Venus Optics has announced an updated version of its Laowa 7.5mm F2 Micro Four Thirds (MFT) lens that has electronic aperture control and an onboard chip for transferring metadata from the lens to the camera.
The new lens features the same optical construction as its fully-manual predecessor (13 elements in nine groups), but adds an electronically-controlled aperture at the cost of reducing the number of aperture blades to five (there are seven in the manual version).
As for dimensions, the lens comes in at 3mm (.12”) larger in diameter and 7mm shorter (.28”) than the manual version. Also, despite adding the electronic aperture control and onboard CPU chip, Venus Optics managed to reduce the lens’ weight to 150g (5.3oz), down from the 170g (6oz) weight of the manual version.
Below is a video review of the lens from YouTube channel RED35:
The Laowa 7.5mm F2 lens with electronic aperture control is available to order on Venus Optics’ website for $549. You can view a gallery of full-sized sample images on Venus Optics’ Flickr album.
Author:
Gannon Burgett
Source: Dpreview