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Posts Tagged ‘LensRentals’

Lensrentals wants to know if the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted your professional photography work

11 Apr

Our friends over at Lensrentals has created a survey to help determine what kind of impact the COVID-19 pandemic is having on the livelihood of professional photographers and to better learn how Lensrentals can assist the photography community.

We’re pleased to support Lensrentals in their effort to gather this information and if you’re a professional photographer, below is a link where you can participate:

Lensrentals Survey

As a disclaimer, the survey starts out by asking whether or not you’re a professional photographer; if you answer no, the survey will immediately end. In keep the integrity of the data intact, we ask that you refrain from taking the survey if you do not earn an income from photography.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Video: Lensrentals announces it’s hit the 1,000,000 order milestone, shares the history of the company

03 Mar

Lensrentals has announced it’s shipped its one millionth order, an incredible feat that took just 13 years to achieve after Lensrentals founder, Roger Cicala, decided to rent out gear to sustain his photography hobby.

To celebrate the occasion, Lensrentals shared the above video, an accompanying blog post and shared a 45-minute podcast episode (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, YouTube) that goes into the history of the company and the work it took to hit the monumental milestone.

If you can find the time, be sure to read, watch and listen to the history of Lensrentals to see how Roger and his team have crafted an incredible success story in an industry that continues to struggle. And, of course, from all of us here at DPReview, congratulations to Roger and team for the monumental achievement. We look forward to many more humor-riddled teardowns.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Lensrentals gets risky while tearing down the Nikon Z 24-70mm F2.8 zoom lens

18 Jan

Image credits: Photos published with kind permission from Lensrentals.

Over on ‘The Desk of a Humble Genius,’ Roger Cicala of Lensrentals has ‘finally’ taken apart the Nikon Z 24–70mm F2.8 lens and shared both his insights and images from the experience.

As the original title of the teardown, ‘Lens Disassembly is a Complicated Profession. Don’t You Agree?,’ alludes to, this particular disassembly proved to be a challenging one, which par for the course with Nikon lenses, according to Roger. In his own words, Roger says ‘Nikon lenses have always been a bit “old fashioned” and different from other SLR lenses,’ but this review comes with a very clear warning to ‘not get your lens and screwdriver and follow along at home,’ because ‘Bad things might happen. Bad. Things.’

The teardown starts off with what is about the only negative thing Roger has to say about the lens—the felt around the lens hood, which he feels peels up too easily isn’t up to the quality of the rest of the lens.

From there, it’s onto the mount, which was dissected one screw and ribbon cable at a time. Upon removing the mount itself, Roger noticed it was particularly difficult to get off. This was due to an inner lip that rests against the rear barrel of the lens. Roger says ‘This might be to keep the bayonet centered, for a dust seal, to provide a little extra strength, or just because it looks cool,’ but notes regardless of the exact reasoning, ‘it seems like an all-around good idea.’

Moving along, Roger removed the rear piece of the lens barrel to reveal the A/M focus switch and the optical sensor the control ring uses. Each piece removed reveals a healthy amount of weather sealing gaskets, as well as numerous electrostatic discharge (ESD) cushions under the exterior of the lens.

With the rear barrel off, Roger gets into the internals of the lens, which proved to be a pleasant surprise. In his own words:

‘OK, let’s take a moment for me to give some props. Forever, during Nikon tear-downs, I’ve made snarky comments about the old-fashioned look they have inside; soldered wires here and there, flexes wandering aimlessly, random secondary circuit boards, etc. Well, no more. Look at this engineering right here: neat flexes running directly where they’re heading placed in recessed channels in the barrel and thoroughly taped in place. Superb! Nikon has clearly modernized and spent time and effort in making a clean, well-engineered layout for the electronics. I’ve been asking for that for years, and Nikon delivered.’

The PCB itself also proved to be quite minimal, at least compared to the one found inside the Canon RF 70–200mm F2.8 lens Roger tore down a few weeks back. In the past, Nikon has used secondary circuit boards in the lenses to beef up the processing capabilities, but Roger notes there wasn’t another one inside this lens, suggesting the camera handles a generous amount of the processing power.

