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Lens Announcement

Fuji’s ultra-wide-angle 8mm f/3.5 lens offers a massive 121º field of view

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Along with the announcement of the new Fujifilm X-S20 mirrorless camera (buy here), the company also released a new ultra-wide-angle lens. The Fujinon XF8mm F3.5 R WR lens (buy here), like the rest of Fuji’s X system, is an APS-C lens. With an 8mm focal length, it’s an extremely wide lens, offering a similar field of view to that of 12mm on full frame. This provides a massive 121º field of view.

With an f/3.5 aperture, it’s not too terribly fast. However, when it comes to depth of field, pretty much anything more than a couple of feet away from the end of the lens on one this wide should be in focus. Fuji describes it as an “incredibly compact […] lens that will help image makers unlock another way of creatively seeing the world”. And with an angle of view this wide, they surely will.

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TTArtisan 100mm f/2.8 2x Tilt-Shift Macro announced for RF, Z, X and E mounts

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TTArtisan has announced its new full-frame 100mm f/2.8 Tilt-Shift Macro lens. As a manual focus lens, it’s available for a variety of mounts that wouldn’t otherwise be easily available. Of course, there’s the usual Sony E mount and Fuji X mount, but it’s also available for Nikon Z and Canon RF mounts.

Made up of 14 elements in 10 groups, the new lens provides 2x magnification for macro, as well as tilt-shift capabilities to adjust the plane of focus. The wide f/2.8 aperture diaphragm is made of 12 blades for smooth round bokeh and also sports a cold shoe attachment for putting lights close to your subjects.

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Is Meike’s 84mm f/1.4 RF lens the first 3rd party AF lens to be Canon-approved?

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Meike has announced a new 85mm f/1.4 lens at NAB 2023 this week. This in itself is not really big news. Neither is the fact that it’s a full-frame lens nor that it’s an autofocus lens. What is big news, though, is that they’re saying it’ll be available in a Canon RF Mount. Yes, that’s right, an autofocus lens with a Canon RF mount (as well as E, Z and L mounts). Is this the first 3rd party autofocus RF lens to be approved by Canon itself?

Canon has a bit of history when it comes to 3rd party AF lenses. They’ve shut down a number of manufacturers including Samyang and Viltrox, and after the Viltrox news broke, Canon confirmed it. In a recent interview with DPReview, Canon did suggest they’d be open to third-party lenses using the RF mount, but has that happened here? Is this small Chinese lens company beating the likes of Sigma and Tamron to the punch?

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Canon’s hotly anticipated RF 100-300mm f/2.8 costs almost 10 grand

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Canon has unveiled its hotly anticipated wide aperture super-telephoto zoom lens. It’s the Canon RF 100-300mm f/2.8 L IS USM (buy here) and costs a whopping $9,499. With this kind of price tag, Canon doesn’t really need to say that it’s “aimed directly at professional and very high-end video and still-image users”, although they said it anyway. Specifically, they say it’s ideal for things like theatre, event candids, and indoor sports.

It’s a bit of a monster at 5.8 lbs, although Canon says it’s the lightest f/2.8 zoom lens with a 300mm focal length on the market. It claims excellent optical quality, with edge-to-edge sharpness, and a design that includes one fluorite element, and 4 Ultra-Low Dispersion (UD) elements. Fluorine coatings and Canon’s Super Spectra Coating (SSC) help to minimise ghosting and flare.

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Nikkor Z 12-28mm f/3.5-5.6 PZ VR is Nikon’s widest APS-C Z mount lens

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Nikon has announced its widest APS-C lens for Nikon Z mount mirrorless cameras. The Nikon Nikkor Z DX 12-28mm f/3.5-5.6 PZ VR (buy here), as all of the letters in its name suggest, is a an APS-C (DX) lens, with Power Zoom (PZ) and Vibration Reduction (VR – or optical image stabilisation in generic terms). Designed for content creators and vloggers, the new lens offers up to 4.5 stops of stabilisation with focusing as close as 11 inches.

