Venus Optics has announced three new ultra-wide Laowa cine lenses for the Canon RF mount. Designed for use on the Canon EOS R5 & EOS R6, the RED Komodo and the new Canon C70 cinema camera, the three new RF mount cine lenses offer extremely wide-angle views (even for Super 35) with focal lengths of 9mm, 12mm and 15mm. All three lenses are part of Laowa’s close-to-zero Distortion (Zero-D) lens lineup. Designed specifically for cinema, those lenses are the 9mm T2.9 Zero-D, the 12mm T2.9 Zero-D and the 15mm T2.1 Zero-D.
Each of the three lenses offers an ultra-wide field of view with the 9mm offering about a 113° field of view on Super 35 and the 15mm T2.1 and 12mm T2.9 lenses offering 110° and 122° field of view respectively with full-frame sensors. And all three have a pretty quick aperture, well suited to shooting in lower light conditions while still offering reasonable depth of field control.
As with all of Laowa’s Zero-D lenses, the three lenses announced today feature Laowa’s close-to-zero distortion design. This means that at the infinity focus distance, the optical distortion has been minimised as much as possible to help keep straight edges straight – exactly the kind of thing you need for shooting architecture and interiors (both common subjects in film for establishing shots and other scenes). All three lenses, but particularly the 9mm are also quite compact, with weights of 247g, 540g and 675g for the 9mm, 15mm and 12mm lenses respectively. This makes them fantastic for flying on gimbals where both weight and balance are a big concern. When it comes to prices, the 9mm T2.9 is $599, the 12mm T2.9 is $1,499 and the 15mm T2.1 is $1,499. All three are available to buy now and are shipping. You can find out more about all three on the Venus Optics website.
