The new Laowa cine lenses include 6mm, 10mm, 17mm and 50mm macro manual focus primes
(Image credit: Laowa)
Laowa’s launch of four new Micro Four Thirds cine lenses shows what faith it has in the MFT format for filmmakers, and quite right too! They have all the features of regular cine lenses – T-stop iris settings, geared focus and iris rings – and at extremely competitive prices.
The Laowa 6mm T2.1 Zero-D MFT Cine, Laowa 10mm T2.1 Zero-D MFT Cine and Laowa 17mm T1.9 MFT Cine are ultra-wide to moderate-wide primes, while the Laowa 50mm T2.9 Macro APO MFT Cine offers 2x macro magnification but can also focus to infinity.
We’ve already published a full review of the Laowa 6mm T2.1 Zero-D MFT Cine and found it a pretty spectacular ultra-wide lens with almost no aberrations at regular apertures and good performance wide open too.
It’s the widest rectilinear lens available for the MFT format and offers a huge 121.9 degree angle of view, a minimum focus distance of 0.09m and weighs only 180g. Best of all, this lens will be sold for just $699 (about £522/AU$961).
This lens corresponded to a 20mm angle of view in full frame terms, so it’s still very wide but less extreme than the 6mm lens. This is also a Zero-D lens, so we’re anticipating extremely good aberration control from its optical make up, which consists of 11 elements in 7 groups, including two ED and two aspherical elements.
The Laowa 10mm T2.1 Zero-D MFT Cine weighs even less than the 10mm version, at 150g, and will cost $549 (about £410/AU$755).
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This lens corresponds to a 35mm angle of view in full frame terms, so it offers a useful sem-wide angle of view for all kinds of video work. It doesn’t carry the Zero-D tag, but that’s normally reserved for Laowa’s ultra-wide lenses.
It has a minimum focus distance of 0.15m, weighs 175g and will cost $399 (about £298/AU$549), which makes it the cheapest of Laowa’s new cine lenses by some margin.
Lastly, the Laowa 50mm T2.9 Macro APO MFT Cine offers 2x macro magnification, according to Laowa, but will also focus to infinity, so it can double as a short telephoto lens (100mm equivalent) for close-ups, interviews or talking head shots.
This lens has an APO (apochromatic) design to control color fringing and improve sharpness and clarity. Its focal length and magnification make it bigger than the other new Laowa cine lenses, but it’s still pretty light at 289g and will cost $549 (about £410/AU$755).
Laowa MFT Cine Prime 3-Lens [Wide + Macro] bundle
All four lenses will be sold individually, but they can also be bought in two three-lens bundles. The Wide + Macro bundle costs $1,350 (about £1,008/AU$1,859) and includes:
● Laowa 10mm T2.1 Zero-D MFT Cine
● Laowa 17mm T1.9 MFT Cine
● Laowa 50mm T2.9 2x Ultra Macro APO
Laowa MFT Cine Prime 3-Lens Wide Bundle
The Wide bundle swaps the 50mm macro lens for an older existing wide lens (not the 6mm). It will cost USD1,450 (about £1,082/AU$1,995) and includes:
● Laowa 7.5mm T2.1 MFT Cine
● Laowa 10mm T2.1 Zero-D MFT Cine
● Laowa 17mm T1.9 MFT Cine
Rod is an independent photography journalist and editor, and a long-standing Digital Camera World contributor, having previously worked as DCW's Group Reviews editor. Before that he has been technique editor on N-Photo, Head of Testing for the photography division and Camera Channel editor on TechRadar, as well as contributing to many other publications. He has been writing about photography technique, photo editing and digital cameras since they first appeared, and before that began his career writing about film photography. He has used and reviewed practically every interchangeable lens camera launched in the past 20 years, from entry-level DSLRs to medium format cameras, together with lenses, tripods, gimbals, light meters, camera bags and more. Rod has his own camera gear blog at fotovolo.com but also writes about photo-editing applications and techniques at lifeafterphotoshop.com
