Brightin Star's latest MF 50mm F2.0 Tri-Sight lens seems fairly normal with its fixed 50mm focal length, but it stands out from the crowd by boasting user-selectable 'rendering modes' which alter the character of out of focus highlight points. Choose from Smooth bokeh (soft highlights), Prime (sharper, more defined highlights) or Foams (dreamy, bubble-like light flares)

The system works using a dedicated control ring positioned between the focus and aperture rings. This moves a floating group of lens elements back or forth within the barrel to vary the focus distance, altering the convergence characteristics of light rays passing through the lens. This then results in the change in bokeh style, depending upon where the light converges relative to the focal plane.

This feature alone would make the MF 50mm F2.0 Tri-Sight pretty special, but Brightin Star also includes four circular plate inserts with novelty aperture cut-outs. These turn what would otherwise be round out of focus highlights into a choice of butterfly, star, triangle, or four-leaf clover shapes. The effect is certainly eye catching, though not entirely unique, as Lomography implemented a similar feature in its Petzval and Daguerreotype Achromat lenses. Brightin Star's method of fitting the inserts is more unusual though, as rather than slotting them down into the barrel, you instead unscrew a locking ring at the lens mount, fit the plate, then re-attach the ring. There is also a slot in the barrel, but this is designed to take conventional drop-in 37.5mm filters.

The barrel itself is made entirely of metal and features a neat retractable hood. Weight ranges between 429g and 454g, and length between 70mm and 74mm, depending on mount option. The aperture diaphragm is comprised of a generous 11 blades and is de-clicked for smooth aperture transitions when shooting video. Videographers may also appreciate the included detachable focus lever that helps with fine focus adjustments - useful, as the MF 50mm F2.0 Tri-Sight does not have autofocus.

Inside is a 7-element optical stack arranged in 6 groups. Up front is a custom-made protective lens made from precision-ground, ultra-thin glass measuring just 0.7mm thick. This is necessary as the floating group of elements which adjust the bokeh appearance actually extend forward of the main barrel when in Foams mode, making the front element more vulnerable to damage. Consequently, Brightin Star recommends the lens is stored with the bokeh control set to Prime mode, where the barrel is retracted.

The Brightin Star MF 50mm F2.0 Tri-Sight lens is available now for full-frame and APS-C Sony E, Canon RF, Nikon Z, and L-mount cameras, priced at $349.99/£263.99

Laowa has just announced "the world's first full-frame AF 35mm lens with true 1:1 magnification", promising the unique life-size rendering of a macro lens with the environmental context of a wide-angle lens.

Unlike traditional macro optics, built around longer focal lengths that carve a subject out of the scene, the new Laowa Acris 35mm f/2.8 1x Macro Apo brings a 1:1 reproduction ratio to a much wider perspective – and combines it with a fast f/2.8 aperture and advanced autofocus.

Well, the autofocus part comes with a bit of an asterisk: the lens will be available with AF on Sony E, Nikon Z and Canon EF mounts, while on Canon RF and L-Mount it is manual focus only.

The AF versions offer what Laowa is calling a Dual-Mode Hybrid Focusing system designed to work across all distances.

The Standard Autofocus mode (from infinity to 0.5m) "delivers fast, responsive, and accurate subject acquisition for everyday shooting, street photography, and environmental portraits."

Then there is Macro Focus Assistance (from 0.5m to 1:1), which "takes over in the close-up range to provide tactile micro-step manual precision. This setup integrates seamlessly into focus-bracketing workflows, making handheld or tripod-based focus stacking simple, efficient, and exceptionally accurate for high-depth-of-field macro shots."

As the name suggests, the Laowa Acris 35mm f/2.8 1x Macro Apo boasts Laowa's apochromatic optical design, which the manufacturer says "virtually eliminates both longitudinal and lateral chromatic aberrations (CA) in both in-focus and out-of-focus areas."

The optical design features a total of 13 elements in 10 groups, with 9 aperture blades in the AF version and 13 in the manual. The minimum focus distance is 180mm, with a minimum working distance of 48.6mm.

Weight and dimensions vary across the various mounts. The Sony version is a good representation of the mirrorless versions at 79mm x 114mm and 560g, with a 72mm filter thread, while the Canon DSLR version measures 79mm x 87.4mm and weighs 530g, with a 67mm filter thread.

All versions of the lens are weather-sealed, which makes this a very capable option for shooting outdoor subjects or working in damp and dusty environments.

The Laowa Acris 35mm f/2.8 1x Macro Apo is on sale now, priced $449 (£339 / AU$645).

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Lomography has taken one of the most recognizable looks in experimental photography and pushed it into completely new territory, with the Joseph Petzval Métamorphose 35mm f/1.8 – a new focus-coupled, bokeh control art lens designed for both photographers and filmmakers.

Available for Sony E, Canon RF and Nikon Z mounts, the new optic moves beyond the classic Petzval swirl and introduces a far more aggressive, almost vortex-like rendering that can be adjusted in-camera directly.

The Petzval name is already synonymous with wonderfully strange backgrounds, swirling bokeh and portraits that look as though they have been dragged straight out of another century – but the Métamorphose takes that character considerably further.

At its strongest bokeh setting, Lomography says the lens creates a perception-bending optical warp around an incredibly sharp center, with points of light stretching into comet-like shapes and the background appearing to surge around the subject.

At closer focusing distances that effect becomes even more pronounced, combining stretching and swirling bokeh to make the subject appear almost as though it is jumping out of the frame. At the opposite end of the scale, the effect can be dialled back for a much calmer rendering, with softer edges and soap-bubble-style bokeh textures.

The strength of the effect is adjustable across seven levels, while further changes can be made through aperture and focus, giving photographers and filmmakers considerably more control over just how strange they want their final image to look.

Lomography sees the lens as a creative storytelling tool, capable of adding a sense of speed to static scenes, creating feelings of confusion or movement, and even recreating some of the visual language associated with classic horror films.

What makes the story particularly interesting is where the optical design comes from. Lomography says its inspiration stretches back more than 200 years to the work of German mathematician and physicist, Carl Friedrich Gauss.

His Single Gaussian lens design from 1817 suffered from significant coma and astigmatism – optical characteristics that saw it deemed unsuitable for photography and instead used for telescopes. Lomography has deliberately embraced those imperfections, rather than correcting them, using the historically rejected design as the starting point for a modern photographic and cinematographic lens.

The 35mm lens uses 6 elements arranged in 5 groups and offers a fast f/1.8 maximum aperture, closing down to f/22 through a stopless iris-style aperture system. There is also support for drop-in rear aperture plates, a 62° field of view, a minimum focusing distance of 0.35m and a 67mm filter thread.

There are no electronic contacts, as you would probably expect from something this deliberately old-school in its optical philosophy, with focusing handled entirely manually through a helicoid mechanism.

Sample images

Lomography has clearly paid particular attention to filmmakers as well. The Métamorphose features a 180° focus throw, mod 0.8 follow-focus gearing and stopless control rings for focus, aperture and bokeh adjustment.

There is also a built-in quarter-inch lens support for tripod, handheld and gimbal setups, while the focus-coupling mechanism is designed to prevent unwanted focus shift as the bokeh effect is changed. That means the character of the background can effectively be altered during a shot, opening the door to gradual transitions and increasingly pronounced subject isolation without interrupting focus.

I have always liked lenses that do something genuinely different rather, than simply chasing another tiny improvement in sharpness, and the Joseph Petzval Métamorphose certainly looks as though it falls into that category. This is not a lens pretending to be clinically perfect; its entire appeal comes from exaggerating the optical characteristics lens designers spent generations trying to remove.

For photographers and filmmakers who enjoy creating their look in-camera rather than adding everything afterwards, this could be one of the more unusual 35mm lenses we have seen for some time.

An on-sale date has yet to be announced, but the Lomography Joseph Petzval Métamorphose 35mm f/1.8 will carry a price of $649 (approximately £489 / AU$930).

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Pixel peepers love to analyze the look of a lens’ bokeh – but one new third-party, multi-mount lens is giving photographers a slider to choose how those out-of-focus areas render. The Brightin Star MF 50mm f/2.0 Tri-Sight is a full-frame lens built around bokeh control.

Using a slider on the lens, photographers – and videographers – can choose from three different styles. The Prime setting is a standard mode for sharp subjects and well-defined, circular bokeh in the background.

The “Foams” setting creates a well-defined edge to those bokeh balls, sometimes endearingly dubbed “onion ring bokeh.” Brighton Star says this setting also creates dreamy lens flares.

On the opposite end, the Smooth setting on that bokeh slider creates softer, larger bokeh from points of light. This setting also creates a softer overall look, much like using a diffusion filter.

So how does building three different looks into one lens work? Brighton Star says that adjusting those Tri-Sight bokeh settings slides the lens groups back and forth. This movement will either over or under-correct spherical aberration, which also helps shape that bokeh.

While the bokeh slider is perhaps the new lens’ most unusual feature, that’s not the only way creators can manipulate bokeh. The lens ships with a set of drop-in discs that shape the bokeh, including a triangular shape inspired by old cinema lenses, a star, a butterfly, and a four-leaf clover. Using cut-outs to shape bokeh is a common photography trick, but Brightin Star is building the feature into the lens with a rear insert.

Those bokeh-focused features are wrapped up in a metal lens barrel, including a built-in, retractable hood. The focus ring has an optional lever, while the aperture ring is the de-clicked style.

The Tri-Sight lens launches in four different mounts with full-frame coverage: Sony E, Nikon Z, Canon RF, and the L-Mount. While the size varies slightly by mount, Brighton Star calls it a compact lens, with the length of the lens varying from 7 cm to 7.4cm depending on the mount.

If the Brightin Star MF 50mm f/2.0 Tri-Sight sounds familiar, that’s because the lens was first teased as a prototype earlier this year. Now, the lens has been officially announced, with orders opening up and retailers beginning to list pre-orders.

The lens retails for $399 / £302 (about AU$572 / CA$566).

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The Leica APO-Macro-Elmarit-SL 100 f/2.8 is the kind of lens that makes its intentions clear from the moment you pick it up. This is a serious piece of glass, designed not only to deliver exceptional macro performance, but also to serve as a highly capable medium telephoto for portraits, sport and general detail work.

Paired with the Leica SL3-S, the Leica's first L-mount macro lens feels every bit as premium as its price suggests, with the sort of build quality, balance and attention to detail I would expect.

Leica APO-Macro-Elmarit-SL 100 f/2.8 Specifications

Mount: L-mount
Full frame: Yes
Autofocus: Yes
Image stabilization: No
Minimum aperture: f/2.8
Minimum focusing distance: 0.95" / 2.41 cm
Optical deisgn: 17 Elements in 12 Groups
Dimensions: 5.4 x 3.03" / 137.2 x 76.96mm
Weight: 28.25 oz / 800.89 g

Leica APO-Macro-Elmarit-SL 100 f/2.8 Build and handling

There is very little about the APO-Macro-Elmarit-SL 100 f/2.8 that does not feel Leica-like. The construction feels reassuringly substantial, the controls are beautifully finished, and the lens has the sort of solidity I would expect from an optic designed to spend its life attached to a professional SL body.

Mounted on the Leica SL3-S, it feels extremely well balanced. This is not a tiny or particularly lightweight lens, but neither does it feel unnecessarily cumbersome once attached to the camera. If anything, the additional weight suits the SL3-S nicely and makes the combination feel like a serious professional setup rather than an oversized lens hanging from a smaller body.

One of the most useful controls is the focus limiter positioned on the left-hand side of the barrel. During most of my testing, I initially left the lens operating across its full focusing range, which works perfectly well under normal circumstances.

However, when moving quickly from photographing something in the distance to attempting to focus on a subject very close to the ground, I occasionally found that the lens would hunt as it searched through its enormous focusing range.

Switching the limiter into its 0.3-0.5m close-focus range solved that slight issue almost immediately. Once the lens knew roughly where I wanted it to focus, autofocus became much faster and more decisive, and I experienced none of the hesitation I had encountered while leaving it unrestricted. It is a small control, but one that makes a noticeable difference when working quickly with macro subjects.

Leica APO-Macro-Elmarit-SL 100 f/2.8 Performance

This is where the APO-Macro-Elmarit-SL 100 f/2.8 really begins to justify itself. Image quality paired with the SL3-S was outstanding, and I frequently found myself surprised by just how much fine detail the lens was able to resolve.

Even when photographing macro subjects at f/2.8, some of the resulting images appeared at first glance as though they had been shot using something closer to an f/1.4 prime. Backgrounds dissolve beautifully, giving close-up images an almost dreamlike quality, while the subject remains impressively well defined.

It is only when you begin zooming into those files that the real character of the lens becomes apparent. The fine texture of a petal, tiny imperfections on a leaf, and minute surface detail are all reproduced with remarkable clarity. There is a tremendous amount of information within the plane of focus, even when the depth of field itself is extremely shallow.

That combination is what impressed me most. There are plenty of lenses capable of creating attractive background blur, and there are plenty of macro lenses capable of capturing fine detail, but the APO-Macro-Elmarit-SL 100 f/2.8 manages to combine the two exceptionally well. Images can look soft and atmospheric from a normal viewing distance while simultaneously containing an extraordinary amount of sharp detail exactly where the lens has focused.

The 100mm focal length also makes considerably more sense once you stop thinking exclusively about macro photography. For portraits, it provides pleasing compression and excellent subject separation, while sports and documentary photographers could equally use it as a conventional medium telephoto before moving immediately into close-up detail shots.

That versatility could prove particularly valuable for photographers trying to tell a wider story. A sports photographer could photograph an athlete from a distance before moving in to capture the texture of their equipment, the stitching of a glove, or another smaller detail. A portrait photographer could move between headshots and close-up images, while nature photographers could switch effortlessly from wider compositions to the intricate patterns found within plants and flowers.

Sample images: Leica APO-Macro-Elmarit-SL 100 f/2.8

Leica APO-Macro-Elmarit-SL 100 f/2.8 Lab results

We run a range of lab tests under controlled conditions, using the Imatest Master testing suite. Photos of test charts are taken across the range of apertures and zooms (where available), then analyzed for sharpness, distortion and chromatic aberrations.

We use Imatest SFR (spatial frequency response) charts and analysis software to plot lens resolution at the center of the image frame, corners and mid-point distances, across the range of aperture settings and, with zoom lenses, at four different focal lengths. The tests also measure distortion and color fringing (chromatic aberration).

Sharpness:

Sharpness is excellent in the center of frame, from f/2.8 right through to f/11. Equally impressive is how well the lens maintains this sharpness into the corners of the image frame at all apertures.

Fringing:

Fringing is kept consistently low, at all apertures - you won't see any aberrations in real-world shooting.

Distortion: 0.05

This is as close to a zero-distortion lens as you'll find.

Leica APO-Macro-Elmarit-SL 100 f/2.8 Verdict

The Leica APO-Macro-Elmarit-SL 100 f/2.8 is one of those lenses that becomes considerably more interesting once you stop looking at the name on the barrel. Yes, it is an exceptional macro lens, but reducing it to that description would seriously undersell what Leica has produced.

I found it to be an excellent f/2.8 medium telephoto in its own right, capable of producing superb portraits, sports images and detail shots before turning almost instantly into a highly capable macro optic. Paired with the Leica SL3-S, image quality was exceptional, and the resolving power of the combination was, at times, astonishing.

The occasional focus hunting I experienced when moving rapidly between distant and very close subjects was the only real weakness I encountered, but it was also incredibly easy to correct using the focus limiter on the side of the lens. Once set appropriately for close-up work, the autofocus became fast, confident, and reliable.