After a few other auxiliary bits, it was onto the removal of the next piece of the lens barrel. Unfortunately, this is where Roger and Aaron ‘ran into the “be careful what you wish for; you might get it” conundrum.’ It turns out one of those nicely-organized flex cables ran down to the display unit of the lens and refused to budge when attempting to lift the barrel.

A syringe full of rubbing alcohol isn’t something you usually want to see during a lens teardown.

‘Rule 63 of taking apart lenses is “thou shalt not tug a flex”; because tearing a flex is bad,’ says Roger in the teardown post. ‘[But] on Nikon lenses, because we can’t buy parts, tearing a flex is very bad.’ After countless attempts to use different means of removing the flex cable to avoid tugging, Roger and Aaron decided they were sick of holding off lunch and decided to use a little rubbing alcohol in a syringe to ease the adhesive from the back of the ribbon cable. After a little bit of pulling, the barrel was off and they were on their way.

Roger hits on a number of other interesting tidbits about the buttons on the lens and the unusually-bright neon-yellow tape strategically-placed throughout the lens. The zoom barrel proved to be weather-sealed incredibly well and the zoom position sensor Nikon uses is an upgrade from the traditional metal brushes it’s used in the past.

The remainder of the lens disassembly proved to be a doozy, with excellent build quality proving time and time again to be a double-edged sword for Roger, who seemed to be as challenged as he was impressed.

While we’ll leave the rest of the humor, photos and details to Roger in his full write-up, here are a few other notable details discovered throughout the remainder of the teardown process:

  • Breaking the front filter thread of the lens is going to be a very expensive fix, as the entire front barrel is a single piece, rather than a piece simply held on with a few screws.
  • Aaron had to put on gloves during the assembly, which in Roger’s own words means ‘shit’s getting real’
  • The aperture diaphragm assembly is a combination mechanical/electronic aperture with very tight tolerances

When all was said and done, this teardown proved to be the longest ever—and that’s before Aaron had to piece it all together. The good news is, it (mostly) took so long because Nikon went above and beyond when engineering this lens.

Roger says these new Nikon Z lenses are a far cry from their F-mount counterparts and much like Canon’s RF lenses, are likely completely new optical designs made in-house. He notes ‘The engineering itself is incredible in most ways [and] the neatly laid out and solidly adhered flexes reflect the careful design.’

To see all of the images and read more in-depth knowledge shared by Roger, head on over to the Lensrentals blog.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Lensrentals breaks down its most-rented photo and video gear of 2019

21 Dec

As it’s done for the past few years, Lensrentals has rounded up its most-rented photo and video gear of the year, breaking down the most popular cameras, lenses and accessories in rotation.

The data Lensrentals provides isn’t necessarily valuable for judging the photography industry as a whole, but as noted by a Lensrentals spokesperson in an email to DPReview, it is ‘the largest inventory of photography and cinematography equipment for online rental in the U.S. [and its] annual list has become somewhat of a barometer of the equipment creatives are creating or experimenting with.’

The full collection of data is available to peruse on Lensrentals’ website, but we’ve rounded up a few key insights worth pointing out.

First up, these are the top overall rental products for the 2019 year:

  1. Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L II
  2. Canon 5D Mark IV
  3. Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II
  4. Sony Alpha a7 III
  5. Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS III
  6. DJI Ronin-S 3-Axis Gimbal Stabilizer
  7. Canon 35mm f/1.4L II
  8. Sony FE 70-200mm f/2.8 GM OSS
  9. Sony FE 24-70mm f/2.8 GM
  10. Canon 50mm f/1.2L

Year over year, not much has changed. In fact, Canon’s 50mm F1.2L lens, released in 2007, is still in the top ten list more than a decade later and the top three products remain unchanged from last year (although the Canon 5D Mark IV and 70-200mm F2.8L IS II did swap spots). Additionally, the 5D Mark III still remains in the top 25 most rented products, despite being over seven years old.

