Five years ago, Canon announced a shift away from DSLRs and towards mirrorless. Now, the number of new-in-box lenses that Canon has available for DSLRs is dwindling.
Canon’s US website lists just 15 different EF and EF-S models in stock. Stock is a bit more plentiful in the UK, where Canon lists 27 available lenses between the full-frame and crop sensor DSLR mounts. Those numbers do not include retailers' stock.
Depending on the perspective, one might say that Canon only has 15 different lens options for DSLRs, or that Canon still has 15 different lenses available for DSLRs.
Canon announced that it shifted focus away from DSLRs and towards mirrorless in 2020, with the most recent EF lenses being announced in 2018. Five years later, the company still has more than a dozen different lenses in stock. But, in comparison, Canon’s mirrorless lens count is now at 50 different options at its online store.
The reduced number of new-in-box lenses for the EF mount isn’t exactly a death sentence for DSLRs – there are plenty of used DSLRs floating around from reputable used gear retailers. But now that Canon hasn’t made a DSLR or DSLR lens in years, the format – which is still beloved among many for its beefy grip, long battery life, and optical viewfinders – is pushing further into retro tech territory.
The first Canon EF lens dates back to 1987. Canon’s lens hall of fame includes 160 different lenses and extenders for the EF system.
While Canon’s switch from film to digital kept the same lens mount, the shift from DSLR to mirrorless wasn’t so lucky. Canon’s mirrorless cameras require an EF-EOS R adapter to use EF-mount DSLR lenses. While mirrorless lenses can work with DSLRs with an adapter, the opposite isn’t true – mirrorless lenses can’t be adapted to a Canon DSLR.
That different incompatible mirrorless mount, however, is one of the reasons why mirrorless lenses tend to outperform DSLR lenses in factors like sharpness and size. That’s an overarching generality that isn’t true with every lens, but lenses like the RF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM are quite a bit smaller and lighter than the EF 70-200mm f/2.8.
While DSLR lenses still have been around for far longer than mirrorless, mirrorless tech has created some lenses that don’t have an old DSLR equivalent. Canon’s popular RF 28-70mm f/2.8 is a prime example, as a lens that’s brighter than the typical f/2.8 zoom but cuts off a bit of the widest angles.
One of the biggest reasons for choosing a DSLR lens with an adapter over a mirrorless lens is price. The question remains, once Canon has no more new-in-box lenses, will the cost of used DSLR lenses jump?
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