Price will naturally be the biggest barrier for many photographers; coming in at $2,700 / £2110, there are certainly more affordable macro lenses available. However, I would argue that the APO-Macro-Elmarit-SL 100 f/2.8 should not be judged purely as a macro lens. For photographers who want one extremely high-quality 100mm f/2.8 telephoto capable of portraits, sport, and general photography, while also being able to produce extraordinarily detailed close-up images, this new Leica could be a genuine godsend.

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The anamorphic look has had something of a resurgence over the last few years, driving a good number of manufacturers to invest in producing (relatively) affordable anamorphic lenses at various squeeze factors. This has enabled many filmmakers to create projects with the distinctive look you get, at far less prohibitive costs.

Sirui is one such company and it has released a number of anamorphic lenses in the past, which have gone down well with the community. The Saturn range in particular seemed to have just the right balance of features, performance and cost.

Another development in filmmaking has reared its head, however, and Sirui is spearheading a change in lens technology to try to fit this – and that is social media. Well, vertical video.

While there are ways to get ‘normal’ footage to work on socials, such as cropping a 16:9 shot or turning the camera to fit the vertical format, it does have some limitations – and they are most obvious for those wishing to publish anamorphic footage.

Frame edges, bokeh shapes and, most obviously, flares just don’t look right when rotating the camera, as the squeeze direction is off by ninety degrees and cropping such a wide image could be problematic when trying to reframe the content.

With this in mind, Sirui has developed the Saturn V2 lenses with a neat feature: the lens / mount can be unlocked and rotated.

I haven’t seen this before and was keen to test it out, while also seeing whether the Saturn V2s are a useful addition to my kit – even without this feature, as image quality and performance on a shoot are just as, if not more, important than a rotating mount.

Having shot with countless lenses over the years, including the Blazar Remus (another lower-cost anamorphic), I opted for an L-Mount set – which consists of a 35mm, 50mm and 75mm T2.9 – to go with my Lumix S5 for a compact, lightweight setup. Sony E and Canon RF options are also available.

Sirui Saturn V2 35mm / 50mm / 75mm T2.9: Price & availability

Each of the lenses – the Sirui Saturn V2 35mm T2.9, 50mm T2.9 and 75mm T2.9 – is available for $599 / £529 / AU$749.

The three-lens kit, comprising the entire set, is available for $1,699 / £1,589 / $2,693. While that isn’t a small investment, it does represent excellent value – and includes the hard case, along with a free gift in the form of a Sirui Alien Series Crab Clamp with Magic Arm (worth $29 / £27 / AU$46).

The selection of focal lengths gives you coverage for a broad range of shots and the build quality is even better than the cost might have you believe. Compared to other anamorphic lens sets, you are getting a great deal.

Sirui Saturn V2 35mm / 50mm / 75mm T2.9: Specifications

Sirui Saturn V2 35mm / 50mm / 75mm T2.9: Design & build

I have the Saturn V2 set, which includes the 35mm, 50mm and 75mm T2.9 in a very nice hard case, with foam cutouts for the lenses and accessories.

The three lenses are identical in dimension except for length, with the 50mm and 75mm gaining a few millimeters extra. All three have gears for both iris and focus, pitched to fit standard follow focus / PIZ motors, and the rings are far enough apart that dual motors should fit.

If you have used the previous version, you won’t be surprised by the form factor. These are compact lenses – much smaller, in girth at least, than your typical cine lenses – barely wider than the L-Mount itself.

They feel great in the hand, too. Weighty and solid, thanks to the metal construction, and finished in a satin charcoal paint, bar a couple of silver rings. Markings are clear in both white for iris and focal distance in meters, and orange for feet.

Each lens ends in a 62mm filter thread so, while you could add a matte box, for a small rig you could save some cash on filters too, as they generally increase in cost with size.

It’s worth noting that the front of the barrel is fixed. The focusing section, which sits behind and partially beneath it, rotates, but there is a section of the front barrel that protrudes over the focus ring.

It doesn’t extend much in radius, and is unlikely to cause any issues, but when focusing by hand you may find yourself coming into contact with it. It may be aesthetically pleasing, but I’d rather it wasn’t there – especially as I can’t see a use for it, other than being a place to label the lens as a 1.6x anamorphic (information that is found on the front, too).

The only other feature to be found is the locking tab on the left side, right by the mount, which allows for the entire lens to be rotated 90°.

Maximum aperture for all three lenses is T2.9, fairly standard at this price point. The minimum is T16 with no clicks in the gearing, ideal for videography. There’s a very smooth action and lovely damping to the ring, as is the same for the focus ring, which makes for easy operation.

It’s also worth noting that the equivalent field of view (compared to a spherical full frame lens) is wider. Vertically you retain the same coverage but horizontally, that stretched image gives you a far wider field of view. The 35mm becomes 22mm, the 50mm covers 31mm while the 75mm is equivalent to a 47mm.

The Saturn V2s looks and feels premium, although there’s a distinct lack of weather sealing gasket around the mount so I wouldn’t be overly confident in adverse conditions.

I’m a fan of the compact nature of these lenses, as well as the feel. The weight is good and both iris and focus rings are smooth. My only gripe is that the throw isn’t all that great. Fine with a motor that can be adjusted for speed, but it could be problematic otherwise, though I'll come on to that.

Overall a pleasing design that looks and feels good, which is best suited to small set-ups – which I imagine is the target market.

Sirui Saturn V2 35mm / 50mm / 75mm T2.9: Performance

I’ll start off with handling, which is generally very good. The compact nature of the Saturn V2 set makes it easy to build a small, light rig, ideal for handheld shots or solo filmmakers – but it’s easy to expand it where needed, thanks to the geared focus and iris rings.

I generally use my S5 as a true hybrid, without a cage, rods and so on – and for this, the Saturn V2 is perfect. Really easy to pop in a shoulder bag and take on trips and hikes, but I have tricked it out with a focus motor, field monitor and my PolarPro mattebox, and found that to work really well, too.

As mentioned, the focus throw is a bit short for my liking. At just 120° and with a larger aperture setting, nailing critical focus can be slightly challenging – although almost all cameras will have focusing aids, which do help. With a smaller aperture this problem drops away, and the ring really is nice and smooth, plus the damping helps a lot.

Speaking of focus, a big part of the look gained from shooting anamorphic is the out-of-focus areas, especially the bokeh. The Saturn V2s produce pleasantly consistent bokeh, with just a touch of onion skinning and a little bit of color fringing (although not overly obtrusive).

The size of these lenses (ranging from 100.9mm to 112.2mm) means balance is very good, too, and I have no issue with them feeling front-heavy, something to keep in mind if you are a regular gimbal user.

All this means nothing, though, if the image produced isn’t what you are after. Anamorphic lenses have an inherent look, which is one reason they are so popular. They don’t have the most clinical image, with a slightly softer appearance than a spherical lens, along with the headline flares and often some distortion towards the edges.

These would usually be considered flaws, if you were reading a review of a non-anamorphic lens, but here they tend to be sought after, as their character can be pleasing. Of course, there is the field of view to be considered as well.

Anamorphics come in different squeeze factors and the Saturn V2s sit around the middle of the range at 1.6x – but that isn’t the whole story. Your final output will depend on your sensor size and dimensions, and whether you are shooting open gate or in something like a Super35 mode.

There’s a lot of interplay between different elements of your shot to be considered. For example, some cameras will force you to crop in on the sensor if you want to shoot slow-motion footage. So, consider these factors when making your decision.

For my case I am shooting a 3:2 full frame in 4K on the S5. Unfortunately the S5 doesn’t have an internal desqueeze of 1.6x for monitoring, but it has 1.5x which is close enough – and I often have a field monitor attached, which does have the 1.6x desqueeze. This is purely for camera use, though, and squeezing the footage in Resolve isn’t affected.

You can see some sample images below, which are the correct ratio and they show the image characteristics of these lenses. I shot a sequence showing both flares and differences in sharpness and edge distortion.

Having used a good number of anamorphic lenses over the years I was expecting to see more of both, but the Saturn V2s are pretty clean in both regards.

For a start, while there is some pincushion distortion and sharpness falls off towards the edge, it isn’t as strong as I expected and is quite pleasing to my eye. Depending on your sensor and timeline ratio, you may not see much at all.

Optical performance is generally very good here. Minimum focus distance is average at 0.9m, but sharpness is excellent across all three focal lengths – although the 75mm is a little softer than the others.

The trio all show some edge softness wide open, but that is virtually eliminated at T4. It’s worth noting that they aren’t as sharp as their spherical counterparts, thanks to the nature of anamorphic squeezing, but it’s minimal.

Chromatic aberration and color fringing, on the other hand, are more noticeable. High-contrast edges show some across the aperture range. It’s not so much that it becomes a problem, but you may spot some magenta. Again, this decreases with higher T-stops.

Vignetting is visible at the extremes of all the lenses, again slightly more so with the 75mm, but like distortion, it’s not strong and will likely disappear once you crop to your timeline.

Anamorphic flares are often a headline feature and, whether you love them or hate them, they are part and parcel of shooting this type of lens. This set has neutral flares, which should pick up the colour of the light source causing them. Personally I prefer this to the blue, but that’s really personal taste.

Flares are definitely present, but not as strong as those found in other lenses – and I’m all for it. You retain the character they provide, without overwhelming the image.

Lastly, there is the Saturn V2 party trick: the 90° swivel. Increasing amounts of vertical video are being made and this doesn’t cause an issue for other lenses – but shooting anamorphic can be a headache because, as soon as you turn the camera for vertical shooting, your bokeh, flares and distortion all fall the wrong way.

While that could be a creative choice, there’s no control over it – so Sirui added the rotating mount. All you do is orient your camera for vertical shooting then pull back the little switch and rotate the lens. This only goes in one direction, so the right side of your camera will be at the top.

The action is very smooth and there is no play in the resting position at either end. It simply locks into position with a satisfying click and you are good to go. The button is spring-loaded, meaning you won’t be able to accidentally knock it out of position.

Because of the squeezing aspect to shooting this way, it takes a minute to get accustomed to framing – but that could just be middle-aged vertical video-avoiding mindset. Either way, the lenses perform identically in both orientations.

This a neat trick and something I can see become more common, as shooting for social media becomes ever more popular – especially narrative work, where this type of lens excels. Props to Sirui for innovating and giving us new opportunities.

Sirui Saturn V2 35mm / 50mm / 75mm T2.9: Sample video

Sirui Saturn V2 35mm / 50mm / 75mm T2.9: Verdict

The Saturn V2 set of lenses is ideal for solo filmmakers or creators, who want the benefits of a characterful image for use across various deliveries. That rotating mount makes them perfect for content creators and social media shoots, as well as more traditional horizontal output.

They are solidly built and, besides a short focus throw, very easy to operate – and could reduce accessory costs, too, thanks to a small filter size.

Sirui Saturn V2 35mm / 50mm / 75mm T2.9: Alternatives

Modern cameras and lenses try to fix imperfections like vignetting and color casts, but a new trio of filters from PolarPro leans into the imperfections to embrace a look that feels like it stepped out of the 1970s. The PolarPro Radial Gradient filters create an edge of color with a clear center to build an old-school look in-camera.

The new Radial Gradient filters come in a three-pack – one blue, one red, and one orange – and are designed to build in dramatic, warm, cool, and atmospheric color shifts that are strongest at the edges.

PolarPro says the look created by the filters changes a bit with the light on the subject. The company demoed the look the filters create with a 1970s drive-in-themed photo shoot in LA. Behind-the-scenes videos show a variety of different modern cameras being used on the set, but the resulting photographs have the vignetting and color casts that build a more classic feel.

The colors aren't the only way the filters aim to build a retro look. The sample images and videos suggest the filters have a slight diffusion to them, creating softer blooms of light that feel like vintage lenses.

Linear gradients are a popular filter format, but the radial gradient is far less common, creating vignetting at the edges that many modern lenses aim to avoid. While radial gradients aren’t common among modern filter options, the look feels reminiscent of some creative filter sets from the 1970s and 1980s, like Cokin’s Creative Filter System.

The Polar Pro Radial Gradient Filters, announced earlier this week, come in four different circular screw-in sizes as well as a Helix magnetic filter system option. A set of three starts at about $180 for the smallest size (about £136 / AU$256 CA$254).

The sizes range from 49mm – which also fits with the company’s filter adapter for the Fujifilm X100VI – to 82mm.

Shipping is expected to begin on October 7, with pre-orders open now.

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Allow me to hit the Rewind button for a moment. About 18 months ago I reviewed the Fujifilm XF 500mm F5.6 R LM OIS WR. Prepare to be dazzled, said Homer Simpson, and indeed I was, giving it a 5-star rating and a gold star for its efforts. As far as I was concerned, the 500mm super-telephoto prime lens put Fujifilm on the podium of sports and wildlife lenses, while also doing full justice to its latter-day 40MP cameras. And more than that, it put Fujifilm’s X-system well and truly on the map as a kit destination for pro-level sports and wildlife photographers.

Looking back on it now, I have one criticism. If anything, the 762mm effective focal length of the lens (taking the X-system’s 1.5x crop factor into account) is perhaps a little too long for comfort. I’d sometimes find that even at a considerable distance, I couldn’t squeeze all that I wanted into the image frame.

The new 400mm lens that I’m reviewing here has a still mighty but more manageable effective focal length of 609mm. That actually suits me much better, and makes the lens practically perfect for action, sports, motor racing, aircraft and bird photography. And more besides. This lens definitely has its eyes on being one of the best lenses for sports photography and best lenses for bird photography, and is maybe destined to rule other roosts as well.

Fujifilm XF 400mm f/4.5 R LM OIS WR: Specifications

Fujifilm XF 400mm f/4.5 R LM OIS WR: Price

With all their high-tech glass, high-tech autofocus, high-tech stabilization and high-tech everything else, top-grade super-telephoto lenses don’t come cheap. Sure enough, the Fujifilm XF 400mm f/4.5 R LM OIS WR will set you back around $3,199 / £2,499 / AU$4,949. However, some competing lenses from other mainstream manufacturers have 5-figure price tags, making the Fuji potentially look like outstanding value for money. Sure, it’s not directly ‘like for like’ but the Canon RF 400mm f/2.8 L IS USM weighs in at a frankly unaffordable $13,399 / £13,199 / AU$24,999 (often discounted in Australia).

As a more direct comparison, the longer Fujifilm XF 500mm F5.6 R LM OIS WR costs around $3,599 / £2,899 / AU$5,199 which, in most world regions, is a fair chunk more expensive. Out of the two, the 400mm looks the better buy if you don’t need even greater super-telephoto reach. For other camera systems, there are bargains to be had in the full-frame camp. Sony E-mount and L-mount versions of the Sigma 500mm f/5.6 DG DN OS Sports cost $2,999 / £2,779 / 5,695, and the new Sony FE 400mm f/4.5 GM OSS sells for $2,698 / £2,399 / AU$3,999, the latter being amazingly lightweight.

Fujifilm XF 400mm f/4.5 R LM OIS WR: Design & Handling

Super-telephoto prime lenses are often big, hefty and unwieldy. Not only are they a pain to carry around on location (and getting there) but they also make even short spells of handheld shooting a struggle. By contrast, the XF 400mm is refreshingly compact and lightweight at 105x240mm / 4.1x9.4in and 1,250g / 2.7lb, making it entirely viable even for long periods of handheld shooting. My colleague and I both felt that the lens was well balanced on the Fujifilm X-H2S body that we used for testing.

