Best Hybrid RF lenses for your next shoot

In this context, hybrid lenses are for both video shooters and stills shooters. Designed for professionals keen to have exceptional quality lenses with helpful features.

Canon’s Hybrid RF lenses are based on Canons standard RF lens design, but incorporate additional features and functions, taken from Canon’s Cinema/video lens range, that will appeal particularly to those that also shoot video. These include things like, a smooth action IRIS ring, 11-blade circular aperture, optically designed focus breathing suppression, smooth and near silent AF, internal zoom mechanism (zooms), same dimensions with same ring/button layout for the zooms and for the primes, electronic parfocal performance (zooms) and optional Power Zoom Adapters for the zooms, enabling smooth, professional zooming and remote control options. These all help the user to have better control and a more professional look when shooting videos.

They are not as different as you might expect, with well controlled focus breathing thanks to the optical design, as well as a consistent size and control ring positions, for easy rig swaps on a busy production. The Cine Primes are fully mechanical designs, while the Hybrid lenses offer some electronic assistance to save weight and cost . Naturally, image quality and colour rendition across the range of lenses is kept usefully consistent.

With all the Hybrid lenses the optical performance is paramount to high photo and video performance.

However, modern lens design processes take account of recent developments in electronic correction and post-processing methods now available. These methods are sometimes the best way to correct certain types of optical aberration and distortion and are preferable to making a change to the optical design, which cannot always achieve the same high-quality result. Using a combination of optical, mechanical and electronic (digital) correction methods, maximises the performance and reduces the size, weight and cost of the lens. These corrections are applied either in real-time or post-capture (in a RAW workflow) and should be completely transparent to you and ensure a result that goes beyond expectations. If you are working with RAW files in 3rd party processing software you may need to find the relevant update to plugins or conversion software so that the electronic correction is performed in a transparent way.

A technology used on the Hybrid RF zoom lenses, using Dual Nano USM motors to maintain sharp focus on your subject while zooming in manual focus mode. Cinema lenses are mechanically linked to perform the same function, while these lenses offer the greatest direct control over the focus, they have a far greater cost.

The Hybrid RF zoom lenses incorporate an Optical Image Stabiliser that is effective when shooting both video and stills. The prime lenses are compact and light, and do not include an Optical Image Stabiliser. Interestingly, at much wider focal lengths the IBIS equipped camera bodies are more effective (and plays a greater role) at keeping images and videos sharp than lens-based IS.

The two zoom lenses have a filter thread diameter of 82mm, while the primes have a filter thread diameter of 67mm . Wider primes have an additional rear filter holder to avoid coma distortion in the corners or edges of starscapes.

The hybrid zoom lenses offer a minimum focusing distance of 45cm, while the primes offer a minimum focusing distance of between 20cm and 45cm depending on the lens.