Canon created a dual fisheye lens for its novel VR video machine

Canon has made a comely product announcement, revealing a dual, RF mount fisheye lens that is section of an all-novel machine called EOS VR. Its purpose is nothing much less than to remodel virtual actuality (VR) and augmented actuality (AR) manufacturing by making workflow more brilliant than fresh VR pick systems, while turning in the quality of a fat-body mirrorless camera. 

The important thing product is the $1,999 RF5.2mm F2.8 L Dual Fisheye handbook lens designed particularly to mount on Canon’s 8K-capable EOS R5 camera. It’s a ways a extremely uncommon having a look product, to assert the least, with two bulging fisheye lenses mounted aspect by aspect. They’re placed roughly 60mm (2.4 inches) apart to match human interpupillary distance and provide happy parallax for VR and AR. 

Canon

The lens works supreme with Canon’s EOS R5, chosen for its 8K video capability. When taking pictures, it tasks two circular pictures onto the camera’s 45-megapixel sensor. It supports 190-level pick, allowing for birth of stereoscopic 180-level 3D footage or photos at as much as 8,192 x 4,096 (8K) resolution for AR or VR capabilities. 

The lens has some uncommon aspects, like a hoop that focuses both lenses straight away and an Allen screw adjustment that lets in you to tweak the level of passion of 1 lens to precisely match the assorted. In every other case, you get aspects customarily ticket in high-discontinue Canon L RF mount glass, like coatings to manipulate flare and ghosting, grime and water resistant sealing and a stable F2.8 to F16 aperture vary. No subject the uncommon appears to be like, the lens is quite compact and no longer noteworthy increased than Canon’s 35mm F1.8 lens. 

Canon

The lens is suitable one section of the equation, though. Canon is working on a firmware update for the R5 with novel aspects to toughen the lens and EOS VR machine. That entails MF peaking and handbook focal level verify via Canon’s Dual Pixel autofocus machine, along with a “Magic Window” UI that helps customers belief for birth to reasonably a pair of forms of headsets.

In addition, Canon made its absorb EOS VR Utility and EOS VR Plugin apps, every readily available by subscription for $5 per month (with a free trial length). The VR Utility app flips the stereo pictures left to lawful and converts them from circular to an “equirectangular” square listing that can presumably well even be viewed on a VR headset. It furthermore provides hasty making improvements to instruments like trimming of clips and utility of a LUT, while letting you trade to preset resolutions and file styles (DPX, Pro Res, H264, etc.) sooner than export.

There’s furthermore the EOS VR lumber-in for Adobe Premiere that “will convert the twin fisheye imagery to equirectangular, while allowing the flexibility to lessen, color, and edit with the fat place watch over of Premiere Pro,” Canon told Engadget. It furthermore lets in you to export footage to the specified spec for varied forms of birth. 

On top of those apps, you should presumably well make exhaust of the fresh Digicam Connect app and Canon’s EOS Utility to manipulate pick. Both could be up as much as now down the road to present “a ways away place watch over dwell look functionality for monitoring capabilities while on-the-scoot,” Canon acknowledged in a press liberate.

The machine could presumably well even be broken-down for weddings, journalism, sports activities, practicing, events and more, while offering a series of advantages over fresh VR cameras. To open with, it be designed to carry higher quality than standalone VR cameras with smaller lenses and sensors just like the $5,000 Insta360 Pro 2. At the identical time, you get the total R5’s instruments like log taking pictures, RAW pick, 10-bit video and more. And in the occasion you should presumably well presumably be no longer the exhaust of the VR lens, the R5 could presumably well even be broken-down for regular video manufacturing or listing shoots, unlike devoted VR cameras. 

Canon

At the identical, the manufacturing process is more brilliant and more cost effective than with dual cameras broken-down in increased-discontinue productions. Those cameras should be rigged, synced, focused and positioned accurately, with the discontinue end result being two recordsdata in lots of circumstances. Canon’s EOS VR machine, in opposition to this, delivers an analogous quality but provides focal level and setup like a typical camera, while leaving you with a single file to edit on the discontinue. 

The total machine is not in actuality precisely cheap, pondering you should pay $1,999 for the lens and $3,899 if you do not absorb already bought an R5 camera, for an complete of $5,898. Nonetheless, pondering how arena of interest and uncommon the lens is, it charges much less than I anticipated. There’s furthermore the grief of R5 overheating that limits 8K recording times to 20 minutes, with a 10-minute restoration length. You would enhance that by taking pictures 8K to an exterior Ninja V+ RAW recorder, but that’ll add $1,500 to your cost.

Collected, it appears to be like very promising for VR manufacturing, which has boomed in reputation all throughout the COVID-19 pandemic (though peaceable is not in actuality precisely mainstream). It has been especially in-build aside a matter to of for commercial practicing and collaboration, a doubtlessly well off vein for video producers. Plenty of those of us, especially if they absorb got already bought a Canon EOS R5, could presumably well even be sharp to soar into VR work if Canon’s novel machine is as easy to make exhaust of because it guarantees. The lens and EOS VR machine are arena to are available tedious December 2021.