Canon has made a surprising announcement, revealing a dual lens that is part of an all-new system called EOS VR. It aims to transform virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), making the workflow simpler than current VR shooting systems, while still delivering the quality of a mirrorless camera.
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The key product is the manual-focus RF5.2mm F2.8 L Dual Fisheye lens ($1,999), designed specifically to fit Canon’s 8K-capable EOS R5 camera. It’s a highly unusual product, with two bulging fisheye lenses placed side by side. They’re placed about 60mm apart to match the distance between people’s eyes and provide comfortable parallax for VR and AR.
The lens only works with the Canon EOS R5, which was selected for its 8K video capability. When shooting, it projects two circular images onto the camera's 45-megapixel sensor. It supports 190-degree shooting, allowing for 180-degree stereoscopic 3D photos or photos at resolutions up to 8,192 x 4,096 (8K) for AR or VR applications.
The lens has some unusual features, such as a ring that focuses both lenses at the same time and an Allen screw that allows you to adjust the focus of one lens to exactly match the other. Despite its odd appearance, the lens is quite compact and not much larger than Canon's 35mm F1.8 lens.
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Canon is also working on a firmware for the R5 with new features to support the lens and EOS VR system.
Additionally, Canon has created its own EOS VR Utility and EOS VR Plugin, each available as a $5 per month subscription (with a free trial). The VR Utility app flips stereo images from left to right and converts them from a circular to a square “equirectangle” image that can be viewed in VR headsets. It also offers tools like clip cropping and applying LUTs, and lets you switch to preset resolutions and file types (DPX, Pro Res, H264, etc.) before exporting.
The whole system isn't cheap, as you'll need to pay $1,999 for the lens and $3,899 if you don't already own the R5 camera, for a total of $5,898. However, considering how specialized and unusual the lens is, it's less expensive than you'd expect. There's also the issue of the R5 overheating, which limits 8K recording times to 20 minutes, with a 10-minute recovery period. You can improve on this by recording 8K to an external Ninja V+ RAW recorder, but that will add another $1,500 to your cost.
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Still, it looks very promising for virtual reality production, which has risen in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The EOS VR lens and system are expected to arrive in late December 2021.
