Will Canon allow EF lenses to work on future RF bodies?

Distinctly Average wrote:

Sittatunga wrote:

Steve Balcombe wrote:

Canon_Guy wrote:

Steve Balcombe wrote:

Arthur Stanley Jefferson wrote:

Just a thought, could Canon slowly phase out the compatibility of EF lenses on future RF bodies….to increase new sales revenue from RF lenses?

They could, because the EF-RF adapter is just a dumb adapter - all the protocol conversion is done by the camera, which knows how to communicate with an EF lens. It would clearly be possible to remove this feature. It wouldn't even have to be a future body - it could be done with a firmware update.

But whether they would is a different question. I think it would be the final straw for many people, who are already frustrated that Sigma, Tamron and others are locked out by Canon's closed system.

Sigma, Tamron and others are not locked out from Canon. They work flawlessly or R cameras via adapter.

You know perfectly well what I mean, no need to be one of those internet ####s. Sigma and Tamron are locked out of the RF mount.

Canon did their best to lock them out of EF mount, and FD mount before that, too. Sigma only became fully usable with EF mount after their dock made their lenses user updatable. But Canon have a lot more to lose than they have to gain by making RF mount cameras incompatible with their own EF lenses.

And Sigma will eventually find a way, but they need to be right first time. I use 30 year old Canon EF lenses on RF and EF-M mounts but I'd think twice about using a 15 year old Sigma.

To be fair to Canon here, in the case of EF the evolution of the mount was needed as new tech came along. Canon could have stopped the EF development at that point and as a result got left behind by their competitors. It would have maintained compatibility with existing third party lenses, but could had adversely affected Canon as a result. Nikon and to a lesser extent had the same issues. I don’t believe in that case this was a deliberate obstreperous move. RF seems different at the moment. A brand were stopped from selling a lens but none of us know the full story. Nor do we have the full story from canon or the other third parties. Currently the poor press and social media comment must be damaging to the brand. It depends on how much the bean counters feel they are loosing by that compared to the retention of customers buying first party only. Either way, I am quite enjoying watching this play out.

Canon have always defended their patents. It's stupid not to as you have to show how your your patent works and differs from prior art.  However Canon have evolved the EF mount they've kept it impressively compatible with its cameras over the last 35 years, even if they've not been too concerned about keeping it compatible with third party lenses.

In the case of the EF mount introduction, Canon had failed miserably at bringing AF to the FD mount, but they didn't give up on FD.  They released their last FD mount camera three years after they launched EF and nobody bought it.