Autofocus speed and accuracy is all-important for fast-paced sports and wildlife shooting. As an LM (Linear Motor) lens, this one obliges with a high-speed linear STM (stepping motor) autofocus system for following the action, teaming up well with the advanced subject recognition and tracking abilities of recent Fujifilm cameras, and the high continuous drive rate of the X-H2S. Focusing is fully internal, so the front element neither extends nor rotates during focusing. To avoid autofocus hunting in tricky conditions, the lens features an autofocus range limiter switch which locks out the closer end of the range between 2.5-5m / 9-16.4ft.

Just in front of the manual focus ring, there’s rank of four customizable function buttons. Using associated switch towards the rear of the lens, you can assign their action to AF-On, AF-Lock or Focus Preset. The fact that there are four of them at 90-degree increments around the entire barrel means that one of them is sure to fall neatly under the thumb, whatever orientation you’re shooting in.

Typical of Fujifilm’s ‘R’ lenses, the XF 400mm has a dedicated aperture control ring, which is often preferred for hands-on aperture control when shooting in aperture-priority mode. I particularly like that it has a locking button, again typical of Fujifilm R lenses, which avoids accidentally nudging the ring from its Auto position (aperture controlled from the camera body) to the narrowest aperture setting of f/22. The ring rotates in one-third f/stop click steps but yet again, it’s typical of Fujifilm lenses in not featuring a de-click option. That means there’s no handy option for stepless, silent aperture transitions when using the control ring while shooting video.

Optical image stabilization tends to be more effective than IBIS (In-Body Image Stabilization) for long telephoto lenses. Sure enough, this lens has a highly efficient 5.5-stop optical stabilizer, which comes with a physical on/off switch. However, there are no switchable static and panning modes on offer, both OIS and IBIS relying on automatic panning detection.

The optical path is based on 21 elements arranged in 14 groups. High-performance glass includes 4 ED (Extra-low Dispersion) elements and 2 Super ED elements, with the aim of boosting clarity and minimizing chromatic aberrations. Fujifilm says that the optical arrangement is designed so that weight is transferred towards the rear of the lens. This puts the center of gravity closer to the camera body, which gives a better balance for handling, especially when panning for action shots.

The color and lightweight build of the hood make it a perfect match for the lens. And like the lens itself, the hood feels solid and robust. It features both a locking button and a sliding window, the latter making it easy to use rotation-specific filters like screw-in circular polarizers with the hood attached.

Although the lens is easily lightweight enough for handheld shooting, there are times when a tripod or monopod can help take the strain, as well as enhancing steadiness. As I’d expect, the lens comes complete with a tripod mounting ring and as is often the case nowadays, it has an Arca-Swiss compatible foot. This makes it easy to slot the foot directly into the mounting platforms of compatible tripod and monopod heads, instead of having to add a quick-release plate into the mix.

When I’m shooting handheld with super-telephoto lenses, I quite often rotate the tripod foot up on top. That gets it out of the way but I can still use it as a carrying handle. If you’d rather remove it altogether, you’ll find that that you can’t detach the entire collar, which also includes lugs for attaching the supplied carrying strap. Instead, you can only remove the foot, which is par for the course nowadays, and the collar stays in place. To avoid the lens accidentally coming off its mounting foot, there’s the two-fold security of a locking screw and a pushbutton release. The remaining stub is very short, takes up little extra stowage space and doesn’t impair handheld shooting.

For sports and wildlife photography, you might well need to keep shooting whatever the weather. For example, sports fixtures generally won’t be rearranged due to rain and if you’ve travelled to a distant wildlife location, you’ll just have to make the best of it, whatever the weather. Thankfully the XF 400mm is comprehensively weather-sealed, with no less than 20 seals around all critical joints and potential trouble-spots, to keep out moisture and dust. The front element also has a fluorine coating to repel water droplets and greasy fingerprints. We spent a lot of time out in the rain photographing birds of prey, and found that the weather-seals and fluorine coating performed flawlessly.

Fujifilm XF 400mm f/4.5 R LM OIS WR: Performance

We were blown away by the performance of the XF 500mm f/5.6, and the newer XF 400mm follows suit. In the context of action, sports and wildlife photography, fast shutter speeds are often preferable to freeze motion. The performance of lenses at their widest apertures is therefore a key factor, enabling you to gain quick shutter speeds even under dull lighting conditions, without launching your ISO setting into the stratosphere. The XF 400mm really fits the bill with scintillating sharpness, clarity and contrast, even when shooting wide-open at f/4.5.

Indeed, the levels of sharpness on offer are sufficient to resolve extremely fine detail and the most subtle of textures. The lens is well able to make the most of Fujifilm’s recent high-resolution 40 megapixel cameras like the X-T5 and X-H2. Meanwhile, due to its long focal length, the lens is capable of delivering a tight depth of field. The quality of bokeh is smooth and soft, adding to the overall pictorial quality.

Birds in flight are a really tough test for camera bodies as well as for super-telephoto lenses. Paired with the Fujifilm X-H2S, the dynamic duo made a decent job tracking birds of prey but the hit rate of keepers wasn’t all we were hoping for. When the stars aligned though, autofocus and effective stabilization delivered very sharp shots. Rapid-fire bursts of shots at a fast drive rate of 15fps helped to ensure that we were left with at least a few sharp images from each sequences. For larger subjects that weren’t moving quite so quickly or erratically, we enjoyed a much better hit rate.

The test shots we’re publishing in this review were taken at Chavenage House near Tetbury in South West England, which was playing host to ‘Walks with Hawks’ a specialist outfit offering birds of prey experiences. As well as the birds themselves, we took shots of the location that included the likes of trees against a relatively bright sky. This often gives rise to the appearance of color fringing, but this aberration remained notably absent. All in all, the lens performed superbly well in our real-world tests, delivering excellent results and gorgeous image quality even in tricky scenarios and when shooting in dull, overcast and rainy weather.

Fujifilm XF 400mm f/4.5 R LM OIS WR: Lab Results

We run a range of lab tests under controlled conditions, using the Imatest Master testing suite. Photos of test charts are taken across the range of apertures and zooms (where available), then analyzed for sharpness, distortion and chromatic aberrations.

We use Imatest SFR (spatial frequency response) charts and analysis software to plot lens resolution at the center of the image frame, corners and mid-point distances, across the range of aperture settings and, with zoom lenses, at four different focal lengths. The tests also measure distortion and color fringing (chromatic aberration).

Sharpness:

The Fujifilm XF 500mm lens that we tested previously delivered excellent results for sharpness but this 400mm proved even better. Not only is it amazingly sharp across the entire image frame, but it serves up its best sharpness wide-open at f/4.5, enabling you to freeze motion in action, sports and wildlife photography with the fastest possible shutter speeds.

Fringing:

Color fringing is virtually absent altogether, even right out at the extreme edges and corners of the frame, where lateral chromatic aberration tends to be more noticeable. Again, it outstrips the XF 500mm lens in this respect, although both lenses are a pretty close match at f/5.6.

Distortion: 0.18

There’s the merest hint of pincushion distortion but it barely shows up in lab test results and will generally be completely unnoticeable in real-world shooting.

Fujifilm XF 400mm f/4.5 R LM OIS WR: Verdict

The Fujifilm XF 400mm f/4.5 R LM OIS WR is incredibly similar to the XF 500mm which was launched nearly two years previously. And that’s a very good thing. Both lenses feel virtually identical in terms of their high-end handling characteristics, right down to the various control rings, switches and buttons, and their placement on the silvery colored barrels. The 500mm lens is a tad over half an inch longer and three ounces heavier but to all practical intents and purposes, both lenses look and feel the same.

Further similarities are that both lenses are very robust, fully weather-sealed and ideally suited to the rugged outdoor pursuits of action, sports, motor racing, aircraft and bird photography. They also both feature super-fast and consistently accurate autofocus systems and highly effective 5.5-stop optical image stabilization. You can be guaranteed a great hit rate and plenty of keepers, even when shooting demanding subjects in very tricky conditions.

Actual image quality is superb. There’s a winning combination of excellent sharpness and clarity, along with soft and smooth bokeh, and a minimum of distortion and color fringing. There’s also good resistance against ghosting and flare when shooting against the light.

The trickiest decision is working out which of the 400mm and 500mm lenses is ‘better’. You’ll have to decide that for yourself but, for my part, I actually found the 762mm ‘effective’ focal length of the 500mm lens a little too long in many shooting scenarios. For me, in the absence of any zooming flexibility, the effective 609mm focal length of the 400mm lens is generally a better fit for the types of photography that I’ve listed above, and makes the lens easier to live with. The 400mm lens is also less expensive to buy. I think I have a winner!

Alternatives

I’m once again left feeling jealous of all the photographers with access to Nikon Japan’s Nikon Direct storefront, because the ‘Big N’ has launched more tantalizing swag: a neck warmer and paper cups based around the fastest Nikkor lens in history, the Nikon Z 58mm f/0.95 S Noct.

Okay, so paper cups certainly weren’t on my bingo card for 2026, and more Nikon swag wasn’t exactly the big new release I’ve been waiting for, but I’ll take a neck warmer and paper cup that looks like the mighty Noct.

The Lens Neck Warmer Noct is definitely something I could see accompanying me on a cold hike. Ribbed fabric represents the focus ring, and the classic Noct script is embroidered just below the focal length and aperture markers. The fabric is fleece, so I’m guessing it’s pretty warm, too.

The Lens Paper Cups Noct come in a pack of 25 and feature a similar Noct-inspired design to the neck warmer, but more detailed, with printing made to look like a control ring, LED screen, tripod foot and more. I guess these 280ml cups would make a great talking point at a photography-themed party, exhibition or camera club meet.

Pricing and history

Sadly, these items are Nikon Direct exclusives, which means they are available only to Japanese domestic customers. The Lens Neck Warmer Noct is priced at 4,500 yen (roughly $29, £21, AU$40), and the Lens Paper Cups Noct (Set of 25) are priced at 1,500 yen (roughly $9.50, £7.15, AU$13.44).

If you’re wondering why the Nikon Z 58mm f/0.95 S Noct is such a big deal, it’s the latest in a very exclusive line of premium lenses that represent the pinnacle of Nikon’s optical engineering. The Z-mount Noct was released in 2019 with an eye-watering RRP of $7,997 / £8,299. Think of it as a conceptual lens that's available for purchase, designed to showcase the very pinnacle of the Z mount’s capabilities.

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A "remarkably compact yet well-built" zoom lens is the No.1 best-selling lens in Japan right now, according to major retailer Kitamura. Interestingly, the most popular optics are from third-party manufacturers.

The Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8 DC DN | C for E-mount sits at the top of the chart, followed by another Sigma optic for E-mount: the 28-70mm f/2.8 DG DN | C. Close behind is the Sony FE 100-400mm f/5.6-8 OSS – an affordable telephoto zoom, available for $848 / £799.

Since I started reporting on sales charts in Japan years ago, I have never seen more than three optics sharing the same position. However, in Kitamura's latest August 2026 sales chart, five lenses from Fujifilm, Sony, Canon and Tamron are tied at No.9.

Kitamura's best-selling lenses, August 2026

1. Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8 DC DN | C (E-mount)
2. Sigma 28-70mm f/2.8 DG DN | C (E-mount)
3. Sony FE 100-400mm f/5.6-8 OSS
4. Nikon Z 24-120mm f/4 S
5. Canon RF 50mm f/1.8 STM
6. Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 DG DN OS | Sports (E-mount)
7. Canon EF-S 24mm f/2.8 STM
8. Sigma 20-200mm f/3.5-6.3 DG | C (E-mount)
9=. Fujifilm XC 13-33mm f/3.5-6.3 OIS
9=. Sony FE 70-200mm f/2.8 GM OSS II
9=. Sony FE 24-70mm f/2.8 GM II
9=. Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 STM
9=. Tamron 25-200mm f/2.8-5.6 Di III VXD G2 (E-mount)

No.1 lens: Sigma's "remarkably compact yet well-built" zoom

In our review, we found that the Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8 DC DN | C is "remarkably compact yet well-built". At just approx. 290g, it punches well above its weight. It delivers impressive image quality, features weather-resistant construction, and comes with a budget-friendly price tag.

5 lenses come ninth – from Fuji to Canon, Sony and Tamron

Five lenses are tied at No.9 in Kitamura's best-selling chart for August 2026. From Fujifilm to Canon and Sony to Tamron, the five optics cover a broad range of focal lengths and uses.

Fujifilm's XC 13-33mm f/3.5-6.3 OIS launched in 2025 as the smallest and lightest zoom lens in the Fujifilm X-mount lineup, adding just 125g to the camera bag.

The Sony FE 70-200mm f/2.8 GM OSS II is a light workhorse, while Canon's EF 50mm f/1.8 STM remains a compelling value option that delivers impressive image quality. Lastly, the Tamron 25-200mm f/2.8-5.6 Di III VXD G2 is an all-in-one superzoom.

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The Fujifilm X100VI is a travel wonder, giving loads of options for street, cities, and portraits with its 23mm lens (35mm Equivalent). Being a 40MP camera, I’d have no hesitation cropping in a fair bit to get the shot, so I could effectively treat it as a portrait lens if pushed. One thing I can’t do is get a wide shot. I could potentially stitch photos together, but only for shots lacking movement. Fujifilm does make lens adaptors that do wide and telephoto views. Roughly 28mm equivalent and 50mm. To be clear, Fujifilm is an APS-C format camera, so it has a 24mm instead of a 36mm wide, full-frame sensor. This means focal lengths appear 1.5 times larger.

For me, 24mm is usually where I’d consider wide for landscapes, and 70mm would still be a little wide for headshots, though shooting vertical images would approximate this. The Fujifilm WCL and TCL are not cheap, with the TCL coming in a little more expensive. Often people will just get the wide and crop for the tele look. 28mm is far better than 35 for landscapes, so it’s still a worthy investment for when I want those wider shots-and I do.

One alternative option for supplementing the camera at a better price is the Freewell lens adaptors. Freewell makes a range of goods that fit the X100 series, including Arca tripod plates, thumb grips, and even a circular polariser/mist/lens hood kit. These accessories are well loved by X100 users, including me, so it will be interesting to see how their lenses fare. These follow suit from phone camera adaptors in that the wide adaptor had two parts, the base of which works as an effective close-up lens. And I do mean close.

Freewell doesn't just make for Fujifilm. They make a huge range of filters, including film influencers' products. They’re well established, have an excellent design reputation, and produce popular and often unique products.

Specifications

Price and Availability

The Telephoto is $149 / £126, which I think compares quite well to the Fujifilm TCLX100II at £299. The Wide Angle Macro is $99.99 / £102. Again this is much cheaper than the Fujifilm WCLX100II which lists for £289. Another quality option to price against are the Viltrox set, listing at €219 and €179 respectively.

Given the feature set and the quality, the price is reasonable for these compared to both the Fujifilm and Viltrox alternatives. Atralab have similar products at €124 for a wide/macro, €81 for a wide and €99 for a telephoto, with similar issues to the Freewell.

Design

I have the silver version of these lenses, but they are also available in black. These match the tone of the silver on the X100VI perfectly and look good on it. The X100VI uses a screw thread to attach adaptors. To access this, I had to unscrew a small ring from the front of the built-in lens. Most of the adaptors I have used to date simply screw on directly, but Freewell takes a different approach. Each lens comes with a separate, beefy adapter ring. It’s an extra step in getting the lens on, which I found annoying when I was in a hurry, but it does give far more support. I did leave it on when swapping between adaptors, and it didn’t seem to affect the normal lens operation. The downside is I couldn’t cover the main lens when not using the adaptors.

The Telephoto has quite plain styling, but I have to say that I don’t like the large text saying 1.5x Telephoto on it. It just looks tacky. Otherwise, it feels solid and not out of place, despite being a large piece of glass. The aluminium alloy material choice is reassuring that it can handle the pressure of the streets. It is a lot heavier than the Fujifilm version at 273 g, compared to 180 g. I couldn’t find any information on the element composition of the lens. It may be 5 elements in 4 groups, but that information isn’t readily available.

