It seems Laowa’s been keeping very quiet about a whole bunch of new lenses. Nine of them, to be precise, including an updated version of their unique and popular 24mm f/14 probe macro lens. But now the curtain has been pulled back a little after Venus Optics had them on display at a recent photography show in Shanghai, China.
As well as the 24mm T14 2x Macro Periscopelens, there’s a 10mm f/4 pancake for APS-C and MFT, 20mm f/4 C-Dreamer shift lens, an 85mm f/5.6 2:1 macro, a 12-24mm f/5.6 C-Dreamer, 6mm T2.1 and 14069mm T2.9 cine lenses for MFT, 27mm T2.8 1.5x anamorphic cine lens for Super 35 and a 7.5mm T2.9 cine lens for both MFT and surprisingly, Super 35.
The news comes via Photo Rumors, who seem to have classed the Venus Optics Laowa FF 24mm T14 2x macro periscope lens as a photography lens and not a cinema lens, which is odd. Sure, you could use it for photography, but photography lenses have aperture values marked as an f/number. T stops are a measurement of light transmission, used with video and cinema lenses. It also appears to feature the gear teeth for follow focus, etc that we’d normally expect with cinema lenses, too – gear teeth which are absent on the original Laowa 24mm f/14 macro probe lens.
Aside from the gears that make it better suited to video shooting rigs than the existing 24mm f/14 probe lens, the new 24mm T14 probe lens appears to have a periscope lens, which changes the angle of attack reflecting the frame 90 degrees to be able to shoot sideways. This should make for some very interesting tracking shots across minute surfaces.
Here are the rest of the lenses. First up, the photography lenses (minus the probe lens already mentioned above).
- Venus Optics Laowa CF 10mm f/4 Cookie lens (for MFT and APS-C cameras)
- Venus Optics Laowa FF S 20mm f/4 C-dreamer shift lens
- Venus Optics Laowa Mini FFii 85mm f/5.6 macro 2:1 full-frame lens
- Venus Optics Laowa FFii 12-24mm f/5.6 C-dreamer ultra-wide zoom lens
None of the cinema glass appears to be full-frame, but it looks like there are some great options for MFT shooters, as well as those APS-C/Super 35 shooters looking to get their anamorphic fix.
- Venus Optics Laowa 6mm T2.1 cine MFT lens
- Venus Optics Laowa 7.5mm T2.9 cine lens for MFT and APS-C.
- Venus Optics Laowa S35 anamorphic 27mm T2.8 1.5X cine lens
- Venus Optics Laowa MFT 14-60mm T2.9 Cine lens
There’s no word yet on exactly when these lenses will be officially announced with complete specs, but it looks like we’ve got a lot on the way from Venus Optics to play with. I’d be very interested to see what people do with the new periscope macro lens and what it will let them achieve that they haven’t been able to in the past with the probe lens!
[via Photo Rumors]
Not true. There are two versions of the original Laowa Probe lens. I know because I own the version with gear teeth.