When it comes to photographic equipment, few things capture the attention of many photographers more than the promise of super-smooth bokeh. And while Canon already has a lot of lenses that can offer that, it seems to be investing in developing it further with some intriguing new lens designs.
Digicame.info discovered some pretty impressive lens patents from Canon, all four being wide maximum aperture zoom lenses, some particularly so. What makes these even more interesting is that they each have a “DS” label, which stands for “defocus smoothing,” Canon’s notation for apodization filters. The denoise filter is a radially graduated ND filter that delivers exceptionally smooth bokeh. The trade-off is a loss of about 1-2 stops of light transmission, but these are often appreciated for the ultra-fine defocus areas. The four lens designs are:
- 18-35mm f/1.8 DS
- 21-50mm f/2.8 DS
- 50-100mm f/1.8 DS
- 120-300mm f/2.8 DS
Canon already has such a model in RF 85mm f/1.2 L USM DS. That said, just because a lens design has been patented doesn’t mean it will eventually hit the market, but it’s still quite interesting to see these designs, especially in zoom lenses. In particular, I am intrigued by the 50-100mm f/1.8 DS, as it can be a great versatile portrait lens. Hopefully, we’ll see it eventually!
