Laowa has made an incredibly wide fisheye lens for APS-C cameras

Laowa CF 4.5-10mm F2.8 Zoom Fisheye lens — (Image credit: Laowa)

Laowa is back again with yet another weird and wacky lens. This time it's not one of their bizarre probe lenses, but rather a fisheye lens with a difference: it can zoom. This isn't the first time Laowa has given us such a lens, as it already has the CF 8-15mm f/2.8 FF Zoom Fisheye lens. But where that's a full-frame optic, the new Laowa CF 4.5-10mm F2.8 Zoom Fisheye is for APS-C bodies, hence the incredibly short minimum focal length.

The CF 4.5-10mm will be available for Sony E, Fujifilm X, Nikon Z, Canon RF, Canon EF-M, L-Mount and Micro Four Thirds cameras, and unsurprisingly with so many mount options, it's manual focus only. However, with such a large depth of field when shooting at these extremely short focal lengths, manual focussing will be very forgiving.

The lens is comprised of 13 elements arranged in 9 groups, incorporating 4 extra-low dispersion elements and a single ultra-high refractive index element. At 4.5mm you'll be rewarded with a huge 180-degree angle of view, and we assume this is only possible by capturing a circular fisheye perspective. Whether or not this changes to a diagonal fisheye image when you zoom to 10mm remains to be seen. This is how the recent Canon RF 7-14mm f/2.8-3.5L Fisheye STM works, and it results in a versatile creative tool that's able to give you a range of unique perspectives.

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Canon RF 7-14mm f/2.8-3.5L Fisheye STM product image — The Canon RF 7-14mm f/2.8-3.5L Fisheye STM (Image credit: Matthew Richards)

Laowa has managed to keep the new CF 4.5-10mm F2.8 relatively compact, as it measures a manageable 59.3mm in length, with a diameter of 68.9mm. It's also reasonably light at 330g.

Laowa 8-15mm f/2.8 FF Zoom Fisheye product image of lens held in hand — The Laowa 8-15mm f/2.8 FF Zoom Fisheye (Image credit: Matthew Richards)

Right now we only know that the CF 4.5-10mm F2.8 is coming - there's still no exact release date. Some sources have stated that the lens will be priced at 2780 yuan (approx. $410 / £306), and could have a pre-order price of 2500 yuan (approx. $368 / £275). If true, this would massively undercut the cost of Canon's RF 7-14mm f/2.8-3.5L Fisheye STM, which has an RRP of $1,899 / £1,719. The CF 4.5-10mm would also be significantly less expensive than Laowa's own 8-15mm f/2.8 FF Zoom Fisheye that costs $699 / £699, although both those lenses are full-frame optics.

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Ben is the Imaging Labs manager, responsible for all the testing on Digital Camera World and across the entire photography portfolio at Future. Whether he's in the lab testing the sharpness of new lenses, the resolution of the latest image sensors, the zoom range of monster bridge cameras or even the latest camera phones, Ben is our go-to guy for technical insight. He's also the team's man-at-arms when it comes to camera bags, filters, memory cards, and all manner of camera accessories – his lab is a bit like the Batcave of photography! With years of experience trialling and testing kit, he's a human encyclopedia of benchmarks when it comes to recommending the best buys.