The Wide/Macro is similar, but smaller. Again, unnecessarily large text on the side of the lens, but generally better-looking. As the macro is part of the wide lens, I simply unscrewed the front section and stored it in the soft case. The soft case deserves a mention because of all the soft cases that come with these adaptors; Freewell’s is by far the nicest. I think it feels rather plush. The lens weighs 173 g, comparable to the Fujifilm wide lens at 150 g. It does have a macro lens and the adapter ring, so it’s reasonable.

One design choice that is a design by omission is the lack of a magnetic switch that embeds metadata about the nature of the attached adaptor. With Fujifilm and Viltrox, I can see if I’ve used the telephoto or wide adaptors in the metadata, and it will apply corrections based on this. I’d be a fool to assume that the distortion properties of the lenses match those of the Fujifilm, but currently there are no automatic corrections applied that suit either lens. And these are definitely needed. Most systems these days use metadata as a way to instruct my processing software to apply a lens correction. I have to manually work out something that’s close and use a preset to attempt this correction, which isn’t optimal as I prefer to not spend my life editing.

Each lens has a standard, plastic lens cap with no branding, and a push-on rear cap. I’ve mentioned the soft case already. The box is beautifully designed, something I rarely think about, but this was notable.

Overall, these look good, and the knurled effect on the adapter ring reminds me a little of the design of the Viltrox lenses. They match the X100VI well, in both shades, looking made for the camera.

Performance

The good looks only get a lens in the door; I need it to perform to keep it in my bag for use. I was really excited to use these lenses, and I have to say I felt a little disappointed by them. My first time using them centred mostly around location shooting with Tink Kaos. I was making use of the leaf shutter of the X100VI to get higher shutter speeds with off-camera flash. Normally I’d have to use high-speed sync to achieve this, which means full power, slow recycle times, and a faster-draining battery. Not so with the X100VI.

I chose to focus mainly on using the Telephoto for this to allow shallower depth of field and more subject in frame. I did choose to use the Wide lens for a few quick shots as a rough test of flare based on my experience with the telephoto. Being a sunny day, I opted to use the sun as a rear light with more controlled soft light from the front. Once the sun hit the lens, the flare was immediate and very obvious. Now I like flare and often add it using Boris FX Optics, but there I have control. This just gives a double cyan and orange spot. I had to use my hand to block the sun in lieu of an appropriate lens hood.

The other issue I had that day was that, despite using the rather excellent eye focus, there were far more misses than hits. Usually this is quite rare, but it did leave me distrusting the lens for critical shots. The flash was firing, so it should freeze motion, and 1/160 at f2.8 should be enough for this on static shots. But it wasn’t. And as I wasn’t doing anything different from shot to shot, there was no way to predict when it wasn’t focusing. I should add that, as it was a bright enough day, I had 3 points of contact-two arms and my face using the viewfinder instead of the screen; the camera should be steady.

The lens does have green chromatic aberration, which I easily fixed with a click in Lightroom.

The final thing that I found noticeable, especially with the sky in the shot, was a vignette on the shot, with a visible darkening in the corners. I used the manual section of Lightroom with an amount of 50 and a midpoint of 30 to correct for this. Both of these Lightroom settings could be saved as a preset and applied to the shots as a batch fix.

I did shoot a lot more with the lens, though, and found that it could be very sharp, like with this exhibition installation as part of our international arts festival.

My first shots using the wide were disappointing. Even at f5.6 with eye focus on, the focus was on the dress and the face was soft. Even if the actual focus point was the dress, I’d expect the face to be in focus at f5.6 at 28mm equivalent.

I made a trip to a location where I often shoot the Milky Way for some shots at sunset. The friary itself looked crisp and clear even at f5, though the contrast seems to have suffered from mild flare. I did wipe the lenses in advance of shooting just in case.

I also shot a few exposure brackets to create HDR photos for more dynamic range. Processing these did reveal some edge vignetting that wasn’t really visible in unedited shots. The bottom corner shows a flare that I suspect is light reflecting off the filter threads, and it wasn’t there in every shot with the sun.

I’m not convinced by the wide adapter. The other part of this is the Macro. And folks, this is fun. I’ve seen people express worry that this lens causes the camera lens to throw a wobbly when, in reality, this lens needs to be REALLY close to the subject. So close that, in sunlight, the lens can cast a shadow on the subject if you’re not careful. Once you’ve accepted that you need to be close, then this does become fun, giving very abstract images, and even high apertures still give very shallow depth of field.

Verdict

I wanted this set to be much better. I really did. There are quality issues with the lenses. The telephoto can be quite sharp, but when it’s not, it really misses. I couldn’t, in the time I had, figure out the cause that made the difference between sharp and soft. Even from shot to shot it could vary.

At its best I found the wide adapter to be soft. Both lens adapters are prone to flaring, even with multi layer coatings. There is chromatic aberration and some optical distortion in the lenses. Yes, they look great, yes they match the system, but as a wide and telephoto, there is better for slightly more money.

The macro is a saving grace though. While the design is very limited in depth of field, the resulting in-focus areas are quite sharp, allowing beautiful abstract art to be created. I would buy the wide adapter just for this. Yes, I could buy a close up filter, but there’s a lot more glass in this than the usual filter. And there’s the fun factor. I’d happily print my favourite results shot using this lens.

Some of the things that aren’t great, like the aberration, distortion and vignette, are fixable in software, and are usually fixed automatically with other lenses. I could make presets for these and even increase sharpening and detail for the wide lens. If I was happy to do that and I was on a limited budget, then these adaptors would work for me.

Alternatives

I still can't quite believe the 7Artisans 10mm f/2.5 Fisheye lens. What it offers – and, more importantly, delivers – for the price is pretty remarkable.

You get an eye-watering 185° angle of view, for starters, which is a reality-warping kind of perspective. And you get a fast f/2.5 aperture, which obviously is far more useful for low light than blurry backgrounds at this focal length. But you also get an enviable 0.15m close focus distance, full weather sealing and, best of all, autofocus.

This, in case you're unaware, is almost unicorn territory for a fisheye lens; there is, after all, only one other autofocus fisheye for the Sony E and L-Mount (from Sigma), and none whatsoever for Nikon Z cameras. But the 7Artisans 10mm f/2.5 Fisheye offers all this for under $500 – less than a quarter of the price of the alternative.

Fisheye lenses aren't for everyone, and they aren't for everything, but they're a brilliant creative addition to your arsenal – and if I were in the market for one, with its unique combination of price, performance and size, the 7Artisans 10mm f/2.5 Fisheye is the one I would personally purchase and is absolutely among the best fisheye lenses on the market. Here's why.

7Artisans AF 10mm f/2.5 Fisheye: Price & availability

The 7Artisans 10mm f/2.5 Fisheye was launched in September 2026 with a price tag of $449 – which translates to around £330 / AU$625.

While there are plenty of third-party manual options, as noted there are almost no autofocus alternatives native to the E, Z or L-Mount – and none at all for Nikon's mirrorless platform.

For Sony and L-Mount cameras, there is the Sigma 15mm f/1.4 DG DN | Art Fisheye prime, priced $1,999 / £1,859 / AU$3,795, which is faster but wider.

Other than that, Sony shooters have the option of a slower autofocus zoom – the Sony FE 8-14mm f/3.5 Fisheye G, which carries a $1,599 / £1,499 / AU$2,099 asking price.

7Artisans AF 10mm f/2.5 Fisheye: Specifications

7Artisans AF 10mm f/2.5 Fisheye: Build & handling

Despite its affordable price point, the 7Artisans 10mm f/2.5 Fisheye feels every inch a premium lens – and indeed, it's part of the company's Max line of top-tier optics. The all-metal construction gives it a satisfying amount of heft in the hand, and obviously offers a reassuring level of robustness. On top of that, it's finished beautifully with a pleasingly smooth, satin finish that suggests a far more expensive optic.

The mount (which, again, is metal) features a USB-C connection for easy firmware updates and is finished with a gasket – making this is a weather-sealed lens that you can take out even in challenging conditions. As always, remember that this is only true if your camera is likewise sealed (which my Lumix S9 is not!) so make sure your body and lens are weather-sealed before shooting in wet or dusty conditions.

Despite its build quality, the 7Artisans 10mm f/2.5 Fisheye is comfortably light at 504g and pretty small at just 94mm in length – which makes it a smart match for smaller full-frame bodies like the Lumix S9 and Sony A7C II, as well as Sony's APS-C cameras. This stands in stark contrast to the Sigma 15mm f/1.4 DG DN | Art Fisheye, which tips the scale at 1,400g and measures 160mm.

Given the bulbous nature of the front element, this lens has a fixed hood on the front – which serves both to protect the glass and shield the optic from errant light sources. This does mean, of course, that it's not compatible with traditional lens filters – so you're looking at sensor-mounted options if you want to use something like an ND filter.

I'll also point out that, despite the integrated hood, the front element remains very vulnerable – especially if, like me, you whip it in and out of a sling bag for street shooting. You should definitely use the supplied lens cap (which is felt-lined and slides on top of the hood petals) whenever you aren't actively shooting, as you don't want to smudge, ding or damage that exposed element.

Where controls are concerned, there's an aperture ring (clicked) for lens-based exposure control as well as a very nice manual focus ring (fly-by-wire) if you want to override the AF. To accomplish this there's a manual / autofocus switch, and a pair of function buttons enable you to map custom controls to the lens.

7Artisans AF 10mm f/2.5 Fisheye: Compatibility

It's important to note that the 7Artisans 10mm f/2.5 Fisheye isn't fully compatible with every Sony or Sigma camera body (all current Nikon and Panasonic cameras will work fine).

The manufacturer has provided a list of camera compatibility, as of September 2026. Per 7Artisans, 'Fully compatible' means that all functions work, 'Basically compatible' means "normal shooting works; some features are being improved" and 'Not compatible' means that the lens cannot be used.

Here's the full list:

7Artisans AF 10mm f/2.5 Fisheye: Performance

I primarily tested the 7Artisans 10mm f/2.5 Fisheye with my Lumix S9. I shot in a variety of conditions and situations, from action skateboarding and portraiture to architecture and close-ups to day and night street photography.

As noted in the specs, and evidenced by the sample images below, this is a 'full frame' or 'diagonal' fisheye lens. In other words, it captures images that fill the entire image area, from corner to corner, rather than being a 'circular' fisheye lens that captures a porthole-style image surrounded by a black frame.

Shooting with a fisheye lens is always a good time, but I didn't previously own a fisheye quite as wide as this. So the first thing I wanted to shoot was street skateboarding – which, as anyone who grew up in the Nineties watching the likes of Rodney Mullen, Chad Muska and Bam Margera tear, is the preserve of low-angle fisheye shots.

The 10mm focal length definitely added an element of challenge, as you have to get right up close to the action (or ask the skater to bring the action right up close to you) which invites a little bit of danger! But I absolutely love the results and especially the environmental results that are possible.

Even though the Lumix S9 still doesn't have Panasonic's skateboard autofocus, the 7Artisans 10mm f/2.5 Fisheye was able to keep up with the action whenever the camera could – and it never once dropped focus once it had been acquired, which is pretty impressive.

Just as impressive is the lens' control of flare and glare. We shot at a variety of angles from the sun, including with it right behind us, and I only managed to capture a single instance of flare (and that's shooting 30fps bursts!) which you can see above.

I also took advantage of having a great subject on hand to capture some portraits. This isn't necessarily the first thing you should do with a fisheye lens, but it's possible to get some creative people pictures with a very unique perspective.

Obviously I wasn't able to get any meaningful subject separation, given the wide-angle nature of the lens, though you can use the 0.15m close-focusing capability to achieve background blur by getting right up to your subject. As you can see in the samples below, I was able to get a pretty pleasing macro-esque shot of a tiny bug on a flower.

Bokeh, as and when you achieve it, isn't anything to write home about; it's quite busy, and often descends into smear rather than blur thanks to field curvature, but I don't realistically think anyone is buying this lens for creamy backgrounds!

Where I was really impressed with the 7Artisans 10mm f/2.5 Fisheye is sharpness. Again due to the curvature of the front element, we weren't able to adequately lab test this lens; it's simply too bulbous to get any worthwhile test data as soon as you start moving away from the center.

But as you'll see in the above close-up image of fruit, and in the flora images below, center sharpness really is very good – and even as you stray towards the edges of the frame, where things will inherently be weaker, things can be surprisingly crisp and detailed (check out the black-and-white shots of the car park and the bicycle).

If you want to defish your images, 7Artisans has a calibration profile that you can download. This will give you more of a rectilinear look to your images, but obviously you will get superior optical performance with a native rectilinear lens.

7Artisans AF 10mm f/2.5 Fisheye: Samples

7Artisans AF 10mm f/2.5 Fisheye: Verdict

With so many features for such a low price, I assumed that something had to give – but the 7Artisans AF 10mm f/2.5 Fisheye surprised me by delivering in every department.

The autofocus is fast and reliable, the fast aperture makes it possible to shoot when the sun is going down or gone altogether, the weather sealing keeps you shooting around water or dust, and the sharpness and overall image quality mean that your images look great – even on high-resolution sensors, as 7Artisans says that the lens can resolve 60MP, making this suitable for megapixel monsters like the Sony A7R VI.

I had a brilliant time shooting with the 7Artisans AF 10mm f/2.5 Fisheye and, even though fisheye shots aren't a huge part of my usual photography, I found myself missing this lens when I didn't have it with me – making this one of those rare lenses that genuinely impacts how you "see" the world and inspires you to pick it up and use it.

While it's a shame that the lens isn't universally compatible with all Sony and Sigma cameras, this is potentially something that can be addressed via firmware – and I want to shout out 7Artisans for already dropping a firmware update that improves image stabilization, which inspires confidence for future support.

Fisheye lenses are incredibly niche tools – by no means does everybody need one. Moreover, even if you own one, you probably shouldn't use it for every shoot you do. But having a fisheye in your arsenal gives you an incredible and unique creative weapon – and this one is a fraction of the price of other autofocus fisheye lenses, making it an incredibly appealing entry point if you want to experiment.

The Sigma 15mm f/1.4 fisheye is arguably a more useful (and easier to use) fisheye focal length, and it's faster as well, but it's also quadruple the price – and it's so big and heavy that it comes with its own tripod foot. Sony's new 8-14mm f/3.5 obviously gives you a zoom range, but you only achieve diagonal coverage at 14mm – which is no good unless you want the "porthole look".

For everything this lens offers at its ridiculously low $449 price point, it's simply a no-brainer if you have even the remotest interest in shooting unique perspectives with an extreme angle of view.

There are four new Viltrox ‘Air’ series L-mount lenses breezing in, namely the Viltrox AF 14mm f/4.0 Air L, Viltrox AF 20mm f/2.8 Air L, Viltrox AF 40mm f/2.5 Air L and Viltrox AF 50mm f/2.0 Air L.

Typical of the breed, they’re all very compact and ultra-lightweight, yet sturdily built with metal rather than plastic mounting plates. Also like other Air lenses, they’re outrageously good value for money.

All of the new L-mount lenses are full-frame compatible, which seems entirely appropriate as there doesn’t seem a whole lot of point making APS-C format L-mount lenses. For context, Viltrox became a fully paid-up member of the L-mount alliance in September 2025. The first fruit was the highly sophisticated Viltrox AF 16mm f/1.8 L, followed by the extremely basic, half-inch thick Viltrox AF 28mm f/4.5 ‘chip’ lens. Occupying the middle ground in terms of size, features and price, the four L-mount Air series lenses are remakes of the previously available Nikon Z and Sony E mount versions.

