Poll, R mount and 3ed party lenses

sportyaccordy wrote:

noggin2k1 wrote:

Canon_Guy wrote:

noggin2k1 wrote:

Sure, if you go hunting through Canon's EF back catalogue, I'm sure you'll find some anomalies where modern 3rd party lenses may perform better.

However, compare modern with modern, and the 3rd party lenses just won't compare.

Didn't read the whole of your beef but this statement is as wrong as it can be.

What I love about modern Sigma Art lenses is that they deliver 95-100% of the image quality of the Canon RF lenses but for 30-50% lower prices.

Sigmas like 14-24/2.8, 40/1.4, 105/1.4, 135/1.8 are fabulous class leading lenses for very reasonable prices.

IQ wise yes, AF no. We're solely talking about 3rd party EF lenses not offering "full native" AF experience.

This is strange because I have been told repeatedly that adapting EF glass was a fine stopgap for plugging holes in the RF lineup with no loss in functionality. When I shot RF most of my kit was comprised of adapted EF glass- much of it 3rd party- and didn't see a big difference in functionality. So I'd be super curious to know how the "full native" AF experience differs from that of say, the 50 ART that I used and had no issues with.

Granted I shot with an EOS R which was not a blazing fast camera, but within its inherent speed limitations every lens I put on it worked fine.

Last year I had a Tokina 24-70 f2.8 lens. It focused great on my DSLRs with the center points, but the outer AF points were off by enough that I never used them. I bought the R5 in early 2021 thinking it would solve that problem...I was wrong. Even on the R5 the outer points were off by enough that I'd call it "unusable". Eye AF worked fine near the center but put the subject off-center and focus was missed despite eye AF showing lock on. Posted a thread last year showing this:

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4596483#forum-post-65440381

Bottom line to me is that even on mirrorless the focus accuracy of 3rd party EF glass is still highly dependent on which lens. Older lenses seem to struggle more (though that Tokina was hardly 'ancient'). That Tokina may be an anomaly, as the company hasn't issued any firmware or 'fixes' for that lens since RF was introduced that I'm aware of. I sold the R5 after 6 months, as a HUGE reason I bought that camera was to avoid this issue with the glass I had. A $4K camera that still had major AF issues with a primary lens was not what I signed up for. Sold it and bought better EF glass for the time being.

On the flip side, I recently acquired a Tamron SP 45 f1.8 and it seems to focus as accurately on my DSLRs as any of my Canon glass. It did require some MFA, but so do my Canons. I'm hoping it behaves well on a future mirrorless body as it's a lovely lens.