Canon’s budget-friendly 3D lens will be available in November

Canon has officially announced its new RF-S7.8mm F4 STM Dual lens, which features stereoscopic features packed into a body no larger than a traditional 2D camera lens. It was initially teased during the Apple WWDC 2024 keynote last June and is designed to work with the Canon EOS R7 as a low-cost tool for creators making 3D VR content for headsets like the Meta Quest 3 or Apple Vision Pro spatial videos.

The company hasn’t set an exact date for when the new 3D lens will be available, but it says it will be in November 2024, with an “estimated price” of $449.99. That’s significantly cheaper than Canon’s existing dual-fisheye lenses designed for capturing 3D video content, including the $1,999 RF5.2mm F2.8 L Dual and the $1,099 RF-S3.9mm F3.5 STM Dual.

Pairing Canon’s new 3D lens with the company’s 32.5MP EOS R7 digital camera — which itself starts at $1,299 — pushes the total price of the kit to over $1,700. However, that’s still cheaper than Canon’s top-of-the-line 3D solutions, which start at $2,498 (and can go as high as $6,298) when paired with the necessary camera gear.

Canon’s new 3D lens has an aperture range from f/4.0 to f/16, supports autofocus, and features a button and control wheel to make separate left and right hand focus adjustments. What makes it much cheaper than Canon’s existing 3D lenses is its limited field of view. Canon’s premium lenses are capable of capturing 180-degree video and photos – close to what the human eye can see – while the new RF-S7.8mm F4 STM Dual lens only captures a third of that at 63 degrees.

Using Canon’s standard RF mount, the new lens has stereoscopic features aligned in the direct line of sight, resulting in its front lenses being placed 11.8mm apart compared to the 60mm gap between the dual-fisheye lenses on Canon’s existing 3D lenses. As a result, Canon says the most powerful 3D effect will be achieved when photographing subjects or objects 6 to 20 inches from the lens. If you use it to capture a distant object, the 3D effect will be less pronounced.

Photos and videos captured using this lens need to be processed before they can be viewed using VR or AR headsets, either with the EOS VR plugin available in Adobe Premiere Pro, or the Canon EOS VR Utility software, available for Macs and PCs . Both tools require a paid subscription but can produce 180-degree 3D, VR, or spatial video content.