The lens offers the full frame equivalent field of view to that of an 18-42mm focal length range, making for some wide close-ups for vlogging as well as being able to dial things in a little narrower when you want to focus on a subject. According to Nikon, extra-low dispersion and aspherical elements provide a high level of sharpness and distortion control throughout the zoom range.

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Sigma adds 17mm f/4, 50mm f/2 FF and 23mm f/1.4 APS-C lenses to its Contemporary lineup

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Sigma has now officially announced the three rumoured new lenses in their Contemporary lens lineup. As expected, there are two full-frame 17mm f/4 and 50mm f/2 lenses, along with one 23mm f/1.4 APS-C lens. The two full-frame DG DN lenses are part of what Sigma calls its “I series” full-frame lenses with all-metal barrels available in Sony E and Leica L mount.

The 23mm f/1.4 DC DN expands the company’s APS-C lens lineup, adding to the 16mm f/1.4, 30mm f/1.4 and 56mm f/1.4 DC DN Contemporary prime lenses and the 18-50mm f/2.8 DC DN Contemporary zoom lens. Sigma has also announced availability and prices for these lenses coming to Nikon Z Mount.

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Laowa announces the super wide FF 15mm f/2 Zero-D for Leica M

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It seems to be an almost weekly occurrence, but Venus Optics has announced a new Laowa lens. This time, it’s the Laowa 15mm f/2 Zero-D (buy here) lens for Leica M mount cameras. Offering an ultra-wide 110° field of view, it has a maximum aperture of f/2. Being part of Laowa’s Zero-D product line, it offers virtually zero distortion, even at such a short focal length.

Laowa says that this is a very versatile lens that’s ideal for landscape, architecture, interior, astrophotography and even street photography. It also supports rangefinder coupling, offering compatibility with both digital and film Leica M mount cameras.

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Mitakon recreates Leica’s Summaron M 28mm f/5.6 at a tenth the cost

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Mitakon has announced their newest lens. It’s full-frame Mitakon Creator 28mm f/5.6, which they say “recreate[s] the iconic Leica Summaron M 28mm f/5.6 lens with faithful adherence to the original lens characters”. Except, in this case, Mitakon is doing it at a fraction of the $3,095 price the Leica lens demands. In fact, it’s an entire order of magnitude cheaper, at only $299.

Exactly how well the Mitakon adheres to the Leica original remains to be seen, but this is where Mitakon claims to be aiming its sights. Given the price difference, though, even without the Leica name stamped on it, I expect it won’t be identical in terms of image quality.

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Yongnuo announces 85m f/1.8 AF lens for Canon RF (again)

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It seems that Yongnuo is the first company to figure out a way around Canon’s RF mount autofocus lens licensing issues. Well, it’s either that or they’re going to be next in the line of companies that Canon shuts down for producing unauthorised, patent-infringing, RF mount autofocus lenses. Either way, it seems that Yongnuo has announced a new 85mm f/1.8R DF DSM lens for Canon RF mount.

According to Asobinet, the lens comes with a new design, new optical configuration of 9 elements in 8 groups, a 7-blade aperture, 58mm filter thread and a minimum focus distance of around 80cm. It is an autofocus lens featuring a built-in stepper motor, which means it presumably communicates with RF-mount camera bodies. All I want to ask is… How? This isn’t the first time Yongnuo’s tried to release this.

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The Mitakon Speedmaster 65mm f/1.4 is the fastest lens available for Hasselblad XCD

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ZY Optics has announced that its Mitakon Speedmaster 65mm f/1.4, initially released for Fujifilm GFX cameras, is now available in Hasselblad X flavour. This makes the manual focus lens the fastest lens available for the Hasselblad X system. It has an aperture range from a bright f/1.4, stopping down to f/16, with a field of view on Hasselblad X cameras similar to that of a 50mm lens on full-frame cameras.

Being such a wide aperture lens and taking advantage of a medium format sensor, its relative depth of field is also shallower than it would be at f/1.4 on full-frame for the same field of view. Its diaphragm contains nine aperture blades for what ZY Optics describes as “outstanding bokeh” and they say it produces no vignetting at all, with consistent sharpness from edge to edge.

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