Canon has been grabbing column inches like a Kardashian in recent months, and while it’s in no small part due to the Rio Olympics which has been one massive commercial for the brand, it’s also been pushing out more and more astonishingly unusual and impressive zooms, even if they’re patents at this time.

This year alone, heck, this summer alone Canon has patented a 1000mm f/5.6 DO lens, then a 28-560mm f/2.8-5.6, then a 40-800mm f/4-5.6, and now, according to Canon Rumors, another 28-560mm f/2.8-5.6L USM.

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So why would Canon do such a thing? Why would they patent 2 variants of a lens with the same unusual focal length and aperture range? Well, frankly, who’s to know but them, but it’s interesting to note the two lenses are slightly different, notably in terms of physical dimensions, and weight, which may be explained by ones omission of image stabilization.

Perhaps what makes this lens particularly noteworthy is that (and this is a sort of educated speculation) given the relative age of the EF 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6L IS, it would seem very plausible that this could be a worthy successor, improved in essentially every way. After all,tThe EF 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6L IS is arguably due for such an update, but the size of this, however versatile the focal range is, makes this rather impractical even more so that the 28-300.

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[REWIND: The Top 10 Pieces OF Gear Requested By Olympic Sports Photographers In Rio]

It’s also interesting to note that thanks to the Olympics and Canon’s armory of gear they’ve sent to Rio, we’ve seen firsthand what equipment the pros are shooting for sports, and among those the first two most requested lenses are the EF 200-400MM F/4L IS USM with 1.4X tele, and the EF 70-200MM F/2.8L IS II USM, and arguably this new lens could be a great compliment to both of those, or even taken in place of at the right occasion. Using the 200-400 f/4 with a 1.4x tele-converter would give that 560mm reach and put the aperture at 5.6 anyway, so why have both? Then again, that may be all the reason this lens never sees the light of day…

What’s your favorite Canon zoom and which would you like to try most?

Source: Canon Rumors