Interview with Canon

Gam3r01 wrote:

RDKirk wrote:

Gam3r01 wrote:

A side note that I have yet to see answered, how long did it take from the introduction of the EF mount for third party AF lenses to appear?

The very first appearance of compatible lenses was relatively quickly, within five years.

But reliable compatibility didn't come for more than 10 years. Canon EF lenses had significant capabilities that were not apparent until the bodies that exploited them came out.

For instance, Canon lens motors were always extremely efficient electrically, using far less power than the bodies provided. That wasn't noticed and wasn't copied, until Canon downsized the amount of power provided to the lenses (more efficient bodies drawing less power to last longer on a battery). That caused a number of the 3rd party lenses to choke, Sigma being prevalent among them, but it also caught my Tamron 80-200 zoom.

Reliability of 3rd party lenses was troublesome enough that through the 90s and early 2000s, Canon was constantly accused of "changing the EF protocol" to shut out the 3rd party manufacturers. Clearly, however, they had not; the oldest EF lenses worked perfectly with the newest EF-mount cameras.

Thanks for the insight, I never see this brought up during 3rd party RF discussion. It sounds like third parties could be more warry of how to approach the RF mount/protocols given what they have learned in the past.

I would rather wait some extra time and get a reliable product instead of a rushed one "just because we need it"

The RF mount features extremely tight and complex software coordination between body and lens computers...probably a proprietary operating system.  I suspect it's a tough nut to crack without stepping on Canon's IPs.