New Canon T2.4 Full-Frame Flex Zoom Lenses
April 12, 2022. Canon announces “the launch of a new series of lenses for the company’s EF Cinema Lens lineup — the Flex Zoom Lens series.” Watch what they say: “The first lenses in the series are the CN-E20-50mm T2.4 L F/FP wide-angle zoom lens and the CN-E45-135mm T2.4 L F/FP telephoto zoom lens.”
Does “first lenses in the series” mean that more Full-Frame Zooms are on the way? I would guess yes and look forward to what’s next.
You won’t have to flex your muscles to work with these new Canon Flex Zoom Lenses. They are very light (less than 7.5 lb / 3.4 kg). They are very compact: shorter than 9.7″ / 246.4 mm. And they are amazingly fast for compact Full-Frame zooms: T2.4 maximum aperture for both, without ramping.
The Flex zooms come in EF or PL mount, designated by the product name of F for EF, and FP for PL. The EF mount provides electronic shading and chromatic aberration correction when used on Canon’s EOS R5 C with an EOS RF-to-EF mount adapter. The R5 C also will display Flex zoom lens data (focal length, aperture and focus distance) as well as Manual Focus Guides (green arrows to guide you in to sharp focus.) Various permutations of these EF mount features are available on other Canon EOS Cine cameras now or with firmware updates.
The PL (FP model) mount has a standard 4-pin external /i LEMO connector on the camera right rear side of the barrel and four /I electrical contacts at the standard 12 o’clock position of the lens mount itself. I believe you will be able to swap lens mounts back and forth relatively easily.
The Flex zooms with PL mount provide the latest Cooke /i3 (i cubed) Technology. In addition to the standard /i lens metadata for focus, iris, zoom, aperture, and lens model, /i3 has position, orientation and maybe distortion mapping.
The Canon CN-E20-50mm T2.4 L F/FP and CN-E45-135mm T2.4 L F/FP telephoto zoom lenses are scheduled to be available in early June 2022 and early September 2022 for an estimated retail price of $21,999.00. (Specifications, availability and prices are subject to change without notice.)
You may be wondering why the Flex Zooms come in EF mount and not RF. Didn’t Canon Chairman and CEO Fujio Mitarai announce in March 2022 that 32 new RF lenses are on the roadmap? I guess the reason for EF is compatibility with the hundreds of thousands of EF cameras out there.
So, all you need to fit an EF-mounted Flex Zoom on a Canon RF camera or RED V-Raptor is one of several inexpensive and very rugged Canon RF-to-EF adapters. The EF lens data is passed through the contacts in the adapter to the RF camera.
You can certainly use Canon Flex Full-Frame zooms on Super35 cameras. Remarkably, these new lenses are faster (T2.4) than the current line of Canon CN-E Compact 15.5-47mm T2.8 L and 30-105mm T2.8 Super35 Zooms. Both the Full Frame Flex and S35 Compacts have 114 mm front diameters. Length is similar. Weight of the S35 Compacts is about half, at 4.8 lb. And prices for the S35 models are also about half, at $9,999 compared to $21,999 for the new Full Frame Flexes. I trust you are not calculating price per millimeter of extra image diagonal and faster aperture?
Faster Canon Flex Full-Frame apertures in a barrel of similar size is possible because of the latest innovations in technology and optical design.
Specifications
CN-E20-50mm T2.4 L F / FP
- Focal Lengths: 20-50mm
- Range: 2.5x
- Maximum Aperture: T2.4
- Iris Blades: 11
- Focus Rotation: 300 degrees
- Minimum Focus: 2′ / 0.6 m
- Front Diameter: 114mm
- Length: EF: 9.5″ / 241.3 mm / PL: 9.2″ / 233.3 mm
- Weight: 7.3 lb / 3.3 kg
- Lens Metadata: EOS EF Lens Communication / PL Cooke /i3 Technology
CN-E45-135mm T2.4 L F (EF Mount) / FP (PL Mount)
Focal Lengths: 45-135mm
Range: 3x
Maximum Aperture: T2.4
Iris Blades: 11
Focus Rotation: 300 degrees
Minimum Focus: 3’4″ / 1.0 m
Front Diameter: 114 mm
Length: EF 9.7″ /246.4 mm / PL: 9.4″ /238.4 mm
Weight: 7.5 lb / 3.4 kg
Lens Metadata: EOS EF Lens Communication / PL Cooke /i3 Technology