Lens News

Olympus took the wraps off a new version of its OM-D E-M1 mirrorless, compact system camera at photokina this morning and this Micro Four Thirds-based model now features a new silver look and is loaded with updated firmware designed to help studio photographers. Olympus also debuted the new M.ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 40-150mm f2.8 PRO lens at the show.

Sigma got into the photokina spirit this morning with three product announcements ahead of next week’s show in Germany.. For starters, the company unveiled not one but two new long-zooming 150-600mm lenses.

Zeiss has introduced the second lens in its coveted Otus family: an 85mm F/1.4 lens known as the Apo Planar 1.4/85. Designed for portrait photography or any imaging job that requires extreme sharpness and the ultimate in resolving power, the Otus Apo Planar 1.4/85 is comprised of 11 elements in nine groups and comes in both ZE (EF bayonet mount for Canon) and ZF.2 (F bayonet mount for Nikon) versions.

Maybe it’s just August but there seems to be a lot of weird lens news lately. Now a very rare and very large, Nikon 6mm F/2.8 Fisheye Lens has turned up on eBay with an asking price of $96,187.50.

An extremely rare, Canon EF 1200mm f/5.6 L USM super telephoto lens has gone on sale at a UK retailer for £99,000 ($165,270). The lens is one of the largest interchangeable lenses in the world and the longest with autofocus.

Micro Four Thirds mirrorless camera systems promised us lenses that are more compact but fully featured. That promise has finally been fulfilled—and it took Tamron, the master of the All-in-One Zoom, to make it happen.

Starting with the 2014 CES trade show, held at the turn of the year, and continuing through press time for this issue, we’ve seen a goodly number of new products come to the fore. All this is only the start—this being a photokina year we’ll see a whole new round of products, including CMOS-sensor medium formats, with prices to match, coming our way. I trust that this report will give you a good sense of what’s here and what’s coming down the pike. So, here are my quick picks of those products that caught my eye, plus a snapshot of some of the trends.