12 lenses of Christmas: Recapping the top-class glass of 2024, from 3D VR lenses to 1200mm telephotos!

Let’s have a good time the festive season with a glance again over all of the glass of the final 12 months. For every of the 12 days of Christmas, we’ll be giving a nostalgic nod to a month’s price of lenses that we wrote about, examined and reviewed. So, with out additional ado, right here’s what made a splash in January 2024…

Beating a path by means of the snow to our information desk, the Laowa FF II 10mm f/2.8 C&D Dreamer was the primary lens of the 12 months to get a point out.

An extremely ultra-wide-angle prime for full-frame mirrorless cameras, it was additionally the primary ever Venus Optics Laowa lens to function autofocus – not less than, in its Nikon Z and Sony E mount choices. The lens was additionally introduced in a manual-focus model for Canon RF and L-mount cameras.

Subsequent up was fledgling firm Thypoch, which launched its second lens for the Leica M mount. Following on from the beforehand launched 35mm f/1.4 of a few months earlier, the Simera 28mm f/1.4 Asph began delivery.

A Canon patent utility hinted that APS-C format RF-S 20-120mm f/4 and RF-S 18-100mm f/4 might be coming quickly, whereas at CES, we noticed Canon pushing on with twin fisheye idea lenses aimed toward VR content material creation.

Voigtländer served up a brand new pancake lens designed completely for Fujifilm X-mount cameras. Lower than an inch thick, the Voigtländer Coloration-Skopar 18mm f/2.8 Aspherical has an efficient focal size of 28mm in actual phrases and, regardless of being ultra-compact, nonetheless options an aperture management ring.

Whereas Voigtländer was going super-skinny, Astrhori was going extra-large on macro magnification, saying a brand new Astrhori 25mm F2.8 2-5X Extremely Macro lens with as much as 5x macro magnification.

Somewhat than saying any new lenses as such, Fujifilm revealed forthcoming firmware updates for 3 of its lenses, aiming improve publicity consistency and peripheral illumination throughout zooming. Zyhongyi Optics did truly launch a model new lens for the Fujifilm X system, within the compact type issue of the Speedmaster 20mm f/0.95, a super-speedy manual-focus lens.

Different APS-C format mount choices included Canon RF, Nikon Z and Sony E. On the different finish of the dimensions, OM System introduced the M.Zuiko 150-600mm f/5.0-6.3 IS for Micro 4 Thirds cameras, on which the crop issue delivers a humungous efficient zoom vary of 300-1200mm.

Down on the lab, we put three lenses by means of their paces in January. First up was the fashionable however compact Fujifilm XF 35mm f/2 R WR, a perfect normal prime for Fujifilm X system cameras.

Subsequent up was the extremely subtle and super-fast Viltrox AF 27mm F1.2 Professional APS-C format prime for Fujifilm X, Nikon Z and Sony E cameras. We rounded off with the classically retro-looking Voigtländer 35 mm/1:2.5 Coloration Skopar P-Kind II for Leica M-mount.

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