Canon Discontinues Majority of EF Prime Lenses

Lens News

by Jakub HanFebruary 15^th, 2022

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In Japan, Canon quietly discontinued most of its EF prime lenses. As Kimio Tanaka informed, between January and February 2022, the number of EF prime lenses in production dropped from 21 to only 9. It seems that Canon’s full switch to RF picked up the pace and switched to the next phase.

This is perhaps not surprisingly, but Canon has been steadily switching from DSLR bodies and SLR lenses with an EF lens mount to the new RF mount ecosystem. I guess this is a part of camera evolution and the old eventually needs to go and make place for the new. Last month, Canon announced that the EOS 1DX Mark III will be the company’s last DSLR flagship camera – there won’t be a new 1D-series DSLR. Now, Canon quietly discontinued most of its EF prime lenses.

Only nine Canon EF prime lenses in production

Japanese photographer Kimio Tanaka posted an interesting comparison on his Twitter. It shows the Canon EF prime lenses that were available in Japan in January 2022 versus February 2022. According to his findings, the number of lenses dropped from 21 to 9 in only one month.

According to Tanaka, the following nine lenses are still in production in Japan:

• EF 24mm f/1.4L II USM
• EF 35mm f/1.4L II USM
• EF 50mm f/1.2L USM
• EF 50mm f/1.4 USM
• EF 50mm f/1.8 STM
• EF 85mm f/1.4L IS USM
• EF 85mm f/1.8 USM
• EF 400mm f/2.8L IS III USM
• EF 600mm f/4L IS III USM

What about Canon USA?

In his article, Jaron Schneider from PetaPixel checked the situation on Canon EF primes in the USA. Officially, Canon USA claims that it still supports 26 EF prime lenses, but PetaPixel found out that in reality, only 17 EF prime lenses can currently be purchased new:

• EF 24mm f/1.4L II USM
• EF 35mm f/1.4L II USM
• EF 35mm f/2 IS USM
• EF 50mm f/1.2L USM
• EF 50mm f/1.4 USM
• EF 50mm f/1.8 STM
• EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM
• EF 85mm f/1.4L IS USM
• EF 85mm f/1.8 USM
• EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II USM
• EF 400mm f/2.8L IS III USM
• EF 400mm f/4 DO IS II USM
• EF 500mm f/4L IS II USM
• EF 600mm f/4L IS III USM
• EF 800mm f/5.6L IS USM
• EF-S 35mm f/2.8 Macro IS STM
• EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM

Of those 17 lenses, however, 6 models are currently back-ordered:

• EF 500mm f/4L IS II USM
• EF 600mm f/4L IS III USM
• EF 800mm f/5.6L IS USM
• EF-S 35mm f/2.8 Macro IS STM
• EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II USM
• EF 400mm f/2.8L IS III USM

That only leaves 11 EF primes that can currently be purchased new in the US. It can be expected, however, that the US and other global markets will adjust to the situation in Japan as that is Canon’s home base and it makes sense that all the changes first take place there.

Switch to mirrorless lenses

Most likely, Canon is reducing the production of older EF lenses in order to ramp up the new RF mirrorless lenses production. We can see this trend across all camera & lens manufacturers. First the cameras and then the lenses.

Personally, I am still shooting on Canon EF lenses although I do not exclusively use EF mount cameras. With my LUMIX S1, I use my EF lenses with the SIGMA MC-22 adapter while my colleague can use the very same lenses on his Sony cameras via the Sigma MC-11. At the same time, I can use these lenses with my BMPCC 4K with a Metabones Speedbooster.

This flexibility is the reason why I like the Canon EF lenses. If I switched to Sony tomorrow, I would only have to buy a lens adapter to use all my lenses. With mirrorless lenses, on the other hand, you need to commit to one mount and stick with it. If you decide you want to switch to a different ecosystem, you will have to buy all new lenses. At the moment, I still haven’t decided which mirrorless mount to commit to. How about you?

Do you use Canon EF lenses for your work? If you were to commit to one mirrorless mount, which one would it be? Are you already heavily invested in one mirrorless mount? Let us know in the comments section underneath the article.

Source: PetaPixel