[gatorguy]

I thought perhaps someone else would have opened a thread about it by now. After last year (reportedly) ordering Samyang to stop selling AF lenses with the RF mount there's another manufacturer who appears to have received the same demands: Viltrox.

"...a customer contacts the Chinese company enquiring about firmware for RF lenses that are no longer available on its website.

“Hello, we have been told by Canon to stop selling all RF-mount products, so we will not release RF-related information on the official website,” the company says in response.

The customer says: “This is really crap from Canon.” They go on to ask if it will change in the future.

“Not sure, we’re not the first company to be stopped. If Canon opens up permissions in the future, there may be changes.”

The exchange indicates that Canon is actively preventing third parties from releasing lenses that are compatible with its mirrorless system.



I fully expect other camera companies to try to do the same sooner rather than later as revenues and profits tighten up.

[repaap]

This might be one ofthe reasons why old EF lenses are not loosing so much of the value. Guys skip FR and uses old lenses/buys viltrox/Samyang because they already do have old lenses and don’t want to buy them again in new mount.


Might be that some others will be joining. Looks like in Canon case that they did want RF mount to get rid of huge compactibility and 3 rd party players. Smart move? Should Sony do the same, it it would be quite a big thing.

[R.Miller]

I seem to remember reading that Canon and Nikon decided to not license the mirrorless mount to third parties. The licensing would allow not just a physical mount but the firmware protocols to allow the lens to talk to the camera. That is why you see so many manual only third-party lenses with no AF. Sony does limited licensing and m43 licenses their mount system.

[StiffLegged]

Hmm, a strong smell of gunpowder and sore feet accompanying Canon’s move: they haven’t exactly produced a full RF or RF-S lens lineup yet. It could be said that Nikon and Sony take a different approach: Sony are well supported with third party lenses as well as their own and Nikon have not actively obstructed third parties - in fact Tamron are the designers of at least one Z zoom.

edit: and Tamron have announced they’re making their 70-300 f/4.5-6.3 AF zoom available in Z mount (already available in Sony FE) later this year.

Nice one Canon, sends a very reassuring message to your customers.

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Last edited by StiffLegged; 09-01-2022 at 03:03 AM.

[The Squirrel Mafia]

Yeap. Good old Canon. Not only do they use the cripple hammer with great accuracy, but they also use the ban hammer towards 3rd parties now. Hahaha!

[photoptimist]

In today's smaller (maybe-shrinking) market for standalone cameras, it's not surprising that a company like Canon would want to (maybe need to) ensure that it gets a cut of the revenues for every Canon-compatible lens or accessory.

One unintended effect of the short flange distances of mirrorless cameras is that it makes life much easier for third party lens makers. For most optical designs, there's plenty of room between the last element and the flange of today's mirrorless cameras. That makes it easy to design what-ever mount-specific tidbits that marry the optics to whatever body. A third-party lens maker can have much better economies of scale than Canon's in-house lens design and manufacturing operations if the 3rd party can instantly release versions of every new lens that can fit almost every mirrorless camera.

However, the body makers need lots of revenues to cover R&D on their very sophisticated electronics and firmware in their cameras. Body makers also need ongoing revenues from lens and accessory sales to pay for firmware updates and development of the next body.

As the camera industry consolidates, the camera makers may be forced to block 3rd parties to ensure their survival.

Sadly, tough times sometimes mandate tough tactics.

[R.Miller]

This has been discussed quite a few times on this site. Do you license your mount and invite stiff competition on selling lenses, hoping to gain market share in camera sales and adoption, or do you limit lens sales competition and keep all the profits, but deal with slower adoption? I guess we can see the two strategies at work here in the industry. Interestingly enough m43 licensed their mount years ago and they still only have two main adopters (Panasonic and OMD), so not sure open licensing is a winning option.

[KiloHotelphoto]

Well that will free up third party lens manufacturers to make K mount lenses.

The RF lens line up is pretty good right now and it will just continue to grow. They have a good selection of cheap lenses and a good selection of really expensive lenses but you will never satisfy everyone.

[ChristianRock]

How about the L-Mount? That should be open, right? This leaves some growth room for Panasonic. Sony's fairly open as well.

Canon, Canon, what to say about them... I think this will drive enthusiasts to Sony (and Panasonic). People might get nervous about Nikon, if their mount is closed as well.

This is not the only mistake Canon is making. They don't appeal to people starting out. Most of their income (and growth) is from existing EF users migrating to RF. Sony has an APS-C line and they allow people to start off with a cheaper body and third-party lenses. If they get serious enough they'll end up buying Sony or Zeiss glass.

Canon's M mount has no upgrade path to RF. To me, it's not a smart move, but time will tell. Once the EF->RF money stops coming in, let's see what happens with Canon's marketshare.

[Kevin B123]

I own precisely zero Canon gear so I have no skin in this.

However, I think Canon are right to shut down infringement on their IP. These third party manufacturers have no investment in the system and act like parasites bleeding off Canon's revenue and in law have the right to do so.
Consumers can moan about it all they like and have the option to use another system in protest, but they won't.

Often third party gear is inferior anyway so there is that. If buying R mount, surely you want all of the benefits of that system, so why by crippled lenses?

[beholder3]

Should Sony do the same, it it would be quite a big thing.

Well Sony is already swinging the cripple hammer at 100% of third party lenses, which now all are only 80% compatible.

They simply let their faster camera models check if the connected lens is a Sony or a 3rd party and if it is the latter, they massively cripple the maximum FPS the camera can shoot.

So this type of intentional crippling 3rd party lenses via firmware checks is established practise in mirrorless world. Not with Fuji or Olympus or Panasonic or Nikon yet.

[R.Miller]

I think Nikon does have some limits to their licensing. Looking at BH I could find very few AF mirrorless third party lenses. Only one Tamron, Viltrox and a few Yonguo. All the others were manual focus only. No Sigma lenses unless I missed them. If the Viltrox and Yonguo were reverse engineered and not fully licensed, we may see them shut down at some point.

This kind of limiting of third-party accessories is not unusual. The printer industry with their OEM only ink carts come to mind.

[biz-engineer]

In today's smaller (maybe-shrinking) market for standalone cameras, it's not surprising that a company like Canon would want to (maybe need to) ensure that it gets a cut of the revenues for every Canon-compatible lens or accessory.

Buzz marketing on instagram from Viltrox. "Do you know the latest gossip about Viltrox?". A low cost way of getting Viltrox known and known by more people.

[UncleVanya]

Sony has some limitations but is largely open:

1) lens mount can be licensed
2) body mount can not be licensed - this is why no 3rd party tc’s and no 3rd party bodies.
3) 3rd party lenses often have imposed limits from the bodies, most commonly the frame rates are capped.

The third party lenses are no joke. The quality of the offerings is astonishing. This drives Sony to release newer better lenses over time. The 70-200 GM is a far cry from the 70-200 GM II. One reason is the Tamron 70-180 which was sharper and lighter than the original GM. Samyang has a set of excellent compact f1.8 and f2.8 primes. This drove Sony to release a set of newer f2.5 & f2.8 primes.

Finally, Tamron is partially owned by Sony.

As for m43. That’s an alliance, and there have been more players than Panasonic and OM. I owned at least one Sigma, and YI and even Kodak have made gear for that mount at one time in the past. The m43 ecosystem is probably the second most supported by third party behind Sony.

[pentaxus]

Historically, Sigma never paid for licensing and reverse engineered everything. Minolta would change firmware on newer cameras to eliminate certain features with the Sigma lenses (like the flash not firing). This was for AF film cameras in the 90's. I guess the laws have been updated.