As for whether DSLR or mirrorless cameras proved more popular, it turns out it was almost split down the middle. According to Lensrentals, mirrorless and DSLR cameras accounted for 49.78% and 50.22% of rented cameras, respectively. This is a dramatic increase (21%) for mirrorless cameras compared to last year, where mirrorless cameras accounted for just 29% of rentals.

On the topic of mirrorless, Sony’s E-mount still rules the roost, with 26% of total rentals. Canon’s RF and Nikon’s Z systems remain dramatically behind at 4.91% and 2.26%, respectively, but year-over-year the RF and Z systems have increased rental volume by 600%.

Below are a few more breakdowns, provided to us by Lensrentals:

Top five lens rentals by system 2019

1. Canon EF 45.5% (up 1.5%)
2. Sony E 23.9% (up 18%)
3. Nikon F 14% (down 1.5)
4. Micro Four Thirds 7% (up 9.8%)
5. Fujifilm X 3.5% (up 14%)

Top camera rentals by system 2019

1. Canon EF 36.3% (down 7.5%)
2. Sony E 27.1% (up 7.4%)
3. Nikon F 13% (down 8%)
4. Micro Four Thirds 9.23% (down 7%)
5. Fujifilm X 4.3% (up 16.7%)

Top lens rentals by brand 2019

1. Canon 35.84% (up 5.5%)
2. Sony 15.4% (up 14%)
3. Sigma 13.9% (up 17%)
4. Nikon 8.8% (up 12%)
5. Tamron 4.3% (up 21.8%)

Top camera rentals by brand 2019

1. Canon 36.2% (up 1%)
2. Sony 26.2% (up 8%)
3. Nikon 9.7% (up 6.1%)
4. Panasonic 7.66% (up 2.8%)
5. BlackMagic 4.8% (up 130%)

Top five NEW products 2019

  1. GoPro HERO7 Black
  2. Blackmagic pocket cinema camera 4K (the 6K made the top 20 list)
  3. Sony FE 24mm f1.4 GM
  4. Sony Alpha 6400
  5. Nikon Z6

Overall, things remain mostly consistent, aside from movement within the full-frame mirrorless market, which is still in its infancy for both Canon and Nikon. You can dig deeper into all the information over on Lensrentals’ blog post and check out the 2018, 2017 and 2016 posts as well.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Lensrentals teardown reveals the inside of the ‘Strong like Bull’ Canon RF 70-200mm F2.8 lens

10 Dec

Image credits: Images (and excerpts) shared with kind permission from Roger and the Lensental team.

Canon’s new RF 70-200mm lens is one of the most interesting lenses we’ve come across in recent memory—so much so we deemed it a ‘modern marvel’ in our sample gallery and crowned it the ‘Zoom Lens Winner of the Year’ award.

While we’ve shared our thoughts on the image quality and overall performance of the lens, we haven’t taken too deep a look into the construction of the lens. Thankfully, Roger and his team over at Lensrentalss have done a complete teardown of the Canon RF 70-200mm F2.8 lens to show off just what Canon has put into this compact lens that’s part of the ‘holy trinity’ in the photo world.

A look at the PCB in the rear of the lens.

To start off the teardown, Roger recounts a little anecdote wherein a Canon engineer tossed a box on his workbench and pulled out a mock-up version of the RF 70-200mm F2.8 lens. Roger admits he isn’t easily impressed, but when he laid eyes on the mockup, he said his jaw dropped and the only words to leave his mouth were ‘that’s going to sell you a lot of cameras.’ Now, a good while later, a full-functioning version of the lens was sitting on his workbench once again; and this time it wasn’t leaving without going through a little operation.

Before cracking open the lens, Roger first addresses the redesigned optics of the lens, pointing out the dual focus group design and the extending lens barrel, addressing the latter by saying:

‘Some of you HATE extending barrel lenses. That’s cool; don’t get one. Some of you like to call them dust pumps. That’s cool, too, although it’s incorrect. (We take care of over 20,000 lenses. The most common ‘dusters’ among current lenses all happen to be primes that don’t zoom at all.)’

