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NiSi breaks into the lens market with their new wide-angle 15mm f/4 for mirrorless cameras

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NiSi is expanding out into the world of photography lenses with the announcement of their first. It’s an ultra-wide-angle 15mm f/4 manual focus lens designed for full-frame mirrorless cameras. Not Panasonic ones, though. Although, it is also available for Fuji’s APS-C X mount system. The lens offers an aperture with 10 straight blades, to provide that “sunstar” look to light sources for use both during the day and at night.

On a full-frame camera, the lens offers an extremely wide 112° field of view – making its true focal length closer to 14.5mm – with a minimum focus distance of only 20cm. So, if you’re into those distorted close up shots with blurry backgrounds, then this lens may be worth taking a look at.

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Sigma launches I series compact full-frame mirrorless lenses for L & E mount

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Photos were leaked a week ago and then the specs for one of them came out a couple of days later, but now they’re official. Sigma has unveiled their new I (upper case “i”) series compact lenses. They’re designed for full-frame mirrorless cameras and to be as small and compact as possible. They’re also relatively inexpensive (compared to their Art series lenses).

The range kicks off with three new lenses (and absorbs an existing one). The new ones are the 24mm f/3.5 DG DN Contemporary, the 35mm f/2 DG DN Contemporary and the 65mm f/2 DG DN Contemporary. Sigma’s previously released 45mm f/2.8 DG DN Contemporary has also become part of the I series lineup.

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Vazen completes its Anamorphic MFT lens trio with the 65mm T2 1.8x

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It’s been a little while in the making, but Vazen has now completed its Anamorphic lens trio for Micro Four Thirds, first announced in June 2019, with the availability of the Vazen 65mm T2 1.8x Anamorphic lens. This adds to the 40mm T2 announced in the same month and the 28mm T2.2 released in February of this year.

All three lenses in the set cover a Micro Four Thirds sensor and offer a 2.39:1 aspect ratio when desqueezed. It’s not an inexpensive set, though, with each lens costing $3,250. That’s $9,750 for all three and no “package” containing all three for a discounted price has yet been announced.

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Viltrox completes its fast autofocus prime lineup with the 56mm f/1.4 for Canon EF-M

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Viltrox has now released the third lens in its fast prime autofocus lens series for the Canon EOS M APS-C mirrorless lineup. Adding to the 23mm f/1.4 STM and 33mm f/1.4 STM announced last month, the new Viltrox 56mm f/1.4 maintains the look and feel of the two existing lenses while retaining their small, lightweight stature.

With a focal length primarily thought of as a portrait lens, offering a field of view equivalent to that of about 90mm on full-frame bodies, the new lens rounds out the trio quite nicely.

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Canon’s RF 50mm f/1.8 lens is a nifty fifty with a very appropriate $199 price tag

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Well, Canon did it. They actually released a full-frame mirrorless lens designed for entry level users with a cost comparable to its DSLR counterpoint. Yes, that’s right, we’re talking about the Canon RF 50mm f/1.8 STM. Coming in at a measly $199, this is quite possibly the cheapest full-frame mirrorless lens on the market for any system that actually comes from a camera manufacturer.

The lack of inexpensive lenses to attract newer or lower budget users into the full-frame mirrorless market (especially when there are full-frame cameras under $1K) has been one of the biggest complaints about all the new systems that have come out over the last couple of years. Panasonic just started to address that a little more with their new 85mm f/1.8 for L mount and now Canon seems to be doing so as well.

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A day earlier than expected, Panasonic announces its $599 85mm f/1.8 L mount lens

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Panasonic has now officially announced the new Panasonic S 85mm f/1.8 L mount lens. And it does indeed come with a rather reasonable price tag. It looks like Panasonic has listened to the complaints from many users (of all mirrorless systems) about the high prices of mirrorless lenses vs their older DSLR equivalents.

It marks the start of a new chapter in Panasonic’s full-frame L mount lineup, with primes aimed at a lower budget user – something that has been sorely missing thus far. It’s a small 85mm f/1.8 prime lens for L mount mirrorless cameras from Panasonic, Sigma and Leica that costs a mere $599.

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Canon’s new RF 70-200mm f/4L is so tiny, it’s as short as a can of coke

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Canon really has fought back at the claim that mirrorless lenses are too big with this one. They’ve just announced their new RF 70-200mm f/4L IS USM lens and it’s ridiculously small, measuring a mere 119mm at its shortest length. It’s almost a third shorter than its EF mount equivalent, as well as being lighter. And it can be locked at its short 70mm end for travel and storage.

It’s not all rainbows and sunshine, though. Unlike its faster RF 70-200mm f/2.8L sibling, the RF 70-200mm f/4L IS USM does not have a tripod collar and it doesn’t apparently support Canon’s recently released RF teleconverters. Still, if you’re always handheld and hadn’t planned to use a TC, you’re good to go.

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Yongnuo just announced a new 35mm f/2 lens for full-frame Sony E mount

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Yongnuo has announced a new YN35mm F2S DF DSM lens for full-frame Sony E Mount cameras. It appears to not just be their existing 35mm f/2 for DSLRs with an extended barrel, either, but a completely new lens design. Whether or not it’s their own design or they’ve “borrowed” somebody else’s, I don’t know, but this one does seem as if it may be designed specifically for mirrorless cameras.

The lens is constructed of 9 elements in 8 groups including one aspherical element and one low dispersion element. The elements have a Nano-multilayer coating which Yongnuo says helps to improve light transmittance while suppressing ghosting and flare.

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Viltrox has released their EF-M 23mm f/1.4 and 33mm f/1.4 autofocus lenses for Canon EOS M cameras

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It’s not exactly news that Viltrox has been planning to expand its lens lineup, and two of the three new lenses designed for APS-C mirrorless cameras have now been released in Canon EF-M mount for EOS M mirrorless cameras.

The Viltrox 23mm f/1.4 STM and 33mm f/1.4 STM are both autofocus lenses with a wide f/1.4 maximum aperture and feature a rugged metal construction with a built-in USB port for firmware updates. Interestingly, they only seem to be available in silver, and not the typical black of the Sony E mount and Fuji X mount versions.

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Sigma’s new 105mm f/2.8 DG DN Macro Art lens achieves “best ever optical performance”

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Sigma has now officially announced the new Sigma 105mm f/2.8 DG DN Macro Art series lens. Designed for full-frame mirrorless cameras, the lens is available for both Sony E and Leica L mounts. The new lens was announced in Sigma’s live stream (which is still happening as I type this).

They say that the lens is partly in response to the number of people stuck indoors this year due to the global pandemic who are obviously shooting macro – an idea backed up by the sales of Sigma’s 105mm f/2.8 EX DG OS HSM Macro lens for DSLRs.

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