Fancy a hyper-real walk through the ice caves of Iceland? Want to watch a concert and feel as though you are really there? Virtual reality can provide that immersive three-dimensional experience. Yet for content creators, professional stereoscopic 180° VR can be an intimidating industry to enter, filled with complex camera rigs and painful post-production processes. That was, until now.

"I'm really excited about how simple Canon has made it to capture 180° VR content, opening up the doors for so many individuals and companies to create more," says Mark Fensome, Product Specialist at Canon Europe. "The Canon RF 5.2mm F2.8L Dual Fisheye lens simplifies everything from capture to post-production. It takes the fear and complexity out of VR content, which means more people are going to be able to create it."

With the three-dimensional stereoscopic action focused to a 180° field of view where viewers can look up, down, left and right through a compatible headset or viewing device, the Canon RF 5.2mm F2.8L Dual Fisheye lens creates an incredibly immersive experience, especially when compared to monoscopic two-dimensional alternatives. The field of view is also perfect for a wide range of applications, including education, documentary, travel, retail and entertainment.

So how does this lens work? As its name suggests, the Canon RF 5.2mm F2.8L Dual Fisheye projects stereoscopic left and right eye images onto a single image sensor. Attached in the same way as any regular lens to a compatible RF mount camera, the lens makes use of the camera's 8K video capture capability to create a single high-quality, high resolution stereoscopic 180° VR image file, which is easy to capture and process using Canon's EOS VR Utility¹ software. The Canon EOS R5 is the ideal partner for the Canon RF 5.2mm F2.8L Dual Fisheye, thanks to Canon's latest firmware update, which adds VR functionality and compatibility.

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The innovative technology has numerous advantages over existing alternatives across the entire 180° VR image-making process, from ease of use to image quality and workflow. We spoke to Mark Fensome and product engineers from Canon Inc. to find out more.

Hear more experiences from behind the lens in this episode of Canon's Shutter Stories podcast:

"Until now, the shooting method to realise 180° VR has generally been to use a dedicated camera compatible with 180° VR or to build a dedicated rig using multiple cameras," says the Canon Optical team. "The Canon RF 5.2mm F2.8L Dual Fisheye lens is a totally new and unique concept."

Photographers who use a compatible camera such as the Canon EOS R5² can simply add the compact lens to their kitbag and swap it in and out like any other lens, switching from shooting portraits to VR in an instant without the need for a dedicated VR camera. This also means they can offer clients 180° VR content within the same shoot as their standard images.

Canon's more versatile option is also much simpler, enabled by the RF mount system. "Setup is as simple as attaching the RF 5.2mm F2.8L Dual Fisheye lens to the camera and selecting your shooting parameters, with no specialist rigs, synchronisation of settings/image parameter or alignment needed," says Mark. Eliminating those otherwise time-consuming daily realities frees up VR creators to do what they want to do – create.

The effective angle of view of the dual fisheye lens is approximately 190°, meaning the camera operator can stand behind the camera and view the scene yet remain out of shot while recording. The same is also true for any on-set kit behind the camera, such as lighting. Composing, lighting and creating the shot is inherently easier and much more flexible than it is for 360° VR where everything in sight is in shot.

And while there is still a case for 360° VR, it is easier to keep the viewer locked into the action with 180° VR – where it is still possible to look up down, left and right via a compatible headset or viewing device – than it is for 360° VR, where turning around can mean missing the action happening in the other direction.

Like all Canon RF mount L-series lenses, the RF 5.2mm F2.8L Dual Fisheye lens boasts sharp detail with excellent edge-to-edge quality. This is all the more challenging in a fisheye lens where the circular image is converted to an equirectangular projection.

"It is critical to ensure a very high edge-to-edge performance to enable a high-quality conversion to an equirectangular projection, as it is the edges of the frame that are remapped to a more extreme level," explain Canon Inc.'s product engineers.

"By adopting a lens configuration that is optimal for short back focus and optical path blurring, and by effectively arranging two UD lenses in the final lens group, high image quality is achieved on the entire screen while achieving an angle of view of 190°."

High defined image quality is not all down to the lens and RF mount, though, as the potential for high quality VR also comes down to 8K video capability. VR creators can naturally rely on native Canon gamma profiles, Canon Log and Canon Log 3 for increased dynamic range performance and heightened flexibility in post, all compatible with full-frame RF-mount cameras such as the Canon EOS R5². Furthermore, the dual fisheye lens utilises the high resolution of the 45MP CMOS sensor within the EOS R5 for a highly detailed and realistic final image. The left and right eye lenses each project a circular fisheye image, side-by-side onto the EOS R5's 8K sensor. The light rays entering each lens are converged onto the single full-frame image sensor using two right-angle prisms, "a clever and compact 'folding' configuration enabled by the RF mount system's large mount aperture and short back focusing," explains Mark.

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Each left and right eye image is consequently projected in reverse onto the sensor and needs to be reversed back in post-production, a process automated using Canon's dedicated EOS VR Utility software and the EOS VR Plugin for Adobe Premiere Pro¹.

With the left and right eye images now simultaneously recorded onto the same image file, there are many benefits to the VR production workflow. The two images are aligned perfectly and at an identical time from the start, so there's no need for labour-intensive image alignment or to time-synchronise the recordings as you would have to with multi-sensor alternatives.

"Editors of stereoscopic VR will love the efficient one-step conversion of the original camera files to an equirectangular projection – there's no more pairing, syncing or stitching of files, saving huge amounts of time and effort in post-production," says Mark.

There's no risk of human error either, such as exposure settings not being matched on all cameras in a multi-cam setup. Working with multiple cameras introduces other complications, too. "In a system that captures the left and right images with different sensors, there will be colour and brightness differences between the left and right images due to individual differences in sensor characteristics, which will require correction in post-production," explain Canon Inc.'s product engineers. "By using a single sensor, it is not necessary to consider individual differences between sensors."

Essentially, the EOS VR SYSTEM – a compatible camera, the Canon RF 5.2mm F2.8L Dual Fisheye lens, EOS VR Utility and the EOS VR Plugin for Adobe Premiere Pro – simplifies the entire 180° VR image creation process.

"The lens is good value when you consider the system and what it can do and who it's really aimed at – professional VR creators," says Mark. "I hope it makes their lives a lot easier, so they can be excited about creating content rather than worrying about how to create it."

Bringing together such a high-quality 180° VR three-dimensional image into a competitively priced and easy-to-use package opens up a seemingly technically daunting industry to a much wider audience of content creators. We've seen the drone market open up to more and more creators, so could this new lens have the same impact on the growing VR industry?



¹EOS VR Utility and the EOS VR Plug-in for Adobe Premiere Pro are required to perform the equirectangular switch of recorded 180° VR images from a compatible Canon camera. A paid-for subscription service may be required to convert video files longer than two minutes in length.

²Firmware update required in order for the Canon EOS R5 to support the Canon RF 5.2mm F2.8L Dual Fisheye lens.

*Adobe and Premiere are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe in the United States and/or other countries.