The breathable filter (which lets in air, but keeps out dirt and dust) around the lens barrel.

From there, it’s onto the teardown, which starts with the hinged tripod ring. He notes it’s not the most robust tripod ring he’s come across, but when attached to the camera, it’s ‘quite sturdy.’ With the tripod collar off, it was onto the front of the barrel, which came off with a few external screws. Upon looking over the front ring, Roger discovered a foam sealing between the filter barrel and front element, as well as a new breathable filter, that will allow air to pass through the front of the lens without allowing particles to get in.

The front lens element was then removed with ease, which lead to the ‘reasonably large IS unit,’ which stopped the team in their tracks and lead them to turning the lens over and tearing it down from the back.

A close-up of the ‘reasonably large’ IS unit.

The rear lens mount proved fairly standard as far as Canon’s RF lenses go. It was packed tight with the PCB and ribbon cables, as well as a few springs to add the tactile feedback to Canon’s programmable ‘Control Ring.’

Eventually, Roger hit a point where the ribbon cables looked too fragile to continue, but he and Aaron persisted and eventually removed the rear lens barrel after carefully threading each ribbon cable through the maze of pieces.

A close-up of the meticulously-placed ribbon cables and sensors.

It was at this point Roger paused to ‘salute Canon’s engineers,’ saying:

‘The flexes are all beautifully laid out and organized, going directly to their appointed place with no wandering about allowed. Notice how all the switches just take up one small flex; there’s not a lot of electron transfer needed to signal ‘on’ or ‘off’ compared to the amount of information that IS or focusing requires.’

After composing himself, he and Aaron continued to the inner workings of the lens. Specifically, he draws attention to the elements Canon uses to secure the extending lens barrel. Roger says the Canon RF 70-200mm F2.8 ‘has about the most robust extending barrel mechanism I’ve ever seen […] There aren’t the usual three cams sliding about to move this barrel, there are three pairs of them, and each is very large and robust.’

A look at the components used to secure the extending lens barrel.

Roger and Aaron eventually strip the outer barrel of the lens and dig further into the most intricate components, including both focus assemblies and the image stabilization unit. Roger notes the focus assembly (motors and optics) will likely be replaced as a whole if any component breaks, so any issue on that front will likely prove to be an expensive fix. However, he does not that he ‘doubt it’s a part that will really ever need replacing’ as the lens ‘is SLB (Strong, Like Bull) engineering, and the area is well protected.’

The aperture diaphragm inside the Canon RF 70-200mm F2.8 lens.

In all, Roger concludes that a ‘LOT’ of engineering progress has been made in the RF 70-200mm F2.8 lens compared to the likes of the Canon EF 70-200mm F2.8 lens and the Sony 70-200mm F2.8 lens. He states clearly, ‘this lens was a new design from the ground up,’ adding:

‘There’s no ‘that’s the way we’ve always done it’ holdovers [compared to the iterative updates of past 70-200mm lenses]. That’s a lot more work for the designers, but the result is a beautifully engineered, fully modern lens. It’s clean, functional, and straightforward.’

Roger further addresses the build quality of the lens, saying:

‘It’s obviously very robustly engineered from a mechanical standpoint. The internal composites are strong as hell. There are double cams, rods, and posts everywhere. There’s no play in any moving parts. We can’t imagine there will ever be play in the moving parts unless you run over it with a truck. You could describe it as ruggedized, but I’m going to stick with Strong, Like Bull, and suggest we refer to this as the RF-SLB 70-200mm f/2.8 from now on.’

In the end, Roger summarizes the teardown with six simple (paraphrased) words: ‘This is how you do it.’

To view the full teardown in all its glory, head on over to the Lensrentalss blog.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Lensrentals found a dead fly inside a Canon 70-200mm, tested how it affects image quality

12 Apr
A backlit photo of a dead fly trapped inside the inner elements of a Canon 70-200mm F2.8 lens, photos kindly provided by Lensrentals.