I think the four lenses cover a good spread, catering to ultra-wide-angle and wide-angle perspectives through to a standard ‘nifty fifty’. The 40mm lens neatly bridges the gap between a wide-angle and standard prime, making it ideal for street photography and walkabout shooting.

So just how compact and lightweight are these lenses? Well, they measure just over a couple of inches long, and weigh in at around 6 ounces (the 50mm lens weighs just over 7 ounces). Even so, they feature stepping motor autofocus systems and include aspherical, ED (Extra-low Dispersion) and Hri (High Refractive index) optical elements. They also come complete with lens hoods and USB-C ports in their mounting plates, for applying firmware updates if and when required. All of the lenses are optimized for video as well as stills, making the useful for hybrid photographers.

As for the bottom line, here are those bargain price tags… The 14mm and 50mm lenses go on sale for $199 / £190 / AU$299, the 20mm costs just $168 / £165 / AU$240 and the 40mm sells for $176 / £165 / AU$265. Why stop at just one?

Check out our guide to the best L-mount lenses

If you've been looking for a versatile, high-performance zoom lens, this stellar optic has just dropped to its lowest-ever price.

The Nikon Z 70-200mm f/2.8 VR S is now available for just £1,949 at London Camera Exchange.

With this offer, you save £250 on the Z lens' regular price tag of £2,199 – a lens that we described as "probably the best 70-200mm zoom in the world. Ever" in our review.

This could be one of your last chances to buy it brand-new, as LCE states the deal is a clearance offer with limited stock remaining. Other major retailers have listed the zoom as discontinued, just before its pricier successor arrived.

Nikon's top-tier telephoto

The Nikon Z 70-200mm f/2.8 VR S is known for its steep price tag, reflecting its specs and versatility – and it's easily one of the best Nikon telephoto lenses out there.

The Z 70-200mm f/2.8 builds on the legacy of the popular Nikon AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8E FL ED VR DSLR lens, a go-to for pro Nikon shooters worldwide. This optic of the mirrorless S-line goes even further: it handles better, delivers sharper images and performs at a consistently high level.

Yes, it comes at a price, but that's what makes this current deal such a great opportunity if you are a Nikon Z user. Beyond its impressive technical specs, it's a true workhorse lens – versatile enough to cover multiple genres. So if your shooting style is consistent, this is a long-term investment that really pays off.

Optically, Nikon packed this lens with some serious glass: 21 elements in 18 groups, including two aspherical elements, six ED (extra-low dispersion) elements, a fluorite element, and an SR (short-wavelength refractive) element.

Autofocus is fast, accurate, smooth and super quiet, which also makes it appealing to videographers. And unlike many S-line lenses, this one doesn't rely solely on the camera body for stabilization. It features a built-in optical VR (vibration reduction) system that keeps performance solid, even at the longest zoom setting.

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Known as "probably the best 70-200mm zoom in the world. Ever.", the Nikon Z 70-200mm f/2.8 VR S is the top-ranked product in the zoom lens category on the Japanese marketplace Minna Camera during the first half of 2026. The telephoto lens is now discontinued following the arrival of its successor, the Nikon Z 70-200mm f/2.8 VR S II.

In the ranking, Minna Camera classifies lenses by their longest focal length. Zoom lenses reaching 200mm or longer accounted for 51.2% of all zoom-lens transactions, while 200mm was the single most common telephoto-end category, accounting for 17.9% of transactions. In this category, the best-selling model in 2026 so far is Nikon's popular 70-200mm f/2.8 VR S lens. While US stock seems empty, UK retailers still offer the zoom brand-new, with discounts available.

Zoom lenses covering up to 70mm make up 15% of the transactions, with the Sony FE 20-70mm f/4 G being the most purchased option. Close behind are lenses covering up to 400mm, with 12.5%. The top zoom in this category is the Canon RF 100-400mm f/5.6-8 IS USM.

Top 10 zoom lenses by telephoto end market share at Minna Camera (H1)*

*Source: Minna Camera, based on zoom lens transactions completed January 1 - June 30, 2026.

"Probably the best 70-200mm zoom in the world. Ever."

The Z 70-200mm f/2.8 builds on the legacy of the popular Nikon AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8E FL ED VR DSLR lens, a go-to for pro Nikon shooters worldwide. This optic of the mirrorless S-line goes even further: it handles better, delivers sharper images and performs at a consistently high level.

Nikon packed this lens with some serious glass: 21 elements in 18 groups, AF (autofocus) is fast,accurate, smooth and super quiet. Unlike many S-line lenses, this one doesn't rely solely on the camera body for stabilization. It features a built-in optical VR (vibration reduction).

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Browse the best 70-200mm lenses, the best standard zoom lenses, the best telephoto lenses, and the best 50mm lenses.

I’ve been fortunate enough to temporarily rent a luxury telephoto prime that welcomed pixel-peeping while melting backgrounds into oblivion – but the lens cost more than my first two cars combined and felt like carrying around a third leg.

When Sony announced that it had turned two luxury lenses into portable and semi-affordable lenses with the 400mm f/4.5 and 600mm f/5.6 GM OSS lenses, I knew I had to take a hike at one of my favorite spots for wildlife photography – a nearby wildlife refuge.

Hiking with the new Sony 400mm f/4.5 and 600mm f/5.6 felt more like carrying around two 70-200mm f/2.8 lenses rather than two extreme reach telephoto primes. The lenses slide in at just under a kilogram and just over two pounds. That certainly added a little weight to my hands and my backpack, but that’s about three times lighter than Sony’s brighter 400mm f/2.8 and 600mm f/4.

I started out with the 400mm, but immediately spotted a bird that I couldn’t recognize and quietly swapped it out for the 600mm for a closer look. I watched the little fellow sit on a branch and peer into the water for prey for several minutes.

I used the 600mm on the Sony A7 V, not one of the highest-resolution full-frame bodies, but the 600mm lens was still impressively sharp and detailed. Cropping in on my shots, I realized that I had a hard time identifying the bird because it was a juvenile black-crowned night heron with an entirely different feather pattern from the adults.

I was able to photograph several more birds with the Sony 600mm f/5.6 GM OSS. The lens doesn’t melt the background quite like an f/4, and I had to use a slightly higher ISO. But the trade-off is that the lens is still very much hike-friendly rather than sitting and waiting inside a wildlife blind.

The biggest surprise from my shoot with the two new Sony telephotos, however, came after I returned home and blew up the photos on my screen. I had captured this very distant egret, knowing he would be very small in the frame, but liking how his features were backlit anyway.

But when I looked at the photo on my screen, I realized that the same branch also held a perfectly preserved spider web. Even cropping in from the 33MP, there’s still an impressive level of detail in that spider web.

I tend to crave more reach when out photographing wildlife, so I was also surprised when I actually ended up with more photos that I marked from the 400mm f/4.5. With a bit less reach, the 400mm has that brighter aperture and is still very lightweight.

As I made my way back to my car, I had to watch my step as dozens of frogs leapt out of the path. Just before the parking lot, I watched this egret fish, which, with the f/4.5 aperture on the 400mm, I was still able to freeze the water droplets at 1/5,000 and ISO 400.

The launch of the new Sony 400mm and 600mm brings a sort of happy medium to the E-Mount telephoto family. Sony has luxury wildlife lenses like the 600mm f/4 and cheap optics like the Sony 100-400mm f/5.6-8 OSS. The new Sony 400mm f/4.5 and 600mm f/5.6 GM OSS slot in as a Goldilocks, just-right balance between price, weight, and image quality.

Sony FE 400mm f/4.5 GM OSS

Sony FE 600mm f/5.6 GM OSS

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More than half of the zoom lenses traded on the Japanese camera marketplace Minna Camera in the first half of 2026 had a focal length of 200mm or longer, according to new data from the retailer.

Minna Camera's analysis of zoom-lens transactions shows: lenses reaching 200mm or longer accounted for 51% of all zoom-lens transactions, narrowly exceeding the 48.8% share for lenses whose longest focal length was below 200mm.

Importantly, Minna Camera classifies lenses by their longest focal length, rather than their 35mm-equivalent field of view. A 24-200mm and a 70-200mm lens therefore both fall into the 200mm category, while lenses designed for different sensor formats are not converted to a common 35mm equivalent.

Top 10 traded zoom lenses by focal length at Minna Camera (H1)*

*Approx. used prices in USD and GBP added by Digital Camera World.

Canon accounted for the largest brand share

Among the five manufacturers for which Minna Camera supplied brand figures, Canon accounted for 38.1% of zoom-lens transactions, followed by Nikon at 27.2% and Sony at 16.6%.

Sigma accounted for 4.1% and Tamron 3.4%.

Looking instead at the proportion of each brand's zoom transaction that reached 200mm or longer shows a different picture. Tamron had the highest figure at 65.6%, narrowly ahead of Canon at 64.2%. Nikon stood at 49.7%, Sony at 39.7% and Sigma at 37.8%.

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The Leica M system has never been short of interesting third-party glass, but this might be one of the more unusual new options to appear in a while. Lailens has released its new 35mm f/3.5 lens for Leica M-mount cameras, nicknamed “The White Queen,” and it is now available to buy through eBay for $599.

There is a catch, though: only 299 examples are being made, so this is very much another small-production lens aimed at photographers who want something a little different on the front of their M camera.

Rather than chasing modern sharpness charts and increasingly complicated optical formulas, Lailens has looked firmly backwards for inspiration. The 35mm f/3.5 pays tribute to a classic British Dallmeyer 35mm f/3.5 design, with Lailens reportedly disassembling two original lenses before reproducing the optical structure and its imaging characteristics at a 1:1 ratio. It is an increasingly familiar approach among smaller M-mount lens manufacturers, where the objective is not necessarily to create the technically “perfect” lens, but to recreate some of the character that made older optics interesting in the first place.

That vintage influence is certainly obvious from the outside. The White Queen has a silver metal barrel paired with a gold-colored aperture ring, giving it an appearance that should feel perfectly at home on both classic film bodies and modern digital M cameras. Focusing is entirely manual, as you would expect, with Lailens emphasizing the mechanical feel of the focus ring as part of the overall experience. This is not trying to disguise itself as a modern Leica lens; its slightly eccentric styling is really part of the appeal.

Optically, you are getting a 35mm focal length with an aperture range of f/3.5 through f/22 and an Anastigmat-derived design. Minimum focusing distance is listed at 0.6 meters, while the lens accepts particularly small 23.5mm filters. It is designed to cover full-frame 35mm cameras, making it a natural match for the Leica M system, whether you are shooting one of the latest digital bodies or something considerably older.

Of course, f/3.5 is hardly fast by modern 35mm standards. Leica shooters can choose from plenty of f/2 and f/1.4 alternatives if maximum light gathering or extremely shallow depth of field is the priority. But I suspect that rather misses the point of a lens like this. The attraction here is its size, mechanical simplicity, limited-production nature, and most importantly the promise of an older optical character recreated for photographers who do not want every image rendered with clinical modern perfection.

And at $599, it is also entering the Leica M world at a price considerably below many first-party Leica lenses. The Lailens 35mm f/3.5 “White Queen” is currently listed through eBay, with production limited to just 299 pieces worldwide. Whether its vintage-inspired rendering can live up to its wonderfully unusual appearance remains to be seen, but in a market increasingly filled with technically exceptional lenses, there is something rather refreshing about a new piece of glass whose biggest selling point might simply be character.

Panasonic full-frame mirrorless cameras have been through quite a downsizing regime since the Lumix S system was first launched back in 2019. The diminutive but perfectly capable Panasonic Lumix S9 is currently the smallest of the group, the lack of a viewfinder helping to enable a particularly svelte and slender build. Naturally, that advantage is lost if you mount a big clunky lens on your slimline, lightweight body.

To keep everything in well-matched proportion, Panasonic has already released a couple of desirable lightweight full-frame lenses, ideally suited to the Lumix S9. The Panasonic Lumix S 18-40mm f/4.5-6.3 launched as the world’s smallest and lightest zoom lens, complete with an intriguing zoom range that packed big viewing angles into its small build. Then there’s the Panasonic Lumix S 40mm f/2 prime lens, neatly bridging the gap between 35mm and 50mm optics and proving itself to be very versatile.

The new Panasonic Lumix S 20mm f/2.5 that I’m reviewing here is virtually identical to the 18-40mm zoom and 40mm prime in size and weight, giving an appealing symmetry and synergy to the trio. As a compact yet wide-angle prime lens, the 20mm is geared to walkabout, street and travel photography, landscapes, cityscapes and architectural interiors, and maybe even a bit of stargazing. It’s also pretty ideal for taking selfies, vlogging and video content creation. Who said that prime lenses lacked versatility? All in all, the S 20mm aims to be one of the best L-mount lenses and best lenses for the Lumix S9, and certainly one of the most lightweight and affordable.

Panasonic Lumix S 20mm f/2.5: Specifications

Panasonic Lumix S 20mm f/2.5: Price

The Panasonic Lumix S 20mm f/2.5 comes with a price tag of $499 / £429 / AU$TBA. That makes it a bit pricier than the Panasonic Lumix S 40mm f/2 at $399 / £349 / AU$699 but less expensive than the Panasonic Lumix S 18-40mm f/4.5-6.3 at $548 / £519 / AU$899.

For further price comparisons, the faster and more sophisticated Sigma 20mm f/2 DG DN | C unsurprisingly costs more at $769 / £589 / AU$1,200, whereas the ultra-thin (half-inch) but relatively basic Viltrox AF 28mm f/4.5 pancake lens is super-cheap at $99 / £90 / AU$149. I’d say that the Lumix S 20mm is fairly priced but not bite-your-hand-off value for money.

Panasonic Lumix S 20mm f/2.5: Design & Handling

Available in either black or silver, the Panasonic Lumix S 20mm f/2.5 is seriously lightweight. When I picked up the retail box I thought it was empty. Lifting the lid was the only thing that convinced me there was actually a lens enclosed. It’s really small too. Talking in numbers, it measures 69x41mm / 2.6x1.6in and weighs just 142g / 5oz. Both the size and weight are virtually identical to those of the S 18-40mm zoom and S 40mm prime.

I know what you’re thinking. Okay, I don’t, but I’m guessing it’s something along the lines of flimsy lightweight lenses being cut to the bone and having plastic mounting plates. Well, think again. The Panasonic is a tough little cookie, with a dust, splash and freeze-resistant design. Not only does it include weather-seals and a metal mounting plate, it even has a keep-clean fluorine coating on its little front element and some advanced handling finery.

It almost goes without saying but the Panasonic is an autofocus lens, employing the usual stepping motor to drive the requisite elements. It’s a fully internal system, so the front element neither extends nor rotates during focusing. That’s a bonus for handling, especially if you’re using a rotation-specific filter like an ND-grad or circular polarizer. However, the angle of view might be a bit too wide for effective use of a polarizer, as you tend to get an uneven strength of effect across the frame.

Focusing is typically quick and extremely quiet, ideal for both stills and videography. Further video credentials are that the lens is designed to suppress focus breathing, so the field of view doesn’t change when you alter the focus setting. For manual focusing, there’s a control ring with a nicely ridged and grippy surface.

The image below shows how well proportioned the lens is, in relation to the Lumix S9 body. Another small measurement, as written on the side of the barrel, is that the minimum focus distance is a mere 0.18m or 0.59ft, as measured from the image sensor in the camera body. Suffice it to say that there’s some serious close-up potential. That’s great as far as I’m concerned, as I love getting in really close with an ultra-wide-angle lens, to exaggerate the perspective effect. It also puts selfies and vlogging firmly on the agenda, as there’s no problem shooting yourself from arm’s length.

