Laowa’s Upcoming Fisheye Zoom Lens

credits: Laowa

Laowa’s new 4.5–10mm f/2.8 fisheye zoom made its first public appearance at the Beijing P&E Imaging Fair, and it is a pretty unusual lens. Ultra-wide fisheye zooms are already a niche category, but this one goes even further with a very wide focal range combined with a relatively bright constant f/2.8 aperture.

The lens covers a focal range of 4.5mm to 10mm and delivers a field of view ranging from 180 degrees at 4.5mm down to 175 degrees at 10mm. Optically, it uses a 13-element, 9-group design with an image circle diameter of 29mm. The lens is fully manual focus and includes a 77-degree focus ring throw, along with 75 degrees of zoom rotation and 42 degrees of aperture ring travel. Minimum focusing distance is pretty close at 10cm, allowing for exaggerated foreground perspective and close-up fisheye compositions. Maximum magnification reaches 0.27x.

Physically, the lens stays relatively compact, it measures 68.9mm × 59.3mm and weighs around 330 grams. The lens uses a 7-blade aperture diaphragm and offers an aperture range from f/2.8 to f/22. Laowa will release the lens for a wide range of mirrorless systems, including Sony E, Fujifilm X, Nikon Z, Canon RF, Canon EF-M, L-Mount, and Micro Four Thirds. Right now though, we only know that the CF 4.5-10mm F2.8 is coming, there is still no exact release date or official pricing (sources say it will probably come in around $400).