Thanks to ever-increasing reliance on firmware, the latest lenses can sometimes have bugs, but the bug Roger Cicala and his team at Lensrentals recently came across inside a 70-200mm F2.8L IS II lens wasn’t about to be fixed with the latest firmware update from Canon. That’s because it wasn’t a bug in the programming they encountered, it was a fly that managed to trap itself inside the optical elements of the lens.

Time for its close-up!

Somehow, a sneaky fly found its way into the deepest parts of a 70-200mm F2.8 lens, where it remained until its untimely demise. Naturally, Roger and his team wanted to remove the little critter, but not before they used it as an opportunity to see just how much a fly in the lens affected the performance of a lens and share the results (and process) with the world. In Roger’s own words, the blog post was written up for two reasons:

‘1) [To shot that] this big-ass fly had almost no effect on image quality, so that little dust speck you’re frantic about sure doesn’t, and 2) getting flies (or dust) out of a lens is a lengthy and difficult process that takes a long time.’

Just how well did the lens perform with the fly stuck inside of it? ‘Pretty well, actually,’ according to Roger. The Lensrentals team took the time to run a complete set of MTF tests and stopped down the lens across all focal lengths.

What the fly looked like stopped down to F13.

As noted in the blog post, there was no sign of the fly until the lens was stopped down to F13, but even then all that was visible was a shadow in the image. Stopped down to F22 and zoomed out to 70mm showed a much more prominent black spot, but even then it only took up a fraction of the frame.

What the fly looked like when stopped down to F22 at 70mm.

The remainder of the post details the teardown process and shows just how much effort goes into thoroughly cleaning out the inner-elements of a lens, especially a zoom lens as intricate as a 70-200mm IS lens. For all of the nitty-gritty details of the teardown process and more photos, head over to Lensrentals’ blog post.

Finally, the fly is discovered.

Roger’s takeaway message from the image tests with the fly-laden lens is ‘if your dust spec is smaller than a fly (about 4mm by 1.5mm) it’s not showing up in your images.’ He goes on to say in the ‘Final Thoughts’ section:

I think this does serve as a good demonstration of how little effect even a very large object inside the lens has. It would have a more dramatic effect, probably, if it had been located closer to the rear element. It’s also a really good demonstration on why we (nor anyone else who’s qualified) won’t clean the dust out of your lens for $ 50. Sure, a lot of lenses are easier to do than this one, but it’s still time-consuming and often technically difficult.

As for how the fly got into the lens, Roger deduces that it likely made its way into the lens through the small gap that’s made in the rear of the lens that can open up during the zooming process. The lens had been in Lensrentals’ rotation for 15 months, so he believes it found its way inside the lens after it left the factory. However, Roger admits he’s not a bug expert, so he’s not against hearing other possibilities.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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LensRentals constructs a C-4 Optics 4.9mm F3.5 Hyperfisheye Prototype lens

20 Feb

Lensrentals is known for its in-depth teardowns of the latest and greatest camera gear, but not everything has to be about destruction. For a change of pace, Lensrentals has decided to build a lens rather than destroy it.

In particular, Roger and his team have shared the above video and an accompanying blog post highlighting the construction of the the widest fisheye lens in existence, the C-4 Optics 4.9mm F3.5 Hyperfisheye Prototype.

Photos kindly provided by Lensrentals

Much like the 1970s Nikkor 6mm f/2.8 fisheye lens, the C-4 Optics 4.9mm F3.5 Hyperfisheye Prototype is so wide that it can actually see behind itself. It takes it a step further though; Instead of the 220-degree field of view of the Nikkor lens, the C-4 Optics fisheye, of which only two have been made, has a 270-degree field of view. Not only is it wider though, it’s also sharper and has less distortion and vignetting.

An individual element is stacked on top of another during the construction of the lens.

The entire construction is a doozy from beginning to end, with individual elements costing as much as $ 5,000, but as always Lensrentals manages to get it down with impeccable results. The final result is an unusual-looking lens that has legs and a backplate to help support the massive hunk of glass and metal.