I’ve seen all too many ‘compact’ lenses that use downsizing as an excuse to strip out important features. There’s none of that here, and I’m glad that Panasonic resisted the temptation to do away with an AF/MF focus mode switch. One of my pet hates is having to rummage around in camera menus to make the change, when a simple switch on the lens makes it so much quicker and easier. It’s present and correct in this lens.

As well as the AF/MF switch, there’s also the bonus of a customizable function button. This really is something unexpected on such a small lens but it’s completely in keeping with the design of the companion 40mm, ensuring further similarities in handling characteristics. It’s neat being able to swap between the two lenses without any adjustment to your creative flow. I like that it’s placed on the diagonal, making it easy to get at in both landscape and portrait orientation shooting.

I’d usually use the function button for autofocus-hold/lock but an interesting alternative is Panasonic’s ‘crop zoom’ facility. This enables you to apply a crop factor on the fly, gaining a longer ‘effective’ focal length, albeit with a loss in megapixel count. It’s similar to using the APS-C crop mode featured in many full-frame cameras, although the amount of crop on offer depends on the specific Panasonic camera body.

As I mentioned earlier, the lens has a sturdy metal rather than plastic mounting plate. It comes complete with a weather-seal gasket to guard against the ingress of dust and moisture through the joint between lens and camera body. And as I’d expect nowadays, the electronic data contacts are gold-plated.

Panasonic Lumix S 20mm f/2.5: Performance

Just how much can you squeeze into a really small lens? Quite a lot as it turns out, because the S 20mm has a properly wide field of view. Swap from a typical 24-70mm standard zoom to this lens and the difference is more than obvious as soon as you put your eye to the camera’s viewfinder (not the Lumix S9 actually has one). This makes the lens something of a vlogger’s delight, for which the vari-angle screen of the S9 comes in very handy, with its front-facing facility. The bottom line is that you can capture yourself at arm’s length while shoehorning a lot of the background into the frame, to set the scene. That said, the lens doesn’t go as wide as the same-sized S 18-40mm zoom.

Sharpness is excellent in the central region of the frame but drops off towards the edges and corners when shooting wide-open at f/2.5. Edge-sharpness doesn’t really come on song until you stop down as far as f/8. With the sibling S 40mm lens, I found that I only had to stop down to f/4 for much-improved edge-sharpness. Even so, I’d say that the S 20mm delivers perfectly adequate edge-sharpness at f/4 and f/5.6, even if it’s not entirely great. Sharpness across the entire frame is impressive at f/8 and f/11. Overall, levels of sharpness are very good, considering that the lens crams so much viewing width into such a small and lightweight package.

A bonus for shooting architectural interiors and starry skies is that the f/2.5 aperture can pull in a fair amount of light. Okay, it’s not as fast as many prime lenses but the 20mm is still a little faster than a ‘trinity’ f/2.8 zoom lens. And for reasonably well lit interiors, you can shoot at middling aperture settings for a greater depth of field, and still not need to push your camera’s ISO setting very far, as demonstrated in the image below.

Autofocus proved quick and consistently accurate throughout my testing period. I was impressed by the lens’s sharpness, clarity and color rendition, but there is one sizeable fly in the ointment. Make that two flies… Ghosting and flare. The front optical element is quite small and it’s recessed from the front of the lens barrel. On top of that, there’s a ridged sloping surface that acts as a lens hood of sorts. With that in mind, I wasn’t expecting the lens to be as susceptible to ghosting and flare as it turned out to be.

Panasonic doesn’t supply a hood with the lens, nor does it sell one as an optional extra. You can get around the problem by shielding the lens from stray light with a spare hand, but I reckon you’d be well advised to buy an after-market hood that screws into the 62mm filter attachment thread. Shooting against the light with no hood mounted on this lens can often give rise to the kind of result shown below.

Panasonic Lumix S 20mm f/2.5: Sample Images

The following gallery of sample shots was taken at the East Somerset Railway in the South West of England. It’s a delightful historic railway that’s run as a charity by a friendly bunch of volunteers, and is well worth a visit. Weather conditions were very pleasant on a sunny, late summer morning. The collection of photos was taken outdoors and inside the station buildings and nearby engine shed.

Panasonic Lumix S 20mm f/2.5: Lab Results

We run a range of lab tests under controlled conditions, using the Imatest Master testing suite. Photos of test charts are taken across the range of apertures and zooms (where available), then analyzed for sharpness, distortion and chromatic aberrations.

We use Imatest SFR (spatial frequency response) charts and analysis software to plot lens resolution at the center of the image frame, corners and mid-point distances, across the range of aperture settings and, with zoom lenses, at four different focal lengths. The tests also measure distortion and color fringing (chromatic aberration).

Sharpness:

Sharpness in the central region is superb, even wide open. We'd expect a marked reduction in sharpness as you move out towards the corners of frame, as this is inevitable when shooting our large, flat test chart at such a close distance. However, sharpness drops off particularly steeply with the Panasonic 20mm, especially at larger apertures - you'll need to stop down to f/8 to get decent sharpness across the entire image frame.

Fringing:

Fringing is very well controlled at all apertures and across the whole frame - it won't be visible in general shooting.

Distortion: -5.52

The lens produces significant barrel distortion, but this is corrected automatically by firmware.

Panasonic Lumix S 20mm f/2.5: Verdict

I’m mostly impressed with the Panasonic Lumix S 20mm f/2.5. For me, the main attraction is that it shoehorns a generously wide viewing perspective into a compact and incredibly lightweight build. The combination is all I could wish for when picking a prime lens for walkabout, street and travel photography. And while it’s superlatively lightweight, the Panasonic doesn’t skimp on features and build quality. Handling extras include an AF/MF focus mode switch and customizable function button, while the construction includes a metal mounting plate and multiple weather-seals.

Although lacking any zoom facility, it’s a very versatile lens, catering to landscape and cityscape photography, architectural interiors, selfies, vlogging and much more besides. I’d give it full marks for sterling performance wrapped up in a diminutive and travel-friendly construction, but I’ve knocked the rating down a bit because edge/corner-sharpness is a little lacking at wide apertures, and the lens is very susceptible to ghosting and flare. Stop down a little and shield it with a spare hand against oncoming light, or buy an aftermarket hood, and you’re good to go.

Alternatives

The Panasonic Lumix S9 is something of a fashion icon in its own right, adored for its slimline dimensions and snazzy colorways (I’ll take the dark olive). But the appeal of the body beautiful is rather lost if you need to hang a big clunky lens off it. To keep everything in the right mix and match proportions, there’s already the Panasonic Lumix S 18-40mm f/4.5-6.3, which launched as the world’s smallest and lightest zoom lens, and the dinky little Panasonic Lumix S 40mm f/2 prime. Now there’s the new Panasonic Lumix S 20mm f/2.5, to literally widen your options.

So what exactly are your options with the new S 20mm lens? The wide-angle perspective is ideal for walkabout, street, and travel photography, as well as for landscapes, cityscapes and architectural interiors. With its fairly fast f/2.5 aperture, astrophotography is another possibility, so it’s already sounding like you might be covering a lot of ground with this lens. That’s why it’s so nice that the big viewing angle is shoehorned into such a small, lightweight build.

Available in black or silver, the new S 20mm prime looks the part on any color of Lumix S9 camera body, but its beauty is more than skin deep. The 20mm and 40mm primes and the 18-40mm zoom have virtually identical dimensions and weigh next to nothing, the S 20mm measuring a mere 69x41mm / 2.6x1.6in and weighing just 142g / 5oz. And proving that ultra-lightweight lenses don’t have to be flimsy, the S 20mm matches the design of the S 40mm in having a dust, splash and freeze-resistant construction complete with a weather-sealed metal rather than plastic mounting plate.

Another bonus is that both of the S20mm and S40mm lenses have the same handling characteristics, so swapping between them won’t throw any spanners in your creative flow. Despite being so small, they pack an AF/MF focus mode switch, customizable focus ring and a customizable function button. The last of these will often be used for AF-Lock but Panasonic’s new Crop Zoom feature is a tempting alternative.

I’d add vlogging and video content creation to the ‘can-do’ list of the lens. Its ultra-wide viewing angle is great for presenting to camera at arm’s length, making the most of the Lumix S9’s fully articulated screen.

On top of that, the lens has a really short minimum focus distance of 0.18m, just 7 inches as measured from the camera’s image sensor. It’s also designed to suppress focus breathing, adding to its video credentials. All in all, it looks a very versatile and highly desirable little lens, with an attractive price tag of $499 / £429 / AU$TBA.

Shipping is expected to start in October and the S 20mm is already destined to be one of best lenses for the Lumix S9.

Bright telephoto primes tend to sit at a luxury price point only the most serious wildlife and sports photographers can reach for – but Sony’s new telephoto prime lenses are nearly 4x cheaper than the brand’s brightest. Unveiled on September 15, the Sony FE 400mm f/4.5 GM OSS and FE 600mm f/6.3 GM OSS bring two popular telephoto focal lengths to a more reasonable price point – and a lighter profile.

Sony already has both a 400mm f/2.8 and a 600mm f/4, but the new primes narrow down the aperture by around 1 and ⅓ stops in order to create a more portable – and less pricey – optic.

The 400mm comes in at 994g / 35oz – and the 600mm is only 1g heavier. That’s a major weight loss over the 2895g / 102.2 oz 400mm f/2.8 and the 3040g / 107.3 oz 600mm f/4. Both lenses are also designed with more glass towards the rear of the lens in order to create better balance on the camera body, with the 400mm using 22 elements in 16 groups and the 600mm using 24 elements in 17 groups.

I’ve worked with 600mm f/4 lenses before – and immediately scheduled a chiropractor adjustment afterwards. The new Sony primes don’t quite have the melt-like-butter background of an f/2.8 and an f/4, but it’s far more feasible to hike with.

In fact, I hiked two miles, and I had both the 400mm and the 600mm on me at the same time. Time constraints – and not exhaustion – only prevented me from going farther. Working with the two new prime lenses felt more like carrying around a 70-200mm f/2.8 than a luxury telephoto prime.

While both lenses are lighter and more affordable than Sony’s brightest telephoto primes, the optics are still stabilized – and still a card-carrying member of the more high-end GM series. I found they were still plenty sharp, and still had room to crop even when mounted on the A7 V and not an R-series model.

That sharpness is going to be a key deciding factor on these lenses. After all, the Sony FE 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 G OSS matches the 600mm’s aperture rating and comes in at a lower price than the prime. But, in our lab tests, the 600mm prime won in sharpness, particularly at the corners.

The 400mm is even sharper than the 600mm, even when shooting wide open.

Sony says that both lenses use two linear XD motors and are capable of keeping up with bodies that have 120 fps autofocus calculations. I didn’t find anything to the contrary on my hike – a few birds had too many branches in the way for the autofocus to pick up on, but even birds in flight had relatively few misses.

While the new telephotos are compact, they still carry a set of controls that will feel familiar to photographers who have used other Sony telephotos. There’s a large set of switches including the focus range limiter, four focus hold buttons, and a custom function ring.

As part of the GM series, both lenses are also built with dust and moisture seals, along with a fluorine coating on the front element.

Sony says that both optics are still compatible with Sony’s 2x and 1.4x teleconverters.

The Sony 400mm f/4.5 GM OSS is set to retail for $2,699 / £2,579 / AU$3,999 – while that’s certainly not a cheap lens, that’s nearly a quarter of the cost of Sony’s 400mm f/2.8, which sits at $12,999 / £10,490 / AU$16,999.

The Sony 600mm f/6.3 comes in slightly higher for that added reach at $3,699 / £3,609 / AU$5,599. Again, that’s not cheap unless it’s being directly compared to the 600mm f/4 GM OSS, which goes for $14,099 / £11,999 / AU$19,299.

Both lenses are expected to begin shipping in October.

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Like countless others of my generation, I was glued to the first ever series of Star Trek on TV. An iconic quote that’s stood the test of time (fittingly from an episode called ‘The Naked Time’ comes from Scotty in the engine room of the USS Enterprise… “I can’t change the laws of physics.” Well, it seems Sony has just got one over on Scotty with its new 600mm super-telephoto prime lens.

Compared with Sony’s FE 600mm f/4 lens, the new FE 600mm f/6.3 is only about half as big and less than a third of the weight. That’s a major achievement, considering that the older lens was renowned for being ‘the lightest in its class’. Yet the new one is a whole 2kg lighter, weighing in at just 995g / 2.19lb, making it ‘the lightest of its type in the world’.

Another plus side is that the new lens is certainly no lightweight in terms of its aspirations to top-end performance, aiming to be one of the best Sony telephoto lenses, best lenses for sports, best lenses for bird photography and wildlife, and best lenses for safari. And just wait until you see what they’ve done with the price. It’s only a fraction of the cost of its 600mm f/4 sibling.

Sony FE 600mm f/6.3 GM OSS: Specifications

Sony FE 600mm f/6.3 GM OSS: Price

What is the price of a top-class 600mm prime lens? We’re talking ‘family car’ money here, with the Sony FE 600mm f/4 GM OSS costing a monstrous $14,099 / £11,999. That puts it well beyond the reach of most of us. It’s remarkable that this new 600mm f/6.3 lens is only 1.33 f/stops slower but massively more affordable, costing a ‘mere’ $3,699 / £3,299 / CA$4999. That’s only about a quarter of the asking price.

But before we get too carried away, consider that the very capable Sony FE 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 G OSS matches the new prime for aperture rating at the long end of its zoom range, while also adding the flexibility and versatility of a zoom lens, for a relatively ‘cheap’ $2,099 / £1,599. That said, the zoom lens lacks G Master credentials. Getting back to prime time, there’s the Sigma 500mm f/5.6 DG DN OS Sports in both Sony E and L-mount options, which also undercuts the FE 600mm at $2,999 / £2,779, while having a faster aperture rating and nearly as much telephoto reach.

Then there’s Sony’s own new Sony FE 400mm f/4.5 GM OSS, which looks and feels almost identical to the 600mm lens, again has some seriously strong telephoto reach and a faster f/4.5 aperture. This lens is significantly less expensive to buy at $2699 / £2,399 /CA$3579. Overall, you might feel that the FE 600mm f/6.3 is a bargain, or not, depending on which way you look at it. Let’s see what you actually get for your money.

Sony FE 600mm f/6.3 GM OSS: Design & Handling

Life can be a strain with a lens like the overarching (overwhelming?) Sony FE 600mm f/4 GM OSS. It’s big and burdensome, with vital statistics of 164x449mm / 6.5x17.7in. That’s almost half a yard long and it tips the scales at a back-bending 3,040g / 6.7lb. Handheld shooting for any length of time is pretty impractical. With the new lightweight FE 600mm f/6.3 long periods of handheld shooting turn from being a non-starter into a no-brainer.

The new contender is much shorter and slimmer, at just 108x265mm / 4.3x10.4in, and weighs a mere 995g / 2.19lb. That’s less than the weight of some 24-70mm standard zoom lenses that I’ve owned in the past, and more than 2kg / 4.4lb lighter than the FE 600mm f/4. Indeed, the new lens is less than a third of the weight of its chunky sibling. The relatively skinny design also enables the inclusion of a regular 95mm front filter attachment, instead of the need for a rear drop-in filter holder.

As I’d hope for in any lens that’s geared to action, sports and wildlife photography, this one is extensively weather-sealed and has a fluorine coating on its front element. Beneath the skin, there are dual XD (eXtreme Dynamic) linear motors that power the fully internal focusing mechanism, just like in Sony’s top-dollar 600mm prime. Autofocus speed and tracking is designed to keep pace with 120fps shooting and 240p video capture. And if you still feel the need to focus manually, there’s a switchable full-time DMF (Direct Manual Focus) mode.

