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Holiday Gift Guide – Best Lenses of 2021

The season of giving is upon us – which becomes immediately obvious whenever you walk into a store and you’re overwhelmed by Whamageddon. If you want to avoid the Christmas music and prefer to do your shopping online, then have no fear, DIYP’s 2021 Holiday Gift Guides are here to rescue you with some of our favourite new releases of the year, as well as a few old favourites that always seem to find a place in our gear bags.

In this post, we’re going to be taking a look at lenses, but keep an eye out for upcoming guides featuring Lighting, Tripods, Sliders & Gimbals, and other accessories and gadgets and be sure to check out our previous guide going over the best of this year’s new Cameras.

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Mitakon Creator 135mm f/2.5 is a $300 tele lens for Canon, Nikon, and Sony

ZY Optics has announced Mitakon Creator 135mm f/2.5, an affordable telephoto prime lens. It’s a new, improved, and a little faster version of Creator 135mm f/2.8, only this one was made in five different mounts, including both DSLR and mirrorless. And with the price tag of $299, it’s still fairly affordable just like the f/2.8 version.

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ZY Optics brings its Mitakon Speedmaster 50mm f/0.95 to Leica L mount

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ZY Optics has announced the release of their Mitakon Speedmaster 50mm f/0.95 lens for L mount. The fast aperture manual focus lens is designed for use with full-frame mirrorless cameras and is compatible with the complete line of L mount cameras from Sigma, Panasonic and Leica.

The Mitakon Speedmaster 50mm f/0.95 was initially offered in full-frame format with Sony E mount in 2014. A Mark II came in 2017 and it was then refreshed in 2019 with a new Mark III version. The Mark III was still available in Sony E mount but also Nikon Z and Canon RF, too. Today’s release now makes it available for every full-frame mirrorless system currently available.

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Mitakon announces 17mm, 24mm and 35mm T1.0 Cine lenses for Micro Four Thirds

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ZY Optics, the company behind Mitakon lenses, has released a new range of T1.0 Speedmaster Cine lenses. All three of the lenses at focal lengths of 17mm, 25mm and 35mm are available for Micro Four Thirds. The 35mm is also available in Fujifilm X, Canon RF and Sony E mount as well. Of course, it can only fill the sensor on the two latter brands if it’s Super 35mm or APS-C.

The new lenses are essentially cinema housings for their 17mm f/0.95, 25mm f/0.95 and 35mm f/0.95 photography lenses, with the features one would expect from a cine lens, like a stepless silent geared aperture ring and a smooth geared focus ring with a longer throw and precise scale markings.

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Mitakon has finally released the Speedmaster 35mm f/0.95 II for Micro Four Thirds

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Micro Four Thirds shooters have been waiting a long time for this one. This APS-C format lens was initially released way back in 2016 for Fuji X, Sony E and Canon EF-M mounts, but notably lacking was MFT. Well, that’s all changed now, as ZY Optics has launched the Mitakon 35mm f/0.95 Mark II with a Micro Four Thirds mount… In Japan.

On a Micro Four Thirds camera, the lens offers a field of view equivalent of a 70mm focal length on a full-frame body, but with a nice wide f/0.95 aperture for shooting in low light conditions and getting that shallow depth of field. It features the same construction as its APS-C brethren, with 11 elements in 8 groups and a 55mm front filter thread.

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ZY Optics announces super bright Mitakon Speedmaster 17mm f/0.95 lens for Micro Four Thirds

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ZY Optics has expanded their f/0.95 Micro Four Thirds lens lineup with the new Mitakon Speedmaster 17mm f/0.95 lens, offering a similar field of view to that of a standard 35mm lens on full-frame. This brings the Mitakon Speedmaster f/0.95 lens count for Micro Four Thirds up to two, adding to their existing 25mm f/0.95 lens.

It features 12 elements in 9 groups with a single extra-low dispersion element and four high refractive index elements to minimise chromatic aberration. ZY Optics says the lens delivers a “compelling sharpness across the frame, even at f0.95”.

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The Mitakon Speedmaster 50mm f/0.95 lens has now come to DSLRs with a new EF mount version

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ZY Optics has released a Canon EF mount version of the Mitakon Speedmaster 50mm f/0.95 lens. This isn’t just slapping a new mount onto their existing Mitakon Speedmaster 50mm f/0.95 III for Nikon Z, Canon RF and Sony FE mounts, though. This is an entirely new lens designed specifically for Canon DSLRs.

According to the press release, ZY Optics says this is currently the world’s only f/0.95 lens designed specifically for full-frame DSLRs. Sure, there may be some old ones out there, but none of those are still in production and a lot of the new ones coming out are designed for mirrorless only. Oh, the price? Yeah, that’s going to be a mere $799.

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New Mitakon 85mm f/2.8 is a super macro lens with 1-5x magnification and long working distance

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Zhongyi Optics has released Mitakon 85mm f/2.8 1-5x, a new super macro Lens for full frame cameras. It features a wide magnification range for photographing subjects at different sizes. It also offers a very long working distance, so you don’t scare away your subjects by getting too close.

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Meyer Optik Gorlitz admits the $3,000 Nocturnus 50mm f/0.95 was just a modified $850 Chinese lens

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Under the new ownership of OPC Optics, Meyer Optik Gorlitz has now confirmed what many have long suspected. The $3,000 Nocturnus 50mm f/0.95 lens was indeed a just a copy of the now-discontinued $850 Mitakon Zhongyi Speedmaster 50mm f/0.95. Despite the specs being identical, this is something that Meyer Optik had long denied.

The rumours about the cloning have been around since 2015. In a press release, Meyer Optik Gorlitz under the ownership of OPC optics has finally admitted the truth. And not only that, but the Somnium 85mm f/1.5 lens was also, apparently, a modified Russian lens.

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