‘For those of you who are curious, a smaller Sony camera (A7xxx) fits nicely protected within the legs,’ says Roger in his blog post. ‘For larger cameras the bottom platform can be removed, the legs extended or removed, and various apparatus (rods, follow focus, aperture control, etc.) mounted directly to the cheese plate.’

Roger notes the lens won’t be available to rent, so don’t get your hopes up. To see the full build and soak up the details, head over to Lensrentals.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Lensrentals tears down the Sony 400mm F2.8 G lens to its magnesium alloy skeleton

04 Jan
Photos kindly provided by Lensrentals

The week before Christmas, Roger Cicala and his team at Lensrentals tore apart Canon’s recently announced 400mm F2.8L IS III lens. While the Canon teardown was fantastic in its own right, it was only the first step of the process. As promised, Cicala and Aaron Closz have returned with a similar teardown of Sony’s 400mm F2.8 G lens to see just how well Sony did with its first attempt at a 400mm F2.8 super-telephoto lens.

Starting out with the basic optical formula, Roger noted that both Canon and Sony have opted to take a similar approach in how they arrange the individual elements inside the lens. That is, smaller elements have been placed at the rear of the lens.

Roger notes that Sony uses three flourite elements while Canon’s 400mm F2.8 uses only two. This little tidbit piqued his interest though. ‘That does beg the interesting question about where Sony sourced their fluorite elements. Sony doesn’t make fluorite glass, and Canon has long been the one lens company that grows and polishes large fluorite in-house,’ says Roger in the full teardown. ‘There are other manufacturers of fluorite lenses, but they have generally been limited to small lenses, such as in microscopes and telescope viewfinders.’

As he did with the Canon 400mm F2.8, Roger starts with the tripod ring before diving into the back of the lens. Throughout the deconstruction process, Roger notes how many ‘robust’ seals Sony has opted to use throughout the 400mm F2.8 lens, from the mount plate to the switch panel.

A large, robust rubber seal is seen behind the lens mount.

From there, it was a few hex bolts later before the rear barrel assembly could be removed. Roger says that while he’s ‘not a metallurgist […] the magnesium alloy looks and feels the same [as that used in the Canon 400mm F2.8.’

Inside the focusing mechanism Roger notes that Sony has decided to use nylon gears. ‘ If you’ve read much of my stuff you know I’m generally not a nylon gear fan,’ he says. ‘but these have almost no pressure on them so they shouldn’t wear out.’

One notable detail Roger points out is how well designed the flex/ribbon cables are throughout the lens. Nearly every cable wraps neatly around the magnesium alloy body of the lens and is secured by both double sided tape, as well as screws where needed.

Moving on, Roger and Aaron made it to the focusing module, which houses Sony’s linear motor and plenty of glass. He notes ‘As we would expect for what is now a 4th generation or so linear motor, designed to move that big beast of a lens, this is larger looks more robust than [linear motors] we’ve seen in the past.’

Roger and Aaron eventually wrap it up with their final thoughts, which you can read in their entirety on the full teardown blog post.

‘I’ll call this one a draw, and a draw is a win for Sony,’ says Roger in the conclusion. ‘Canon has been doing this for a long, long time; this is, I think they’re 8th generation of 400mm f/2.8 lens. It’s Sony’s first and to have made a product equal to the gold standard of engineering is an amazing feat.’

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Lensrentals tears down the Canon 400mm F2.8L IS III

20 Dec
Photographs kindly provided by Lensrentals

Roger Cicala, founder of Lensrentals, has torn apart the 400mm F2.8L IS III to see what Canon has done to remove 2.2lbs of weight from the third-generation super telephoto lens.

It’s only been a few weeks since Cicala shared Lensrentals 50mm F1.2L RF lens teardown, but as he hinted at in that teardown, it’s time for Canon’s much larger larger lens to get the signature treatment.

