Laowa has shown off two brand-new and not yet officially announced wide-angle lenses at an event in China, coming to Sony E, Fuji X, Nikon Z, Canon RF and Canon EF-M mounts.
Quietly unveiled at the Photo & Imaging Shanghai show, thanks to social media users on the Chinese platform Weibo, we have the first pictures and details.
The first new lens will be a super wide-angle Laowa CF 8-16mm f/3.5-5.0 C-Dreamer – although it is designed for use on APS-C cameras, so will have an ever so slightly narrower full frame equivalent of 12-24mm.
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Other specifications listed for the lens include a construction made up of 16 elements in 12 groups, and a minimum shooting distance of 0.2 meters. The lens will also have a curiously low 5-blade aperture, which is less than much of the competition – although, for a budget super wide-angle lens with not the widest of apertures, this isn't too surprising.
Laowa has always had a good build quality to its lenses despite their usually low pricing, and it sounds like this lens will be no different with a full-metal body that weighs 463g and measures a pretty square 88.3 x 88.54 mm.
The lens will be manual focus only and available for Sony E-Mount, Fujifilm X, and Nikon Z, and slightly surprisingly will become one of the few third-party lenses for Canon's locked down R mount and aging Canon EF-M mount.
The second lens teased by Laowa is a new 15mm f/5.0 Cookie pancake lens. Not much is currently known, with the full specification sheet not being broken down for this one yet.
From the first images of the lens, however, it looks like it will follow suit with other Laowa glass, with hallmarks including manual focus, metal body and a manual aperture ring. We'd also hazard a guess at it being likely available for the same mounts as the 8-16mm mentioned above.
Chinese manufacturers are making some of the most interesting and compelling lenses recently that are giving first-party lenses a real challenge – and we can't wait to get our hands on these latest from Laowa and put them through their paces.
Check out our review of the last Cookie lens, the Laowa-10mm f/4 Cookie. For more affordable, Laowa-like optics, take a look at the best cheap lenses.
