EF vs RF lenses - a few things to consider

Basil Fawlty wrote:

I have a few EF Lenses that I will probably keep because, for their intended uses, they work fine on my R5 and I have no compelling reason to get rid of them. However, in deciding whether to replace an EF lens with an RF equivalent, one should be aware of some of the features that are available with the RF lenses that are not available with an EF lenses.

Whether these "features" are important enough to warrant changing from EF to RF is of course a personal choice and would depend on how important these things are to your use cases.

1. Distance scale shows up on screen and in EVF while in manual focus (RF:yes, EF:no)

(Many EF lenses do have a distance scale on the lens whereas none of the RF lenses do)

2 . High Speed Display (Makes screen/EVF display look smoother when shooting in HS Continuous mode in SERVO). Only available when using RF lenses.

3. ON-lens control ring on RF lenses only. Can be programmed to adjust 12 different operations on the camera (Aperture, ISO, Shutter speed, exposure comp., etc). Personally this is something I can take or leave and find I don't use it all that much anyway, but some people love it. NOTE: You can get this feature with EF lenses if you purchase the more expense adaptor that has the control ring.

4. Manual focus ring sensitivity can be set to vary with rotation speed OR the degree of rotation. This option is only available when using RF lenses.

Lastly of course is the issue of image quality and AF speeds. In most cases, with the EF lenses I plan to keep, the Image Quality with these lenses on my R5 is slightly better than it was on my 5D4. The AF on my RF 24-105 L is faster than AF speed is with my adapted EF 24-105, but not so much so that I'd feel it would have any noticeable impact on my shooting. Your milage may vary.

I do see some more RF lenses in my future, but because some of my EF lenses work sufficiently good, I will probably still maintain a few of my EF lenses for the foreseeable future. I may eventually end up with only RF lenses, but I'm in no big hurry to make the complete transition.

I just got the R6MKII. So far the EF to RF transition via adapter is very seamless. I know RF lenses are lighter, smaller, faster to AF and have terrific IQ but I really see no compelling reason at this time to start dumping my excellent EF lenses to RF. I intend to keep all of my EF lenses as I am with the 5Ds.

The only RF lens I would be interested in the future is if Canon would have an RF version of the 200/2.8 L II. I hope it comes out in the near future albeit I think there might be a 50% price hike from the original new price of the EF version. Having said that I have no qualms of getting a used EF version.