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7Artisans teases new 12mm T2.9 cine and 4mm f/2.8 drone lenses on Chinese social media

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7Artisans has been showing off a couple of new APS-C lenses on Chinese social media platforms. One is a very wide angle ultra lightweight 4mm f/2.8 lens designed for use on drones while the other is a slightly less wide (but still pretty wide) 12mm T2.9 cinema lens. Both lenses appear to be manual focus lenses but beyond that, there isn’t much information available about them yet. We do know what mounts they’ll be available for.

Despite reportedly showing the new lenses off on Chinese social media, the two lense shave yet to make an appearance on the 7 Artisan website. But from the images teased, we can see that the 12mm T2.9 cine lens will be available in Sony E, MFT, Fuji X, Nikon Z, Leica L and Canon RF mount. The 4mm f/2.8 drone lens, though, will only be available for Sony E, Fuji X, MFT and Canon EF-M mounts.

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TTArtisan’s new low-budget 50mm f/0.95 APS-C mirrorless lens isn’t a limited edition this time

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TTArtisan has released their new 50mm f/0.95 lens for APS-C mirrorless cameras. Like most of TTArtisan’s lenses, this is a manual focus lens and when used on an APS-C body, it offers a field of view equivalent to that of a 75mm lens on a full-frame body. The fast f/0.95 aperture allows for shooting in very low light conditions. It also offers a very shallow depth of field that’s particularly well suited to portraits.

For APS-C mirrorless cameras, this low-budget $218 lens is available in Fuji X, Sony E and Nikon Z mounts. There’s also a Micro Four Thirds version, which gives the equivalent field of view to that of 100mm on full-frame due to the 2x crop factor of the MFT system. From looking at the product page on the TTArtisan website, it appears versions will also come for Canon EF-M and RF mounts as well as L mount.

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TTArtisan’s new $113 40mm f/2.8 Macro for MFT, Fuji X and Sony E looks pretty sharp

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TTArtisan has announced its manual focus 40mm f/2.8 Macro lens for APS-C mirrorless and Micro Four Thirds. Despite being an APS-C lens and only manual focus, there’s no EF-M or APS-C Z mount for this one (not yet anyway, although I hear EF-M might be on the way), just Fuji X and APS-C Sony E mounts. The lens offers a minimum focus distance of 17mm with 1:1 magnification.

Update: October 25th – It’s now available in Nikon Z flavour.

Although the lens was only officially announced today, it’s been in the hands of reviewers for a little while. Christopher Frost got his hands on one and took it for a spin on his Sony A5100. It’s a pretty ugly looking lens, although the images don’t look half bad, especially when you consider the lens costs less than $115.

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Manual vs Auto vs Back Button focus – Which should you use for landscapes?

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I see people banging on about Back Button Focus in Facebook groups almost every day, extolling the virtues and benefits it offers for portrait photography. And, well, I just don’t get it, I really don’t. I’ve tried it several times and it often turns out to be more of a hindrance than a help. But when it comes to landscape photography, back button focus actually makes a lot of sense.

In this video, Mads Peter Iversen walks us through manual focus, regular autofocus and back button focusing and how each works for landscape photography. He explains how each method works and how you can use each of them while talking about the advantages and disadvantages of all three methods.

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Pergear released a new 35mm f/1.2 lens for MFT and APS-C mirrorless – and it’s only $109

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Pergear has been going a bit nuts lately on the low-budget lenses. It was only in March that they released their 35mm f/1.6 and 50mm f/1.8 lenses with the 7.5mm f/2.8 fisheye just last month. Now, they’ve sent one fo their existing focal lengths into overdrive and announced the new Pergear 35mm f/1.2 manual focus lens.

Designed for Micro Four Thirds and APS-C mirrorless cameras, it’s available in MFT, Nikon Z, Canon EF-M, Fuji X and Sony E mounts. The best bit? It’s only $109.

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Pergear’s new 7.5mm f/2.8 fisheye lens for MFT and APS-C mirrorless targets low budget shooters

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Pergear has announced their new 7.5mm f/2.8 Fisheye lens for Micro Four Thirds and APS-C mirrorless systems including Nikon Z, Canon EF-M, Sony E and Fuji X. At $129, this manual focus lens is aimed squarely at low budget shooters looking to add a bit more fun to their photography.

The lens features a full metal body construction, weighing in at around 320g. As it’s a fisheye, there’s no front filter thread, due to the bulbous front element. Although it’s a manual focus lens, infinity sits at around the 1-metre mark, so as long as you’re not doing anything super close-up, the entire world is in focus.

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Use these three techniques to shoot manual focus lenses on a gimbal

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I don’t shoot on a gimbal all that often. When I do, it’s usually for b-roll. But I’m usually doing it with manual focus lenses. It presents some challenges, but they’re pretty easy to overcome. Sure, plenty of cameras have autofocus these days when shooting video, and it’s getting better and better all the time, although it’s still not perfect.

Imperfect systems that are quite easy to confuse are the problem that wedding photographer and filmmaker Matt Johnson has with autofocus when shooting on a gimbal, too. So, in this video, he talks about three of his top tips for shooting video on a gimbal using manual focus lenses.

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The Dulens 85mm f/2 lens is now available to pre-order in the USA for $539

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Shortly after IBC last year, an unknown China-based lens company called Dulens appeared, announcing a new 85mm f/2.0 lens. It’s a full-frame lens for DSLRs and they say it was designed by the same optical engineers behind the Kinefinity Mavo Prime range of cinema lenses.

News Shooter got their hands on one to have a play with a couple of months, and it’s been listed as available in China since then. Now the Dulens APO 85mm f/2.0 lens is available to pre-order for US customers priced at only $539 (this is a pre-order price, it’ll go up to $599 after it starts shipping) and it comes in both Canon EF and Nikon F mounts.

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Cosina has officially announced the Voigtlander NOKTON 60mm f/0.95 lens for Micro Four Thirds

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This one’s been anticipated for a while now, with lots of hushed talk and whispers whenever its name was mentioned. But it’s finally official. Cosina has now announced the new super-bright aperture Voigtlander NOKTON 60mm f/0.95mm lens for Micro Four Thirds cameras.

On the Micro Four Thirds cameras for which it is intended, it offers a field of view equivalent to that of 120mm focal length on a full-frame body. As such, it’s designed primarily for portraits, and should offer a look with depth of field similar to something like the Sigma 105mm f/1.4 Art, but with a slightly tighter field of view. Of course, it has an extra stop and a bit of brightness over f/1.4 for shooting in lower light conditions or at lower ISO to reduce noise.

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