‘We tend to not publish tear-downs of super-telephoto lenses. They’re big and heavy, always well made and well engineered, like you would expect in something that costs as much as a used car,’ says Cicala in the teardown post. ‘But when the new 400mm f/2.8 lenses were released we decided it was finally time to publish a teardown of one. Largely, because they are amazingly light (you see what I did there? largely light?) and we were really interested in how they did that.’

Cicala also says he’s interested in doing a direct comparison between Canon’s latest 400mm F2.8 lens and its Sony counterpart. So it’s safe to say a Sony 400mm F2.8 teardown is just around the corner as well.

The small spring-loaded mechanism used to help lock the lens in place while rotating inside its collar.

The first order of business for Cicala and team was to remove the lens collar. While it might seem like a small detail for such a massive — and expensive — lens, the collar itself is quite complicated in its own right and often one of the first things that can break, due to an internal clicking mechanism that helps lock the lens into place at 90-degree intervals while rotating it on a tripod. As expected, the tripod collar assembly was solid and fairly straightforward — good news for photographers who prefer a more DIY approach to fixing smaller issues like a stuck collar tripod.

From there, it was onto the drop-in filter, which was probably the easiest part of the lens to remove. Cicala says ‘we really, really, really like [the drop-in filter] Because instead of being a proprietary $ 200 filter, it’s a holder that you can attach any 52mm filter to.’

With the easy stuff out of the way, now it was onto the lens itself. Without giving away all of Lensrentals findings, it’s worth pointing out a few details discovered during the teardown.

One of the adjustable screws can be seen in the internal structure of the lens (surrounded by red)

Starting with build quality, Cicala says that despite being light, the ‘inner, weight-bearing barrel is very sturdy magnesium alloy.’ It was at this point in the teardown Cicala noticed two adjustable elements integrated into the lens. The first is a set of screws found just in front of the rear element group, while the other was a set of adjustable collars where the two halves of the lens are joined together.

Regarding the image above, Cicala says ‘a couple of interesting things are in this image […] First, you see the two barrel halves are joined without shimming and held tightly together with 12 large screws – it’s a very strong joint with interlocking pieces. Also, as we saw with the RF 50mm f1.2 teardown, there are springs going down to the focusing ring, we assumed to put tension on a ball bearing ring for a smooth focusing feel in this electronically focused lens. We assumed wrong.’

A little deeper into the build, Cicala and team come across the image stabilization unit. Cicala notes the unit is roughly 2cm thick and full of various electromagnets, springs, sensor inputs and optical elements.

A look inside the intricate image stabilization unit.

In his 50mm F1.2L RF teardown, Cicala said the USM motor used by Canon in its fast prime is the exact same one used in the 400mm F2.8L IS III. Sure enough, that’s been confirmed again with this teardown, complete with the tension spring that continues to leave Cicala and team bamboozled.

A profile view of the ultrasonic motor in all its glory.

‘This is really interesting information, that the same motor and electronic focusing system is used in both lenses,’ says Cicala in the blog post. ‘Obviously, there is a business advantage in using the same subsystem in several lenses. But putting the same electronic focusing system in this EF lens makes me think that going forward Canon lenses may have a lot of internal similarity in either RF or EF mount. Converting the Canon 400mm f/2.8 to an RF wouldn’t be quite as simple as a different rear element and an RF bayonet mount, of course. The additional electronics for the RF Control Ring would have to be stuffed in here and probably some optical tweaks made, but the core structure could be very similar.’

Further disassembly of the USM section also revealed it’s the section of the lens that contains the aperture assembly. From there, it was onto the front optical elements of the lens, some of which were held in place by another adjustable element, which included screws to account for centering and tilting.

The aperture assembly shows all nine aperture blades in action.

After a little more work, the focus ring comes off and bears the various springs and more adjustable components. Cicala and team come up with a theory or two as to why the tension spring is there and what it does, but a definitive purpose is still unknown. Cicala says ‘one day we’ll spend 4 or 5 hours playing with them and figure it out. But don’t tell Canon that; they get aggravated when we do void-the-warranty stuff.’

