Review: A closer look at Canon EF lenses

Following Canon’s announcement they’re discontinuing several more EF lens models, we asked our senior content producer and photographer Ian @ihoworth to share his take on the recent developments in the DSLR world.

Over to you, Ian.

I think it's safe to say after three decades of Canon making EF lenses, we were all left a little surprised to see Canon’s announcement. But were we really all that surprised?

It makes perfect sense. Canon can’t continue to fully invest in two types of lenses at the same time—developing these lenses takes tooling, manufacturing, quality control and, most importantly, research and development. All of these things are expensive. EF lenses are—and always will be—fantastic. Just because Canon released newer lenses, it doesn’t make EF lenses instantly worse. What changes our perception of them? RF lenses are simply an evolution of what has come before, how to make things more efficient or improve based on learnings.

EF will represent a choice made by the photographer to aid their work. If anything, the mirrorless revolution and RF lenses are giving us more choices to give our photos the characteristics we prefer. If you’re worried about Canon’s EF lens discontinuation, don’t be. There are more than enough EF lenses to go around for many years to come.

Thinking of upgrading a lens? Click here to sell or trade your camera kit