Other Manufacturers (Camera & Video)

Brightin Star 24mm F6.3 Tiny Lens

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I don’t know if we should get tired of all of these cheap but small aperture lens or happy to have so many affordable, small options.  I lean towards the latter.

We don’t have a price or release date for this lens yet, but it is full-frame, it would be reasonable to expect it to be available for the Sony E, Nikon Z, and L mounts.  We should also expect reasonable performance in the center and questionable edges.  F6.3 requires so much light that this lens is really limited.  Think of it as an expensive lens cap, maybe.  But we will be happy to be surprised.

For a little bit more money, you could buy a vintage 24mm F2.8 lens, but it obviously would not be as small.  And for more money yet you could a third-party autofocus 24mm F2.8 lens.

This leak comes courtesy a Weibo post.

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Voigtlander NOKTON 28mm F1.5 for Nikon Z Only

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Strange decision for Cosina Voigtlander to release this lens for Nikon only but it may have to do with the unique Nikon mount with its large flange diameter.  Although they do have a 28mm F1.5 lens for Leica M mount.

Cosina has posted sample photos from this lens on their website.  They look good but it’s always hard to trust photos from the manufacturer.  The bokeh does feel vintage which may be a plus or minus depending on your preference.

Key specifications includes:

  • Electronic contacts to communicate information to the Nikon Z body
  • 12-Blade iris diaphragm
  • Minimum shooting distance of 0.28m
  • All metal
  • 10 elements in 8 groups featuring aspherical lenses
  • Current estimate of price is $750 USD

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7artisan’s $90 18mm F5.6 Full-frame Lens

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Small wide-angle lenses used to be a very desirable thing.  Back in the film days there were many esteemed photographers who loved the manual focus 20mm F4 lens.  And F4 is a lot more versatile than F5.6, but for many landscape photographers they could probably get buy with this aperture.  It might also be useful as a gimbal lens.  The lens is basically a cheap, wide-angle pancake lens that weighs only 146grams.  It’s available for the Nikon Z, Sony E, and L mount systems.  Close focus is 0.3 meters / 0.98 feet.

The real question is how does it perform optically.  Early reports indicate a sharp center, weaker edges, reasonable distortion, and significant vignetting.  This is kind of what you would expect from a small wide-angle lens.  The vignetting may or may not work for your use case.

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Rokinon Remaster Slim Wide-Angle 3-Lens Kit

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Rokinon, aka Samyang, has released an interesting lens kit.  There is a base module and then 3 different sets of optics you can swap out inside of it:

  • 21mm f/3.5
  • 28mm f/3.5
  • 32mm f/2.8

These lenses are tiny and full-frame.  Check on the weight on the optical blocks:

The set is available for the Sony FE mount and comes at a price of $399 USD.

To make lenses this small there has to be sacrifices in the optical formula.  Sometimes these sacrifices can create an interesting look, and at other times they add offensive elements.  So how did Rokinon do? It looks like they came up short, unfortunately.

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New Yashica Fixed-Lens Compact Cameras

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It’s nice to see compact cameras being made again.  Smart phones obliterated this market, but there’s still some things that smart phones cannot do as well as a dedicated camera.  This market will never recover to its previous glory but hopefully a nice niche will develop here.

Here’s what we know about these cameras:

  • Called the Yashica City line
  • Yashica City 100 has a fixed-lens with 3X zoom
  • Yashica City 200 has a fixed-lens with 10X zoom
  • Both have the same 1/3.06-inch 13-megapixel Sony sensor
  • 4:3 photo aspect ratio
  • Offers 4K video
  • Autofocusing
  • Price starting at around $249 USD (not confirmed)

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ZEISS Nano Prime High-Speed Cine Lenses

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As mirrorless becomes more dominant and relevant to filmmakers, manufactures have started to produce more lenses for their platforms.  Mirrorless mount physics should make possible a better quality of lens than what was possible before.

Zeiss has released this interesting set of lenses with 6 focal lengths all at T1.5: 18mm, 24mm, 35mm, 50mm, 75mm, 100mm.  It’s $26,000 for the set which works out to $4,333 a lens.  These lenses are “initially available for the Sony E-mount” but we expect that the Canon R-mount is just around the corner.

ZEISS Nano Primes are cinema lenses designed for modern full frame mirrorless cameras — initially available for Sony E-mount. Lenses for everyone looking for highest performance and cinematic look in a small package. The six focal lengths all feature a consistent high speed of T1.5, come with a small and robust real cine lens housing with professional cine ergonomics and have an interchangeable mount.

Nano Primes are lenses for all cinematographers. No matter if up-and-coming or seasoned DP. For all budgets. No matter if small or big. For all projects. No matter if for commercials, documentaries or music videos, for series, independent or features films. Lenses that check all the boxes when it comes to look, ergonomics, size and weight or lens data workflow. Lenses that you can afford. Lenses that won‘t let you down.​

​ZEISS Nano Primes are the go-to lenses for everyday: True Cinema. For All.​

Visit Zeiss’s website for more information.

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OCTOPUS16 Super 16 Cinema Camera

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Octopus Cinema has a camera in development that looks amazing to us.  There hasn’t been a good 16mm digital cinema camera for a while since Blackmagic abandoned that sensor size and let’s not talk about the Bolex D16.  And the price is said to be under $1000.  The unfortunate reality here is that this product is in development and may never see the light of day.  But here’s to hoping.

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Tuner by Module 8: Give Your Lenses a Cinematic Look

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The term cinematic look is overused.  However, this innovative product found a way to amplify the aberrations in your image so to emulate some expensive vintage lens looks.  We will need to wait for more reviews to come in to see how close they actually got, but this product is something new and interesting.

This $1300USD adapter comes in three looks:

  • Baltar
  • K35
  • Anamorphic

And each comes with four mount options:

  • Canon EF to Canon RF
  • PL to Canon RF
  • Canon EF to Sony E
  • PL to Sony E

There are discounts offered for purchasing 2 or 3 at a time.  Visit the module website for more information: https://www.shopmoment.com/module-8

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