Canon Photography News and Rumors

Canon RF 20mm f/1.4 L VCM: B&H Photo / Adorama

Canon RF 20mm f/1.4 L VCM was announced, and preorders start today.

Canon RF 20mm f/1.4L VCM Overview

Ultra-Wide for Hybrid Creators
Designed to satisfy both photographers and videographers’ needs, the Canon RF 20mm f/1.4 L VCM is a fast ultra-wide-angle prime lens with a function-first build that caters to the hybrid nature of modern image-making, emphasizing high image quality, responsive AF, minimized focus breathing, and intuitive, silent, and customizable handling.

Optimized for Photo
Suiting nature, landscape, architecture, interior, and street photography applications, this ultra-wide prime offers a huge angle of view that enables making strong, dynamic compositions with an exaggerated sense of space and foreground.

• Impressively fast f/1.4 maximum aperture affords control over depth of field and also greatly benefits low-light shooting, making this an ideal lens for astrophotography applications.
• Optical design includes ultra-low dispersion (UD) and Blue Spectrum Refractive Optics (BR) elements to reduce chromatic aberrations for impressive clarity and color accuracy.
• Air Sphere (ASC) and Subwavelength structure (SWC) coatings reduce flare and ghosting for improved contrast.
• Contrasting the ultra-wide field of view, this lens also excels with close-up subjects thanks to a 7.9″ minimum focusing distance and 0.19x maximum magnification.
• Rounded 11-blade diaphragm creates a smooth, rounded out-of-focus rendering.

Optimized for Video
When used for video applications, the lens’s ultra-wide field of view and close-focusing design can be paired with motion to create especially dynamic scenes.

• Manual aperture ring with de-click switch to make smooth, silent iris pulls.
• Focus breathing is especially well-controlled, helping to maintain a consistent composition and field of view when racking focus.
• Linear focus motor for intuitive manual focus control.
• Matched design with other Hybrid series primes; all lenses have the same 67mm front filter ring and general size for ease in rigging and working with multiple lenses on a shoot.

VCM and Nano USM Autofocus
The focusing system has also been tuned to suit both photo and video tasks, offering a useful mixture of speed and control.

• Nano Ultrasonic Motor (USM) is used to control a floating focusing system while a Voice Coil Motor (VCM) adjusts a rear focusing group; together, these two systems offer an ideal mixture of speed and quiet performance that is especially beneficial to video recording.
• Floating focus design also helps to maintain consistent image quality throughout the focusing range, from 7.9″ to infinity.
• AF/MF switch and full-time manual focus override for intuitive focus control when needed.

Design Details
Despite being a fast ultra-wide lens, this 20mm f/1.4 remains relatively compact and lightweight for regular use. Its design and size is matched to the other Hybrid lenses and is built for everyday use for a wide range of shooting applications.

• Effectively the same dimensions (3 x 3.9″) and weight (1.1 lb) as other Hybrid series prime lenses; these lenses also share a 67mm front filter ring diameter.
• Included filter holder attaches to the rear of the lens and accepts pre-cut gel filters; this is ideal for scenarios when more than one filter might be needed or if one filter will be used for a sustained amount of time.
• In addition to the manual aperture ring, this lens has a customizable Control Ring and Function Button, which can be programmed to control a range of shooting settings.
• L-Series level durability and weather resistance for working in inclement conditions.

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