In the conclusion section titled “So What Did We Learn Today,’ Cicala shares a few of his final thoughts regarding the teardown. The first thing Cicala mentions is the movement of the optical elements inside the glass. Canon said when it announced the 400mm F2.8L IS III that it had moved elements more towards the mount of the lens to create a better center of gravity and that proved to be the case. Also, Cicala says that ‘Despite being far lighter, it’s still very solidly built with a very strong frame, tons of big screws holding everything together, and no weak joints that we can see […] It’s what we expected; Canon’s been building super telephotos for a long time.’

The USM is also elaborated on. Cicala says it’s a very likely possibility Canon will continue to use this motor for all electrically focused lenses, or at least in lenses with a hefty amount of glass in the focusing element.

Overall, it appears as though the 400mm F2.8L IS III is roughly what Cicala was expecting from Canon. A well-built lens with plenty of adjustments in a tightly packaged frame. As interesting of a teardown as this was though, Cicala says the more interesting teardown will be the Sony 400mm F2.8 G lens. ‘Hopefully, it is awesome and for once the Sonyfans* won’t line up 6 deep to explain how what I find is wrong again.’

To see the full teardown in all its glory (and to discover the footnotes on what Sonyfans* means), head over to the Lensrentals blog and take in every bit of detail.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Lensrentals tears down Canon’s 50mm F1.2 RF lens to reveal new optics, tech and surprises

13 Dec
Photo kindly provided by Lensrentals

For the latest edition of LensRentals gets down and dirty with camera equipment, Lensrentals founder Roger Cicala tore down Canon’s new 50mm F1.2L RF lens to reveal what tech and construction is lurking inside.

‘Usually, I start tear down posts with a joke about “those of you who are following along by disassembling your own lens at home”,’ reads one of the introductory paragraphs of Cicala’s teardown blog post. ‘Well, no joke today; this is not a home disassembly project. I’m not really sure it’s even a Lensrentals disassembly project. But we got out tools out and boldly went where we probably shouldn’t have gone.’

The unusual screw arrangement is seen tucked inside the front barrel assembly of the Canon 50mm F1.2L RF lens — photo kindly provided by Lensrentals

Right off the bat, Cicala came across something he had never seen in a lens before — a unique screw arrangement on the front part of the lens barrel. Figuring the unique arrangement ‘was some kind of binary code for “Do Not Enter”,’ Cicala instead flipped the lens over and started to disassemble it from the rear.

With each new layer peeled back, new surprises awaited Cicala. There was wiring, rather than simple ribbon cables (which Canon has almost always preferred), a denser PCB, and a little extra electrical shielding.

Cicala noted the denser PCB and wiring (visible bottom-right) inside the Canon 50mm F1.2L RF lens — photo kindly provided by Lensrentals

The teardown also confirmed Canon is using the same USM motor for the 50mm F1.2L RF as it is for its much, much larger 400mm F2.8L IS III lens, which Cicala teases as Lensrentals’ next teardown. Near the USM motor, Cicala noticed an interesting tensioning spring, but it remains unknown what purpose it serves.

Photo provided kindly by Lensrentals

Eventually, Cicala turned the lens back over and removed the front lens barrel. After a little work, what he ended up with was the stripped down optical core of Canon’s 50mm F1.2L RF lens. ‘Like a shaved cat, it’s always kind of shocking how small the core of the thing is,’ says Cicala.

The stripped-down optical core of the Canon 50mm F1.2L RF lens — photo kindly provided by Lensrentals

Other details revealed in the teardown include a piece of electrical discharge tape that seemingly leads to nowhere, additional sealing felt and a collection of springs that serve an unknown purpose.

Photo kindly provided by Lensrentals

All in all, Cicala was impressed with the lens, going so far as to say that this lens, and this lens alone, makes him lust for Canon’s EOS R system. Cicala concludes his assessment saying ‘One thing that is very clear […] Canon has invested very heavily into developing the lenses of the R system. This level of engineering didn’t all happen in the last year, they’ve been working on this for quite a while.’

To read and see the entire teardown, head over to the Lensrental blog and set aside a good ten minutes or so.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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