft. The new 16-35 F4L IS for example at isn’t that big and heavy but then either is the older 2,8 non IS version. I have it and it’s a very good lens. No IS but at that focal length i’m okay with it. So Canon added image stabilization and thats a nice upgrade especially if you want to go handheld and use a stabilizer of some kind. Canon doesn’t seem to like the idea of using the STM auto focus on L lenses yet. I don’t understand this because the 70D and its very good Dual Pixel AF takes full advantage of the STM auto focus so why doesn’t the the new 16-35 have it?
Canon EF-S 10-18mm f/4.5-5.6 IS STM Lens
Speaking of STM the next new release is the Canon 10-18 F4.5-5.6 IS STM. This lens is a bargain. That is if it’s good. it’s priced at $300. I can live with this one not being very fast because it’s a pretty wide lens even for a EF-S Mount. It comes in at 16-28.8mm (35mm Equivalent) Variable f-stop lenses aren’t my favorite but for stills this could be a fun lens to have in the kit. Do I see myself buying either of these. Probably not since I already have this focal length covered, but for $500 more you can get the 16-35 f2.8L and I think it’s worth the extra expense. If not the F4 IS version could be a good choice. One thing that stands out is how thin the focus ring is. Almost looks like a gear for a follow focus.
Canon seems to like this F4L approach so I’m sure we will see more F4L lenses in the future but please put STM on them so they will be nice and fast and quite with Dual Pixel AF.
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Eric–There’s another reason to like STM lenses, besides the quieter operation. Seems that the “continuous” auto iris on the C100 only works with STM lens. And so far, STM doesn’t come on L lenses, so I won’t be buying in, but continuous auto iris is a big deal for me, as I do a lot of aerial video.
Imagine circling a cruise ship in a helicopter. First you have front lighting, then side lighting, then back lighting, then side lighting and now front lighting again. All this while doing the “normal” things you have to do in aerial photography, such as composing, talking to the pilot, helping the pilot by watching out for other planes and structures.
Now, you can have continuous auto iris if you’re willing to hold the auto iris button down. So I went and “invented” a finger to hold the button in. But when you hold the button in, you disable auto focus. Grrrr…..
We had continuous auto iris on the XLH1 and XHa1. C’mon Canon, give us a little love!
Len
Totally agree! I mentioned the Dual Pixel AF Technology that works hand in hand with STM. Cant for the life of me understand why Canon didn’t use it in the new 16-35 F4 IS. Like you said the C100 and 70D will eat that up!
Erik….apologies for misspelling your name.
Hi Erik,
I know that you have (or have had) the 40mm Canon pancake STM lens. Did continuous auto-iris work with that lens? Canon Cine support could not confirm that.
Are there any “alternative brand” lenses with stepping motors (or without) that will give us continuous auto-iris with the C100?
Thank you,
Len
Hi Len. I tested the 50mm pancake and it does not support continuous auto iris. I’m not sure how to use this because I don’t have the EF-S18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM lens to compare but when I set the lens to AF it should also turn the auto iris function on. Does that sound right?
Hi Erik, and thanx for the quick reply. I assume your response (above) meant to say 40mm pancake (unless you ran over your 50mm lens with your car. LOL
To begin, I should mention that my camera has had the $500 auto focus modification, which included a few other updates.
Setting the lens to AF doesn’t relate to the auto-iris. There is a setting in the menu (under exposure) that specifically allows you to turn on auto iris. It is grayed out in my menu, but Canon Cine Tech support says it can only be turned on when the appropriate lens in on the camera. I find that response a bit strange, as most of the settings don’t require the lens to be on the camera to set the mode.
The continuous auto focus is a wonderful thing, but the frosting on the cake would be the continuous auto iris. I recognize that the purists and those who are set up on a tripod in a controlled environment may not consider these as necessary professional features, but I can assure them that, for the type of work I do, they are.
Not sure how to attach a photo to this blog post, but I’d be happy to show you a partially successful solution that I came up with to this problem. I’ve built a “finger” to hold the auto iris button in, while I’m shooting. The only problem with this is that holding the auto-iris button in disables most of the other controls on the camera, including the auto focus. It works fine, when the subject is already on infinity.
Best wishes,
Len
Erik,
the 16-35 F/4 IS chose USM because it’s principally aimed at still shooters — this is the sharp-in-the-corners landscape lens Canon shooters have wanted for many years.
Still shooters strongly prefer the AF speed of USM over the video-friendly AF of STM. And there has yet to be an L series lens that uses STM. Other than the tilt-shift manual focus lenses, just about every L series lens is USM for the still-shooting crowd.
Canon has a very difficult road to walk in the years ahead because the focusing needs of its two camps of shooters — stills and video — have cannot be satisfied with the same lens. So until Canon finds a way to make an STM/USM selectable-by-switch lens, they will have to size up who the lens is principally aimed at, and give it that group’s preferred focusing method.
– A