Lens News

Canon just introduced a host of new glass tonight: the new Canon EF 85mm f/1.4L IS USM lens and three new Tilt-Shift macro lenses: the TS-E 50mm f/2.8L Macro lens, TS-E 90mm f/2.8L Macro lens and TS-E 135mm f/4L Macro lens.

Canon also announced a new Macro Twin-Lite MT-26EX-RT flash. These new products are designed for a variety of photography assignments including architecture, landscape, food, product and portrait photography, Canon said.

Here’s a rundown of the new gear from Canon’s press announcement tonight.

Canon EF 85mm f/1.4L IS USM Lens
Canon expands its EF 85mm portrait lens line up with the new Canon EF 85mm f/1.4L IS USM; the first Canon EF 85mm lens to feature image stabilization, providing up to four stops of shake correction for smooth and crisp imagery.

The new Canon EF 85mm is built with one large diameter, high-precision molded glass aspherical lens and features an ASC coating. The large f/1.4 aperture is designed to produce a shallow depth-of-field, fast shutter speeds and a bright image inside the viewfinder, allowing photographers to focus and compose their image reliably. In addition, a circular aperture with 9-blade iris allows for beautiful bokeh.

The new Canon EF 85mm f/1.4 L IS USM is slated to go on sale in November 2017 for $1599.

New Tilt-Shift Lenses
Tilt-Shift lenses can provide enhanced creative control over perspective through the tilt function and depth-of-field through the shift function in their images. These lenses are designed for photographing landscapes, portraits, and architecture and Canon expands its line with three new tilt-shift products.

Enhanced optical elements like molded aspherical glass and UD lenses are at the core of the new Canon TS-E 50mm f/2.8L Macro lens, TS-E 90mm f/2.8L Macro lens and TS-E 135mm f/4L Macro lens. These features are designed to provide users with edge-to-edge resolution and improved image quality over previous Canon TS-E lenses and minimum distortion.

Canon also included two anti-reflective coatings, SubWaveLength Structure Coating (SWC) in the TS-E 50mm f/2.8L and TS-E 135mm f/4L Macro lenses and Air-Sphere Coating (ASC), into the TS-E 50mm f/2.8L and TS-E 90mm f/2.8L Macro lenses. SWC helps to reduce flare and ghosting, while ASC is a new technology that provides amazingly high, anti-reflective performance, particularly when alleviating incidental light that can enter a lens.

The new Canon Tilt-Shift lenses also offer improved operability over previous models, Canon said, including larger tilt, shift-and-lock knobs, lock-release button and a new tilt-locking mechanism that firmly locks the lens in the zero-tilt position to help prevent unintended tilting to increase more precise shooting capabilities. The rotation of the tilt-shift lenses also allows users to freely change the axis of tilt movement and shift from right angles to parallel to better adapt to various shooting conditions and situations.

The new Canon TS-E 50mm f/2.8L Macro lens, TS-E 90mm f/2.8L Macro lens and TS-E 135mm f/4L Macro lenses are scheduled to be available November 2017 for an estimated retail price of $2199.

Canon Macro Twin-Lite MT-26EX-RT Flash
To further enhance a photographer’s ability to shoot macro photography, the new Canon Macro Twin-Lite MT-26EX-RT Flash could be a great tool. The use of a macro twin-lite allows for a more ideal lighting situation for photographers, and can be adjusted and shifted depending on the direction the photographer would like to control. Detachable macro twin lites can be rotated up to 60 degrees, and features a maximum guide number of 85.3 ft (26 m).

The new Canon Macro Twin-Lite MT-26EX-RT Flash inherits the ease of use and operability of Canon’s latest Speedlite EX series flashes and increased brightness of the focusing lamp compared to previous Canon Macro-Twin Lites. There is also less noise produced from the charging of the lights.

The new Canon Macro Twin-Lite MT-26EX-RT Flash is scheduled to go on sale in November 2017 for $989.99