Laowa Ranger S35 – World’s smallest PL cine zoom lenses for Super 35mm

Laowa is showing off its new Ranger S35 series zoom lenses at NAB 2024 in Las Vegas right now. The company claims they’re the world’s smallest Super 35mm PL mount cine zooms, and they certainly are small.

From the image above, we can see that they’re shorter than your typical smartphone. The three lenses cover a wide range from 11mm all the way up to 130mm. That’s roughly equivalent to about 17-205mm on full-frame.

Laowa Ranger S35 – Three T2.9 cine zooms

The new series is kicking off with three zoom lenses, each with a T2.9 aperture. There’s the 11-18mm T2.9, the 17-50mm T2.9 and the 50-130mm T2.9. The three lenses offer a consistent look between them and should cover most focal lengths one should need on a regular basis.

Their compact, lightweight nature also means they should be ideal for use with drones. Drones tend not to like big lenses. They’re difficult to balance on a gimbal with limited adjustment. That extra work from the motors, along with the weight of larger lenses, also drains your batteries very quickly.

These lenses should help to overcome that issue and keep you flying for longer while filming.

Not coming until at least July

Other than the specs, there isn’t much to go on with these just yet. There’s no page on the Laowa website, and the company hasn’t released any images for the lenses other than what’s shown in the video above.

Laowa says that they’re expecting to launch the new Laowa Ranger S35 series in July. Whether that’s when pre-orders will open up or that’s when they’ll start shipping is currently unclear.

Laowa Ranger S35 Specs

The specs below do look pretty solid, but as with any product, before a release announcement comes, they are subject to change. So, make sure to double check them once they actually do become available.

	11-18mm T2.9	17-50mm T2.9	50-130mm T2.9
Focal Length	11-18mm	17-50mm	50-130mm
Aperture range	T2.9-22	T2.9-22	T2.9-22
Image circle	31.5mm	31.5mm	31.5mm
Angle of view	105.3°-77.4°	80.6°-32.2°	32.2°-12.7°
Optics	17 elements 11 groups	22 elements 18 groups	17 elements 13 groups
Diaphragm blades	11	11	11
Min focus distance	36cm	35cm	75cm
Max magnification	0.08x	0.22x	0.18x
Filter thread	77mm	77mm	77mm
Front diameter	80mm	80mm	80mm
Dimensions	80 x 108mm	80 x 117mm	80 x 135.9mm
Weight	~745g	~865g	~760g
Mounts	PL (Optional: EF/RF/E/Z/X/L)	PL (Optional: EF/RF/E/Z/X/L)	PL (Optional: EF/RF/E/Z/X/L)

Price and Availability

Pricing for the Laowa Ranger S35 set has not yet been announced. I can’t even link you to a page about them on the Laowa website yet. Laowa says they expect the Ranger S35 range to hit the market around July and that prices will be announced at that time.

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