Canon Launches Unique 3D Fisheye Lens

2021.10.06

Canon just released a 3D Fisheye lens for their Full-Frame RF-mount Mirrorless Digital Camera platform. This is the first lens ever made to capture stereo circular fisheye images. This joins exactly one other 3D lens currently available for mirrorless cameras.

The new Canon RF 5.2mm F/2.8L 3D Fisheye is a unique lens that truly offers something unprecedented. It captures a scene with a 190° field-of-view twice from positions 60mm appart which mimics the 3D perspective of the human visual system. This lens offers a bright F/2.8 maximum aperture that can be stopped down to F/16 for a nearly infinite depth-of-field given its ultra-short focal-length.

Canon designed this specialty lens for professionals creating virtual reality content. This means a weatherproof body and top-quality optics with synchronized 7-blade diaphragms. Each front element is independent and the focus-ring moves elements behind both. To ensure reliability and perfect alignment, Canon exposed a screw to adjust the focusing offset between lens with an included hex-tool. Although not obvious from its naming, this is strictly a Manual-Focus lens. It utilizes the RF-mount to control the aperture and communicate EXIF info.

It is important to understand the concept this lens and implications of its unique specifications. The lens captures two fully-circular views of the scene with an extremely wide 190° viewing-angle. This means that each view includes part of the scene behind the lens and more importantly the opposing front element. This may seem somewhat absurd to have lens be capable of picturing itself! However, it provides a known reference point for image-alignment and the overlap makes it possible to capture immersive imagery in just two frames.

The output from the Canon RF 5.2mm F/2.8L Dual-Fisheye cannot be used unprocessed since it produces an image with two times the scene in different circles within the Full-Frame sensor-area. These images must be shown separately to the left and right eye for a 3D effect. Even this will produce a odd perspective and limited depth since our brain have not evolved to consolidate such extreme viewing-angle. In practice, each half of the image will be defished to produce a pair of rectilinear images. From those, a fraction will be extracted from each to make a virtual 3D image. The complexity of this process necessarily makes it a professional lens. Canon has created software to preview and extract various 3D images from files captured using this lens.

The Canon RF 5.2mm F/2.8L Dual-Fisheye lens is expected early 2022 and will retail for $2000 USD.

• Lens