Canon has always strived to bring a unique and strong product to the market.
We saw Ivo’s request as a great opportunity
and also as other lens manufacturers
turned down his request as it was not possible to create this lens.
At Canon, we like challenges and have the world’s best R&D when it comes to lens design.
At some point the wildlife film business changed from the 2/3’’ cameras
to the Super 35 sensor cameras
whilst the image quality and especially the dynamic range is so much better.
But there was not a single long lens available on the market, they all ended at 300 or 400mm.
So, I was looking for a lens manufacturer who could build my or our wildlife film dream lens.
So far, the option was only to use prime lenses but then you are too slow,
in wildlife film we have no time to change lenses or you will miss the scene.
Everything happens only once in wildlife
and everything happens super fast, so you don’t have time to change lenses.
So, it’s also not really an option.
Or we had to use the old lenses like Canon HJ18x28B with an adapter (B4 to PL)
but then you are losing focus, the image is not as sharp,
especially in the corners and wide angle and you are also losing 2,5 f-stops with the adapter
and we are often shooting at very low light conditions, very early morning or late evening
so we need as much light as possible.
I was shooting in the really Northern Arctic of Canada, about 1000km away from the North Pole
and I was shooting the wolves in the summer and the second time in the winter
and in the winter we had up to -40°C and really the lens performed very well,
no issue with focusing or the lens, really perfect.
We’ve stayed 2 months in the field and after some time the wolves get more and more
comfortable with us, so after some weeks
we could get closer and closer and finally we were really able
to get really nice close shots, even from the cubs, really head shots from the adults,
really only the two eyes or the paws and we could get nice very sharp close ups,
you see every hair from the fur, which looks very impressive.
My favourite pictures are actually the wide shots where you see this vast cinematic landscape
and still see the details of the small moving wolves, these are finally my favourite shots.
In the final film, we have one very long zoom
where we are zooming from the widest possible
to the really close up, we have one shot where the wolf mother is coming from a far distance
and then approaching the wolf den and the cubs are coming out just when she approaches
there we used really the whole zoom range.
As in my opinion what we needed for wildlife, I was missing more a bit wider shots
than the extreme tele shots.
Now I am able to make these wide zoom shots
without compromising on quality, what we had to do before.
It is really also important to have a short lens to just reach the focus ring with your hand.
If your lens is too long you have your focus in here and your zoom in here
which is very very uncomfortable and with some animals if they hunt
they move very very fast and we have to be able to do whatever 90° pans in a very short time.
So, it’s really important to also have a very compact set-up.
When I had the idea to make this lens I also asked all my colleagues, also from England from BBC
and we have really tried to find the ideal technical specifications, measurements, weights
and everything and zoom range, what is ideal especially for our wildlife film purpose
and Canon really met 100% of my specifications and my ideas.
Our R&D team has met numerous times and had heated discussions
as they did not want to compromise on any lens design aspect that Ivo requested.
Actually, the lens has been redesigned numerous times during the development process
so it could be fast in aperture with minimised chromatic aberration and fast and precise control
over zoom and focus and of course with stunning optical image quality from centre to edge
even with a built-in extender.
I am proud that Canon designed and manufactured
a lens that no one has ever created.
Thanks to Canon’s decades long lens design heritage
we could bring this truly unique lens to life.