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Leica has finally released the $12,995 Summilux-M 90mm f/1.5 ASPH lens

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It’s been a long while since the Leica Summilux 90mm f/1.5 ASPH lens was first rumoured way back in 2017. Finally, last week, things looked a little promising as a few images of the lens had been leaked. But with the serial number of the lens shown falling into 26 known lenses that had been published in the Leica Pocket Guide (1953-2018) nobody was quite sure if it was actually coming soon.

Today, though, it’s official. Leica has now announced the new Leica Summilux 90mm f/1.5 ASPH lens. The fast long prime is designed primarily for shooting portraits with a very shallow depth of field. But it s not cheap, by any stretch of the imagination, coming in at a hair under $13,000.

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This is what Canon’s “Defocus Smoothing” coating does to bokeh

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Canon recently announced the new RF 85mm f/1.2L USM DS lens for the EOS R mirrorless system. But what exactly does DS mean? Sure, it means “defocus smoothing”, but what effect does that actually have on the image? How does it make the bokeh look? Well, Canon has put out a video showing exactly how it looks.

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Canon’s new RF 70-200mm f/2.8L and 85mm f/1.2L DS lenses are now available to pre-order

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Along with the development announcement for the 1DX Mark III, Canon has also announced availability for two new lenses. These aren’t EF mount, though. They’re RF mount for Canon’s EOS R mirrorless system. They’ve been mentioned before, but now they’re official. The Canon RF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM and Canon RF 85mm f/1.2L USM DS lenses.

Canon did already release an 85mm f/1.2L lens for the EOS R system, although this new one adds what they’re calling “Defocus Smoothing” which they say helps to soften and smooth bokeh when working at wider apertures, improving the aesthetic of super shallow depth of field shots.

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Irix is finally releasing a 45mm lens, but it’s not the f/1.4, it’s a T1.5 cinema lens

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I want to take you back in time. To a brighter, happier time. It’s September 2016, the largest swinging bell in the world sits silently in Cologne Cathedral as Photokina is as noisy as ever in the Koelnmesse just down the road. Irix is showing off a prototype for a new 45mm f/1.4 lens. It was a very sexy looking lens, although here we are, three years later, still no closer to an actual announcement for its availability.

What Irix has done, though, is announce the impending launch of the Irix 45mm T1.5 cinema lens. According to their press release, this is the third full-frame cinema lens Irix has made, adding to the 150mm T3.0 1:1 Macro (the only one they currently list on their website) and the upcoming 11mm T4.3.

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Tokina’s releases their new atx-i 11-16mm f/2.8 APS-C zoom lens for DSLRs

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Tokina’s line of 11-16mm f/2.8 lenses for APS-C DSLRs have been pretty regularly recommended for years. They weren’t perfect, but they were rather good for what they cost. Tokina has now announced an update to this lens, in the form of the new Tokina atx-i 11-16mm f/2.8 CF for both Nikon and Canon.

The new lens promises increased clarity and sharpness as well as greater contrast, coatings to prevent flaring and ghosting and aspherical and low dispersion elements to combat chromatic and other aberrations.

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Nikon has announced development of the D6 and a crazy 120-300mm f/2.8 lens

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Nikon has today officially announced the new Nikon D6 flagship DSLR. Well, they’ve announced the development of it, anyway. That’s pretty much all they’ve announced, though. There are no specs or details available other than the name and that it’ll be an FX-format full-frame DSLR.

But what’s possibly even more interesting is that they’ve also announced a new long f/2.8 zoom lens aimed at sports photographers, too. The AF-S Nikkor 120-300mm f/2.8E FL ED SR VR is coming.

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Samyang expands their Sony full-frame AF lineup with a new ultrawide 18mm f/2.8

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Samyang has added an 8th lens to their autofocus lens range for Sony FE mount. The new ultrawide Samyang 18mm F2.8 FE is a lightweight and super wide-angle lens that covers the entire sensor of Sony’s range of full-frame mirrorless cameras. The lens weighs only 145g without the lens hood or cap, which Samyamg says makes it the smallest and lightest 18mm super wide AF lens on the market.

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Yongnuo has announced a faster, quieter version of its 35mm f/1.4 lens for Canon DSLRs

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Chinese manufacturer, Yongnuo, has announced a new version of its 35mm f/1.4 lens for Canon DSLRs. It remains largely unchanged from the existing 35mm f/1.4 model for Nikon and Canon in design, except for the addition of the “Ultrasonic Wave Motor” (UWM) which should offer faster and quieter focusing performance than the previous model.

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Leica just announced their $4,500 50mm f/2 lens for L mount

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Leica has announced the newest addition to its L Mount lens lineup, the Leica APO-Summicron-SL 50mm f/2 ASPH. Priced at a mere $4,495, Leica says the new lens “sets an even higher benchmark for the Summicron-SL family” of lenses. It consists of twelve elements in 10 groups to offer what Leica describes as “natural skin tones, smooth bokeh, outstanding contrast and consistent sharpness from corner-to-corner”.

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Laowa’s new super short 4mm f/2.8 Circular Fisheye lens costs less than $200

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It was first teased back in April, but now the Laowa 4mm f/2.8 Fisheye from Venus Optics has been officially announced, along with availability and pricing. Designed for Micro Four Thirds, and taking a break from their “Zero-D” wide-angle lenses, this one offers a super-wide 210° field of view with some pretty crazy distortion.

A lens built to basically see behind itself offers up a lot of great advantages for interesting perspectives, but one of its primary uses will no doubt be for creating 360° content. That ability, according to Laowa, is one of the key benefits of this lens, providing the ability to shoot a 360° panorama with only 2 photos.

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