No, G-SHOCK has not started to make lenses. It’s just an armored version of the Canon’s RF “Nifty 50”, which means a lens without the manual focus ring and switches, but much tougher, and pricier (…because of the armor). 

GDU Armored RF lenses

GDU (Global Dynamic United) has introduced a very interesting concept of RF lenses. The idea is pretty simple: Take Canon’s best-selling RF primes, remove all rings and switches, and dress it with an aluminum ‘armor’. As stated by GDU: “These are Canon internals housed in a protective 6061 billet aluminum shell with all external controls removed for those more demanding shooting environments…Yeah, it’s not about making it waterproof… because you are using it in a camera that likely isn’t waterproof. It’s about withstanding a healthy amount of physical abuse”. For now, the focal lengths available are 50mm and 16mm. The 24mm, 35mm, and 85mm might be developed in the near future.

The manual focus ring and  switches removed

This is how GDU describes the Armored Nifty 50: “The all-new GDU RF 50mm AF lens takes the best selling ‘nifty 50’ Canon RF 50mm F1.8 and wraps it in an almost indestructible armor machined from billet 6061 Aluminum, even the anodized red lens hood, and internal mask is cut out of metal and bolted to the housing. Just as with our previous lenses we also removed the manual focus ring as well as all external switches and leave all adjustments to the internal motors, so there is nothing to get knocked out of place when this lens is mounted to a camera flying through the air on a drone, bolted to the side of a helmet, dangling from a car mount or tucked away in a crash housing”. 

Controlling the lens

As you understand, these lenses can’t be controlled manually, since there’re no external rings and switches on them. On RED cameras the lens can focus and change the iris via RED CONTROL or the camera’s internal focus control, and on Canon RF mount cameras the lens will operate with AF and Iris just like its canon donor.

FF covering

According to GDU, on the Canon cameras, the lenses cover all full-frame R series cameras without vignetting. On RED cameras the lenses cover all current RED sensors up to 8K including Raptor VV, Monstro VV, and all S35 and S35+ previous sensors.

Price and availability

The price of the GDU Armored RF 50mm F1.8 Autofocus is $499, and the GDU Armored RF 16mm F2.8 Autofocus costs $599. The lenses can be purchased on the Global Dynamic United website.

Final thoughts

The concept is cool. Remove all external moving parts, and wrap them with a 6061 billet aluminum shell. That will definitely make the lens much more robust and battle-ready, in order to utilize it when manual control is not needed (drones, cars, and high-octane action sequences). It looks dope for sure. BTW, in case you’ve wondered why the design looks familiar to the design of RED Digital Cinema cameras, it’s because one of the owners of GDU is RED’s CEO. Nevertheless, the price of the GDU Armored RF lenses is much steeper than the original. For instance, the regular RF Nifty 50 costs just $160 compared to the $500 for the armored version. Let’s know your thoughts about this glass.