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Canon decides to BLOCK 3rd Party Mirrorless Lenses
Bad news for current, or potential, Canon mirrorless RF camera users. Canon has broken their silence and confirmed the rumors. They are indeed issuing "cease and desist" letters to third party Canon RF mirrorless lenses manufacturers. The legal letters that we know of so far, mention "RF autofocus lenses" as they "infringe their patent and design rights" and warn the third party lens companies to "stop all activities that infringe Canon’s intellectual property rights". It's unclear whether they are also going to go after the manual focus lenses as well. --- P.S. The new Nikon "officially licensed" Tamron third party Z-mount lens announcement (15 lenses planned) makes clear that Nikon "Z" mirrorless cameras are going with third party lens support as is, of course, Sony. Sep 06 22 10:04 pm Link It is all about the $$, for years most 3rd party lenses were reverse engineered and as long as they they a licensing fee they will be happy, the third party mfg won't be. Tamron as far as I know were licensed products as they also made prototypes for Nikon and some other brands. Sep 07 22 01:56 pm Link In some ways it's a smart decision for Canon to stop others from making accessories for the R line of cameras, in other ways Canon is shooting themselves in the foot. A major reason Canon, Nikon, and Sony have dominated the market is because there are many accessories for their products available from third party vendors. While third party accessories are also available for competitors such as Pentax, Olympus, Fuji, and Panasonic... they're relatively hard to find because most of the accessory manufacturers concentrate on the bigger market. Sep 07 22 02:09 pm Link LightDreams wrote: I bought the super cheap plastic 50mm and the 35mm primes on Amazon. After a few months I ended up buying the more expensive and better Canon versions because I loved the focal length. "A rising tide raises all ships." Sep 07 22 04:44 pm Link I should have clarified that it's not just a matter of whether the lenses are "officially licensed" by Canon or not. Canon apparently has NO INTENTION of LICENSING ANYONE, at least not any time soon. Although one (unnamed) Canon "source", from one of the articles, suggested that Canon may re-evaluate things in a couple of years. If the backlash is strong enough, and the policy ends up costing them too many camera sales, then things may change pretty fast. On the other hand, Canon may just decide that financially, the additional lens sales may well be worth whatever camera sales they may lose as a result. Or, worse yet, Canon may just decide that they're "Canon" and they can just do whatever they want. Your guess is as good as mine, as to how any of this will actually play out. Sep 07 22 09:14 pm Link I always bought Canon for the optics. So this would not affect me at all. Sep 09 22 04:09 pm Link I have a third-party flash that I've used with my Canon t5 with no problems. I now have a Canon t8i and the flash does not work anymore. The camera does not connect to it. I wonder if this is another way Canon is maximizing their profits. After seeing it not work on the t8i, I re-connected it to the t5i and it worked so it's not the flash that's broken. Sep 10 22 02:53 pm Link JohnSnape wrote: Sep 10 22 06:52 pm Link The decision of Canon is, IMHO, shortsighted. One of the reasons I picked Sony as my platform of choice when I started investing in good gear was the the Alpha line was essentially a continuation of the Minolta brand, and thus, was compatible with the older (cheaper) Minolta lenses available on eBay. Few can afford top gear from the start. From there, I started building my kit, adding Sony lenses when I could because even though the Minoltas were compatible, the newer Sony ones were better; lighter, faster, and sharper. I still use my Minoilta lenses when I know I will later want a film look. But my point is, the availability of the less expensive off-brand lenses allowed me time to save up for the more expensive ones. Sep 10 22 10:44 pm Link I believe this to be temporary but - 3rd party lenses when they come out will not be the "Cheap Alternative" as they sometimes have been in the past... Tamron and I believe Sigma often makes Prototype lenses for the big manufacturers... So I believe in a few years we will see at the very least low F-stop alternatives but instead of like in the past where you would save 400-600 bucks rather than going with canon? it will be 100-200 dollars... Why? Because Canon will demand licensing to manufacture the mounts and tech... Sep 14 22 06:49 am Link I see an opportunity for adapter manufacturers like Metabones and Hawks Factory. Can Canon prevent any bayonet mounted thing that happens to fit on their cameras? Put ID chips in the lenses so the cameras won't work without an official ID? Sep 15 22 08:29 am Link |