Just in front of the focus ring there’s another control ring, again also featured in Sony’s recent top-flight telephoto primes. The secondary customizable ‘function ring’ can be assigned to various functions but one of my favorites is ‘Power Focus’. It’s great for ensuring smooth manual focus transitions when shooting video, thanks to its motorized nature.

The middle section along the length of the lens barrel is colored black and plays host to the main shooting controls. As well as the focus ring and function ring, there’s a rank of four function buttons. Maintaining the theme, these buttons are customizable but I’d generally use them for AF/L (Autofocus Lock). I like that there’s a full set of four of them, placed at 90-degree intervals around the barrel, so one of them naturally falls under the thumb in any shooting orientation.

It would be unreasonable to expect every single feature that you get on the top-dollar 600mm lens to be replicated here and sure enough, there are no Preset or Beep on/off switches. Oh well, never mind. There are still plenty of positives though, including a bank of five switches for AF/MF focus modes, full-time DMF on/off, an autofocus range limiter, OSS (Optical SteadyShot) on/off and three selectable OSS modes. The stabilization modes in question include both of the regular static and panning modes, plus a third mode that stabilizes the viewfinder image in a way that it that makes it easier to track erratically moving subjects.

Should you feel the need to photograph something in the next county without driving there, the lens is compatible with Sony’s FE teleconverters. The 2.0x version naturally bumps up the focal length to a mammoth 1200mm, but with the usual catch of a 2 f/stop narrowing of the aperture, which shrinks to a disappointingly small f/13. The 1.4x teleconverter will likely prove more practical, equating to an 840mm focal length with a widest available aperture of f/9.

To gain extra telephoto reach, it’s also perfectly viable to switch to APS-C crop mode, especially with one of Sony’s ultra-high-res full-frame cameras, which would still give you a healthy megapixel count. And given the relative lightweight build of the lens, you could even mount it on an APS-C format Sony camera body. In both of these cases, you’d get an ‘effective’ 900mm focal length without the aperture reduction of using a teleconverter.

Long telephoto lenses can be particularly susceptible to ghosting and flare, which can degrade image quality. This one offers two-fold resistance with Nano AR Coating II, along with a very effective hood. First up, the high-tech, nano-structured coating is designed specifically for lens elements that have a large diameter or are strongly curved. The hood has a circular profile and is sufficiently long to do an efficient job, as well as being well made and featuring a lock/release button.

Building on its lightweight design, the combination of optical and in-camera stabilization makes handheld shooting entirely viable, but a tripod or monopod can still come in handy to keep things steady. True to type, the lens features a tripod mounting ring that ensures an equally good balance for both landscape and portrait orientation shooting. It also enables quick and easy swapping to any desired orientation, having a simple locking knob and smooth action.

As with a fair few other telephoto lenses, the tripod ring isn’t completely removable and only the foot can be detached. The foot itself features both standard sizes of 1/4in and 3/8in mounting threads. With the foot removed, there’s only a very small stub that protrudes from the lens. It doesn’t really add to the size of the lens and doesn’t impair handheld shooting.

The mounting plate of the relatively huge and heavyweight FE 600 f/4 features additional fixing screws to enhance strength and rigidity. That’s unnecessary for this relatively lightweight lens, so it has Sony’s more regular mounting plate which still includes a weather-seal gasket.

Despite its downsized design and build, the lens takes up most of the length (height?) of my camera backpack, leaving relatively limited space for all my other paraphernalia. I’m pleased therefore that Sony includes a nicely tailored and stylish looking bag with the lens.

Sony FE 600mm f/6.3 GM OSS: Performance

Throughout my time testing the FE 600mm, I paired it with a Sony A7R V camera body. This camera places big demands on the resolving power and autofocus speed of lenses, with its 61MP image sensor and tenacious AI-powered autofocus system. The lens definitely proved up to the task. I spent some time shooting lakeside birds that were very skittish and moved very erratically, but the lens took full advantage of the A7R V’s advanced recognition and tracking abilities. Autofocus speed proved a match for birds that were rapidly moving their heads around, or darting along the banks.

As a performance factor, I couldn’t help but be impressed by the lens’s generous super-telephoto reach. It covers a whole lot of distance for action, sports and wildlife photography, especially when you’re limited to a spectator’s area or a birding/wildlife hide. That oversized reach can make all the difference between getting the shot and missing it. As a case in point, I was shooting at a heritage railway site, and was able to get the shot below from a long way down the tracks. It would have taken quite a few minutes to walk up the line for a closer shot with a lens that had less telephoto reach, during which time the photo opportunity would have passed.

In terms of sharpness, the lens is able to do justice to Sony’s highest-resolution cameras like the A7R V, with their abundance of megapixels. It can capture plenty of fine detail and texture, along with superb clarity and contrast, although the simultaneously launched FE 400mm f/4.5 proved a little sharper in our lab tests. True to its claims, resistance to ghosting and flare is very good. And although the aperture rating of f/6.3 certainly isn’t ‘fast’, its combination with a 600mm focal length enables a tight depth of field, along with pleasantly smooth bokeh.

The lens also exhibits very good control over unwanted aberrations, with color fringing and distortion being of a very low order. Again, our lab test results weren’t quite as excellent as from the FE 400mm f/4.5, but were very impressive nonetheless. The image below serves as a graphic demonstration, the regular geometric shapes and high-contrast transitions of the window and door frames revealing minimal distortion and fringing.

Sony FE 600mm f/6.3 GM OSS: Sample Images

When taking the sample shots for the following gallery, I started off at the East Somerset Railway in the South West of England. It’s a delightful historic railway that’s run as a charity by a friendly bunch of volunteers, and is well worth a visit. Next, I moved on to the Chew Valley Lake, also in Somerset, to test the lenses by shooting some lakeside birds. Finally, I took them on a stroll around the picturesque town of Stockbridge in Hampshire. I took all of the sample shots at the widest available aperture of f/6.3, which is the sternest test of the lens but often needed to enable sufficiently fast shutter speeds.

Sony FE 600mm f/6.3 GM OSS: Lab Results

We run a range of lab tests under controlled conditions, using the Imatest Master testing suite. Photos of test charts are taken across the range of apertures and zooms (where available), then analyzed for sharpness, distortion and chromatic aberrations.

We use Imatest SFR (spatial frequency response) charts and analysis software to plot lens resolution at the center of the image frame, corners and mid-point distances, across the range of aperture settings and, with zoom lenses, at four different focal lengths. The tests also measure distortion and color fringing (chromatic aberration).

Sharpness:

Sharpness is very good even when shooting wide-open at f/6.3, and holds up well right out to the edges and corners. That’s an important point to me, as I often tend to want shutter speeds that are as fast as possible to freeze motion when shooting action, sports and wildlife with this type of lens. However, the sibling FE 400mm f/4.5 proved a little sharper in our lab tests, across the whole image frame.

Fringing:

There’s fairly little in the way of color fringing, which will generally go unnoticed in real-world shots, even with automatic in-camera correction disabled. Optically, fringing isn’t quite as minimal as with the FE 400mm f/4.5 lens but in-camera correction completely eliminates it.

Distortion: 0.96

As with color fringing, there’s only minor pincushion distortion. Again, you’ll rarely notice it even with automatic in-camera correction disabled, and if you enable the auto fix, the Sony effectively becomes a zero-distortion lens.

Sony FE 600mm f/6.3 GM OSS: Verdict

The Sony FE 600mm f/6.3 GM OSS has a lot going for it. I love the incredibly compact, lightweight design and build of the lens, making it a painless pleasure even for long periods of handheld shooting. Moreover, the speed and accuracy of the autofocus system coupled with the highly effective optical image stabilization ensure an epic hit rate, where practically every shot is a keeper. Handling is sublime, not only because of the manageable weight but also because of the plethora of buttons and switches for its advanced focusing and stabilization modes. Meanwhile, the weather-sealed build quality is reassuringly robust.

My only caveats are that while the f/6.3 aperture rating certainly isn’t slow for modern super-telephoto lenses, it’s definitely not fast either. It’s merely modest. You can generally enable sufficiently fast shutter speeds for freezing the action in sports and wildlife photography, to which the lens is tailor-made, but often this is at the expense of needing to push your camera’s ISO setting further than you might wish. And while the lens seems epic value for money compared with the top-flight Sony FE 600mm f/4 GM OSS, it looks comparatively expensive up against its sibling Sony FE 400mm f/4.5 GM OSS and the Sigma 500mm f/5.6 DG DN OS Sports, both of which are also relatively compact and lightweight for their type.

Alternatives

Rock up to any major sporting event and you’re likely to see massed ranks of pro photographers with their ‘great white’ super-telephoto lenses. The lenses on parade have several things in common, beyond their white paint jobs that are applied to minimize the build-up of heat when you’re shooting for long periods under a glaring sun. Equally common traits are that these lenses are very big, hugely heavy and massively expensive, sometimes costing as much as most of us would expect to pay for a decent family car.

All of this makes the new Sony FE 400mm an absolute trend-bucker. Pick one up and it just doesn’t seem to make sense. Sure, it’s physically long and finished in white, but this lens is so relatively lightweight that it almost feels like Sony has built some kind of anti-gravity device into the design, or at least stripped out most of the glass. For comparison, the FE 400mm f/2.8 is considerably longer, has about 50 per cent more girth and is almost 2kg heavier at approximately three times the weight. Bearing in mind that the f/2.8 lens is marketed as ‘the lightest in its class’, it goes to show just how much weight loss we’re talking about in the new lens, which is advertised as being ‘the lightest of its type in the world’.

There’s a similar slashing in terms of purchase price, making the new FE 400mm f/4.5 much more affordable as well as being highly desirable. All in all, it aims to be one of the best Sony telephoto lenses, best lenses for sports, best lenses for bird photography and wildlife, and best lenses for safari, while also being outstanding value for money.

Sony FE 400mm f/4.5 GM OSS: Specifications

Sony FE 400mm f/4.5 GM OSS: Price

Feel the need for speed? It’s going to cost you, with the Sony FE 400mm f/2.8 GM OSS selling for an eye-watering $12,999 / £10,490. The new FE 400mm f/4.5 is only 1.33 f/stops slower but still looks and feels a properly pro-grade lens with most of the same handling luxuries. And yet this lens is massively more affordable at just $2,699 / £2,399 / CA$3579, little more than the veteran Sony FE 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 GM OSS zoom at $2,799 / £2,149. Skip the G Master credentials, and there’s also the Sony FE 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 G OSS at a less expensive $2,099 / £1,599.

A tempting alternative prime is the Sigma 500mm f/5.6 DG DN OS Sports, available in L-mount as well as Sony E-mount options, selling for $2,999 / £2,779. The Sigma is also a relatively compact and lightweight option at a very keen selling price, but it’s still nearly 40 per cent heavier than the Sony lens, trading a longer focal length for a slower f/5.6 aperture.

Sony FE 400mm f/4.5 GM OSS: Design & Handling

You need strong arms and a fat wallet for a top-end lens like the Sony FE 400mm f/2.8 GM OSS, which weighs in at 2,895g / 6.38lb and carries a price tag detailed above. Set your sights a little lower and this new f/4.5 lens still boasts a reasonably fast aperture (at least in super-telephoto terms) but in a much more manageable and affordable package. It sneaks in at just under a kilogram, with an official weight of 995g / 2.19lb, making it suitable for even lengthy periods of handheld shooting, rather than relying on a monopod or tripod to take the strain.

And for when size matters, or rather the lack of it, the lens measures 108x265mm / 4.3x10.4in, compared with the much larger dimensions of the f/2.8 lens at 158x359mm 6.2x14.1in. With a girth of only about two-thirds, the f/4.5 lens has a regular 95mm front filter attachment thread, rather than a 40.5mm drop-in filter arrangement near the rear.

The front element shown in the picture above has a fluorine coating to repel moisture and grease, and to aid easy cleaning. Move further back along the extensively weather-sealed barrel and there’s no shortage of handling exotica, which I’ll come to in a moment. Dip inside and you’ll find not one but two XD (eXtreme Dynamic) linear motors that power the fully internal focusing mechanism. Autofocus speed and tracking is designed to cope with 120fps shooting and 240p video capture. The lens shares its top-ranking autofocus system with the much pricier f/2.8 lens, along with switchable full-time DMF (Direct Manual Focus).

Another feature shared with Sony’s top-dollar telephoto primes is an additional, customizable control ring, or ‘function ring’ positioned just in front of the main focus ring. You can assign the secondary ring to various functions but a favorite is Power Focus, which delivers smooth, motorized manual focus transitions when shooting video. One thing that’s featured in the pricier lenses but is lacking in this one is that you don’t get a Preset focus facility with optional confirmation beep.

Moving to the forward end of the black section in the lens barrel, just in front of the focus ring and function ring, there’s a rank of four function buttons. Again, these are customizable but the most popular assignment is AF/L (Autofocus Lock). You can therefore easily lock the focus position and the fact that there are four buttons at 90-degree intervals around the whole barrel means that one of them will naturally fall under the thumb in any shooting orientation.

The further you get into the design of the lens, the more it looks and feels like Sony’s top-end super-telephoto primes, just with a drop in size and radical weight loss. As I’ve mentioned, Preset and Beep switches are absent but you do get a bank of five switches for AF/MF focus modes, full-time DMF on/off, an autofocus range limiter, OSS (Optical SteadyShot) on/off and three selectable OSS modes. These include regular static and panning modes, while Mode 3 delivers adapted stabilization in the viewfinder that makes it easier to acquire and track erratically moving subjects in shooting scenarios like sports, action and wildlife.

If you happen to need even more powerful telephoto reach, the lens is compatible with Sony’s 1.4x and 2.0x teleconverters. The 2.0x version might cramp your style with its 2-stop impact on aperture rating, but the 1.4x will extend your focal length to a mighty 560mm while giving you a still entirely workable aperture rating of f/6.3. Intriguingly, that’s the same as the aperture rating of Sony’s simultaneously launched and extremely similar Sony FE 600mm f/6.3 GM OSS prime, which is physically only marginally longer than this 400mm lens and has a virtually identical weight.

Another viable alternative for gaining extra reach is to switch your Sony full-frame camera body to APS-C crop mode. And with the most high-res ‘R’ models, you’ll still get plenty of megapixels to play with. The lens’s lightweight build also makes it feel relatively at home on one of Sony’s APS-C format camera bodies. Both of these approaches will give you an ‘effective’ 600mm focal length but without the narrowing of aperture from using a teleconverter.

Ghosting and flare can impact the image quality of long telephoto lenses but the Sony has a couple of things in its arsenal to put up a good fight. The first is Nano AR Coating II, which is a high-tech, nano-structured coating designed specifically for lens elements that have a large diameter or are strongly curved. The other is a highly efficient hood, which is very well made and features a release button so that it stays locked in place until you want to remove it.

Even with the combination of optical and in-camera stabilization, a tripod or monopod can help to keep everything steady, as well as bearing the (albeit lightened) load. As I’d expect, the lens comes complete with a tripod mounting ring, that ensures an equally good balance for both landscape and portrait orientation shooting, as well as easy swapping between the two. A simple locking knob enables smooth and easy rotation, and firmly fixes the lens at any position.

Unlike with many lenses that feature tripod mounting rings, the collar is not completely removable. Instead, only the foot detaches, as shown in the image below. The foot itself has both sizes of standard 1/4in and 3/8in mounting threads and once removed, there’s only a small stub that remains. Unlike the stub featured in some other lenses of its type, this one takes up very little additional space and doesn’t impinge on handheld shooting.

The hefty FE 400 f/2.8 has additional attachment screws in its mounting plate, to ensure sufficient strength, rigidity and durability. Those aren’t necessary in this lens, because it’s so much more lightweight. Even so, the metal mounting plate is very durable and features a weather-seal gasket and gold-plated electronic contacts.

The lens is very slim for its type but still necessarily quite long. I’m glad that Sony has seen fit to include a high-quality carrying bag as part of the package. And as a further bonus, the carrying bag has a smart, space-saving design.

Sony FE 400mm f/4.5 GM OSS: Performance

I tested the FE 400mm with a Sony A7R V camera body, which puts great demands on the autofocus speed and resolving power of any lens, with its revamped AI-powered autofocus system and 61MP image sensor. I found that when shooting lakeside birds that were darting around and moving their heads quickly and erratically, the lens was able to take full advantage of the A7R V’s advanced recognition and tracking abilities, with sufficient speed to ensure a really high hit rate of sharply focused images.

The focal length itself is a serious performance factor in that it gives sufficient telephoto reach to cover an awful lot of distance. Naturally, it’s a major bonus when shooting action sports, where you’re confined to a spectator’s area or (if you’re really fortunate) a designated photographer’s spot. It’s equally advantageous for shooting birds and wildlife, where you can’t physically get as close as you might like without invading their personal space, scaring them away, or being attacked by some of the more ferocious examples. As well as shooting birds with the lens, I used it at a heritage railway site, and was pleased that I was able to get the shot below from a long way down the line.

Moving onto resolving power, I was again impressed that the lens is able to capture immensely fine detail and texture. There’s also excellent clarity and contrast, with powerful resistance against ghosting and flare. Color rendition is very natural and the lens is capable of a tight depth of field, along with a smooth and dreamy quality of bokeh. Suffice it to say that all of the essential ‘image quality’ boxes are well and truly ticked.

Unwanted aberrations are kept to negligible levels, with very good control over distortion and color fringing. These attributes are demonstrated in the image below, which shows a lack of distortion and no visible color fringing around the high-contrast transitions of the window and door frames.

Sony FE 400mm f/4.5 GM OSS: Sample Images

When taking the sample shots for the following gallery, I started off at the East Somerset Railway in the South West of England. It’s a delightful historic railway that’s run as a charity by a friendly bunch of volunteers, and is well worth a visit. Next, I moved on to the Chew Valley Lake, also in Somerset, to test the lenses by shooting some lakeside birds. Finally, I took them on a stroll around the picturesque town of Stockbridge in Hampshire. I took all of the sample shots at the widest available aperture of f/6.3, which is the sternest test of the lens but often needed to enable sufficiently fast shutter speeds.

Sony FE 400mm f/4.5 GM OSS: Lab Results

We run a range of lab tests under controlled conditions, using the Imatest Master testing suite. Photos of test charts are taken across the range of apertures and zooms (where available), then analyzed for sharpness, distortion and chromatic aberrations.

We use Imatest SFR (spatial frequency response) charts and analysis software to plot lens resolution at the center of the image frame, corners and mid-point distances, across the range of aperture settings and, with zoom lenses, at four different focal lengths. The tests also measure distortion and color fringing (chromatic aberration).

Sharpness:

You’ll often need fast shutter speeds to freeze action in sports and wildlife photography with this type of lens, so I feel that wide-open sharpness is an important performance factor. The Sony really delivers, with stellar sharpness even at its widest aperture, not just at the center of the frame but right out to the edges and corners.

Fringing:

Color fringing is entirely negligible, again not just at the center of the frame but deep into the corners. Performance is excellent in this respect, throughout the entire aperture range.

Distortion: 0.67

Technically, there’s just a hint of pincushion distortion but it’s of a very low order and will generally go unnoticed in ‘real-world’ shooting. And that’s without any input from automatic in-camera correction.

Sony FE 400mm f/4.5 GM OSS: Verdict

The Sony FE 400mm f/4.5 GM OSS is a dream come true as far as I’m concerned. Some photographers say that if you can’t shoot at 200mm, you’re just not close enough. I’m not one of them. I love shooting action, sports, wildlife, birds, aircraft and plenty of other subjects where it’s simply not possible to get as close as I might like to. I love that this Sony lens really covers the distance, without weighing me down. It’s very compact for its type and I can comfortably shoot handheld for long periods of time without feeling any strain.

The pricing of the lens also makes it massively more affordable than most top-flight super-telephoto primes. Couple that with epic performance in terms of super-fast and consistently accurate autofocus, along with stellar sharpness, clarity and color rendition, and you have a real winner of a lens. The quality of bokeh is very appealing as well, and the lens keeps all unwanted aberrations to an absolute minimum. I feel that Sony has pulled off something a masterstroke with this lens. It’s absolutely fabulous.

Alternatives

This versatile RF telephoto lens is an incredibly compact, high-quality all-rounder, and now, thanks to this unbeatable Amazon deal, it’s even harder to resist.

This top-rated Canon RF 70-200mm f/4 L IS USM is now just £1,499 at London Camera Exchange. With this offer, you save £270 off its regular price of £1,769.

So, if you've been waiting for the perfect moment to get Canon's smallest full-frame telephoto lens, that moment is now.

The Canon RF 70-200mm f/4 L IS USM is the shortest (FF) 70-200mm ever – and yes, it's as compact as it sounds – it's only barely bigger than a beer can. This lens redefines portability, fitting comfortably in a sling bag, even when mounted on your camera.

Perfect for portraits, sports, wildlife, events, and even landscapes, it's an all-around telephoto that can easily become your go-to workhorse lens.

Whether you're just getting ready or investing in something that will serve you for years, this lens delivers great value thanks to its versatility, sharpness, and built-in image stabilization (up to 7.5 stops!).

The center sharpness remains superb across the entire zoom range, from 70mm to 200mm. The corner sharpness is good, but not as crisp as the EF version.

While this lens doesn't support teleconverters, the reach you get will cover most subjects in a quality way, and with Canon's advanced stabilization, it's equally strong for stills and video.

It comes at a premium price – often around 50% more than its DSLR counterpart. So, if you're looking for a single telephoto lens that does (almost) everything and travels light, this one absolutely earns its spot in your kit.

If you've been considering Canon's smallest full-frame telephoto lens, this is your chance to get it at a solid discount.

If you are a Canon shooter or want to become one, check our guide to the best Canon cameras, along with the best Canon telephoto lenses and best Canon superzoom lenses.

Sigma’s long-awaited 85mm f/1.2 DG Art is now available to preorder. For portrait photographers looking for a seriously fast prime, this could be one of the most exciting lenses Sigma has released in years.

In the US, the new 85mm f/1.2 can be preordered from B&H and Adorama for $1,599, while UK photographers can order from Wex Photo Video, London Camera Exchange, and Park Cameras for £1,299.

The lens will be available in both Sony E-mount and L-Mount versions, with Sigma officially listing September 30, 2026 as its launch date.

An 85mm lens has always been something of a sweet spot for portrait photography, but combining that classic focal length with an f/1.2 maximum aperture takes things to another level. That exceptionally wide aperture allows photographers to create an incredibly shallow depth of field and really separate a subject from the background, while also giving the lens serious low-light capabilities.

Sigma has paired this with a 13-blade rounded diaphragm, which is designed to maintain smooth, near-circular bokeh even as the lens is stopped down. For portraits, weddings and fashion photography in particular, that combination has the potential to deliver exactly the kind of three-dimensional rendering photographers want from a premium 85mm prime.

Of course, an f/1.2 aperture means very little if a lens cannot deliver the optical quality to make the most of it, and this is where Sigma’s Art series pedigree becomes important. The 85mm f/1.2 DG Art uses 17 elements arranged in 12 groups, including two SLD elements alongside high anomalous-dispersion glass and aspherical elements.

Sigma says this design has been developed to suppress axial chromatic aberration, spherical aberration, and sagittal coma flare, with the aim of maintaining impressive resolving power even when the lens is being used wide open at f/1.2. That is particularly important with today’s high-resolution full-frame cameras, where any optical weaknesses can quickly become obvious.

Perhaps one of the most impressive things about the new Sigma, however, is that the company has somehow managed to stop an 85mm f/1.2 from becoming an absolute monster. The lens weighs 905g and measures approximately 119.7mm long in its L-Mount version, with Sigma claiming it is the smallest and lightest autofocus 85mm f/1.2 lens in its class for full-frame mirrorless cameras as of September 2026.

It is certainly not what I would call a lightweight everyday prime, but considering the amount of glass and that enormous maximum aperture, Sigma has clearly put some serious work into making this lens practical enough for weddings, portraits and location work rather than restricting it to the studio.

Autofocus should also make the 85mm f/1.2 considerably easier to live with than some ultra-fast portrait lenses. Sigma has equipped it with a dual HLA, or High-response Linear Actuator, focusing system designed to provide fast, quiet, and accurate AF for both stills and video.

That becomes especially important at f/1.2, where depth of field can be razor thin and even a small focusing error can mean the difference between perfectly sharp eyes and a missed shot. Video shooters have not been forgotten either, with Sigma specifically designing the lens to suppress focus breathing, alongside an aperture ring, aperture-ring lock, click/de-click switch, and two customizable AFL buttons.

Sample images

At $1,599 / £1,299, the Sigma 85mm f/1.2 DG Art is unquestionably a premium lens, but it also feels like an impressive amount of glass for the money when you consider exactly what Sigma is offering. You are getting that enormous f/1.2 aperture, a professional Art-series optical design, sophisticated autofocus, weather-resistant construction, and a surprisingly manageable body.

More importantly, this finally completes Sigma’s current f/1.2 Art prime lineup alongside the 35mm f/1.2 DG II Art and 50mm f/1.2 DG DN Art. For Sony and L-Mount photographers who want the ultimate combination of subject separation, low-light performance, and classic 85mm portrait rendering, this looks like a lens that could be very difficult to resist.

As a portrait photographer, I tend to avoid ultra-wide lenses like I avoid crowds in flu season. But when Sony introduced the first native E-mount fisheye, I felt strangely inspired to combine my favorite photography genre – portraits – with the wild world of a lens that can see in 180°.

The Sony FE 8-14mm f/3.5 Fisheye G captures an unusually wide 180° view, creating the classic circular "fisheye lens look" at 8mm but filling the frame and still getting that classic fisheye distortion at 14mm.

Portraits are perhaps an unusual genre – though certainly not unheard of – for a fisheye. But, inspired by the wacky perspective, I wanted to shoot in an equally wild location.

Grabbing the new 8-14mm f/3.5 Fisheye G and the Sony A7 V, I drove to the most colorful location I could think of and headed to a brightly-colored mural painted across a set of silos.

The mural, Shine Bright Saginaw, is actually the second-largest in the US, painted by Okuda San Miguel along with a team of local artists.

I was drawn to the location by both its size and wild colors – after all, why shoot with a 180° lens without an oversized scene?

Fisheye lenses embrace the barrel distortion of an ultra-wide view, rather than trying to correct that “imperfection.” Straight lines warp into a curve and, when angled just right, the lens creates almost what looks like the reverse of a 360 camera’s “tiny planet” effect.

Along with embracing barrel distortion, the 180° view succumbs to a lot of perspective distortion – but when used appropriately, that distortion can create kooky images that feel more fun than warped.

Anything up close to the lens will look far larger than anything even just slightly farther away. The 8-14mm f/3.5 Fisheye G can shoot as close as 150mm / 5.91 inches, so there’s plenty of room for exaggerating that fisheye look by getting in close.

Fitting a 180° view into one frame is a challenge in that there’s very little ability to crop any distractions out of the scene.

I had to be careful posing and angling the camera to embrace the distortion where I wanted but not where I didn’t. I also had to be careful not to get my own feet in the frame, as 8mm is so wide that even the lens hood will show in the shot.

Aside from resisting the itch to clone out background litter, I didn’t even feel like I had to edit the photos – the images here are all JPEGs. (The header image has a black border added, as a 16:9 will crop into the circle – something for videographers to take note of.)

I’m a portrait photographer whose 50mm – which has a 75mm equivalent look on my APS-C camera – rarely ever leaves my mirrorless body. But shooting with Sony’s first E-mount fisheye was a lot more fun than I expected.

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For more distorted ultra-wide inspiration, browse the best fisheye lenses.

There's plenty of Leica glass that could reasonably fight for the title of "best Leica M lens", but after spending serious time with the Leica Summilux-M 35mm f/1.4 Asph I think this might just be the one.

Leica has faster lenses, more technically ambitious Apo (apochromatically corrected) glass and, of course, some legendary 50mm options. But very few combine character, practicality, speed and versatility quite like this 35mm Summilux.

This latest version takes a focal length that has always been synonymous with reportage photography and gives it one crucial modern advantage: the ability to focus all the way down to 0.4m.

That is something I probably would not have appreciated as much a few years ago because I was, for the longest time, a dedicated 50mm shooter. I loved the slightly tighter perspective; the way a 50mm forces you to think about framing and the separation it can give a subject without feeling overly compressed.

If I was leaving the house with one lens, chances are it was a 50mm. However, picking up the 35mm Summilux-M f/1.4 Asph changed my thinking surprisingly quickly.

There is something incredibly natural about 35mm. It is wide enough to tell you where somebody is, yet still tight enough to isolate a subject when you need to. For documentary photography, travel, street work and everyday life, I have come to realize just how difficult it is to beat.

The real game changer with this version, however, is close focus. Leica extended the minimum focusing distance from the traditional 0.7m rangefinder limit to 0.4m, with the closest range accessed using Live View, the Visoflex or an electronic finder rather than the optical rangefinder.

That might sound like a relatively small specification change, but in practice it completely changes how versatile this lens feels.

Suddenly you can photograph the wider scene, move closer for a portrait and then get right into the smaller details without changing lenses. Food, hands, objects on a table, textures, signs and all those little moments that help tell a documentary story become much easier to capture.

Optically, it is equally difficult to fault. In my original review, I described it as probably the sharpest 35mm lens Leica has produced, but what I like most is that it does not feel like a lens designed purely around test charts. Wide open at f/1.4 it has atmosphere and depth, with that slightly softer, more characterful rendering that makes Leica glass so appealing.

Stop it down and the personality changes, becoming wonderfully crisp and controlled for documentary work, landscapes, architecture and travel.

Leica has also moved to an 11-blade diaphragm with this generation, helping produce smoother out-of-focus rendering, while the optical construction uses nine elements in five groups and a floating element design to maintain performance at closer distances.

Sample images

Perhaps more importantly, none of that comes at the expense of what makes an M lens appealing in the first place. The Summilux-M 35mm f/1.4 Asph remains compact, beautifully balanced and small enough that leaving it permanently attached to an M body feels completely realistic.

At around 46mm long and 338g, it gives you an f/1.4 aperture and that extended close-focusing ability without turning your rangefinder into something that suddenly feels front-heavy or cumbersome.

The integrated hood also reduces viewfinder obstruction compared with some of Leica’s older, larger hood designs, something I found genuinely useful when working quickly through the optical finder.

And that, ultimately, is why I think the Leica Summilux-M 35mm f/1.4 Asph might quite possibly be the best Leica lens on the market right now. Not because it wins every specification battle, but because it is one of those rare lenses that removes the need to think about what else might be in your bag.

I spent years believing 50mm was the focal length I would always come back to, yet this 35mm Summilux has made me question that completely.

It gives me enough width for documentary storytelling, enough subject separation at f/1.4 for portraits, enough optical quality for serious professional work and now enough close-focus capability to capture the small details as well. If I had to put one lens on a Leica M and leave it there permanently, this would probably be it.

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