An anonymous tipster just told me that the Ricoh GRIV should be announced in very early 2025. And a monochrome version will be released later in 2025!

Venus Optics just announced the new 12-24mm f/5.6 Shift APS-C lens you can buy for $699 on the Venus Optics Global Store.

Press text:

Anhui China, 5 Nov 2024 – Venus Optics announced a groundbreaking Zoom-Shift lens – Laowa 12-24mm f/5.6 Zoom Shift lens! This extraordinary APS-C lens for mirrorless cameras combines two powerful features in one compact package: an ultra-wide zoom with an impressive shift capability. The lens allows you to seamlessly zoom from 12mm to 24mm while also being able to shift up to 7mm! This zoom-shift combination gives you all the flexibility in perspective control for capturing expansive landscapes or towering architecture. The compact 575g size also puts no burden on your kit. Truly a game-changer for photographers who want both versatility and creative control in their ultra-wide shots.

12-24mm Zoom Range with Constant Aperture
The Laowa 12-24mm f/5.6 Zoom Shift lens offers a versatile zoom range of 12mm to 24mm, providing an expansive angle of view from 102.5° to 63.9°. This allows photographers to capture a wide variety of scenes. With a constant aperture of f/5.6, the lens ensures consistent exposure throughout the entire zoom range, offering great flexibility while maintaining high image quality.

Precise ±7mm Shift Amount
The remarkable ±7mm shift capability set this lens apart. All shift lenses currently available in the market are primes, which makes this lens the WORLD’s first wide-angle zoom shift lens. This feature enables photographers to achieve precise perspective control and effortlessly minimize distortion.

Compact & Lightweight Design
The Laowa 12-24mm f/5.6 Zoom Shift lens offers exceptional performance in a compact and lightweight package, weighing only 575g. Its portability makes it perfect for photographers on the move, ensuring mobility and effortless shooting.

Exceptional Distortion Control
The lens showcases excellent distortion control, allowing users to capture accurate and true-to-life images. This makes it an excellent choice for architectural and interior photography, where precise image quality is crucial.

15cm closest focusing distance
The Laowa 12-24mm f/5.6 Zoom Shift lens also has an exceptionally short focusing distance. Capable of focusing as close as 5.9 inches (15 cm) from the sensor. This lens offers photographers plenty of opportunities for creative experimentation.

77mm filter thread
The Laowa 12-24mm f/5.6 Zoom Shift lens offers the convenience of a 77mm filter thread, which can be used when the lens hood is attached.

Image translation via PetaPixel. Sony is totally absent here.

The Japanese organization BCN shared new insights on the Japanese fixed lens camera market. Digicameinfo summed up the most interesting points:

• Casio has left the compact camera market, Nikon has stopped development, and Sony and Fujifilm have significantly scaled back their lineups. Some may fear that the category itself will disappear as it is pushed aside by smartphones. The bottom line is that it is not dead at all. Compact cameras still account for more than 60% of camera sales. Although their sales value composition ratio is small, ranging from the upper 20% to lower 30%, a certain level of sales continues.
• The average price is also rising, just like with interchangeable lens cameras. In particular, the increase in the proportion of relatively high-priced models over 50,000 yen stands out. As of September 2021, this was only 6.8% of the total number of units sold, but this September it had risen to 33.2%. This is thought to be largely due to the impact of inflation, but at the same time, it is also highly likely that there are an increasing number of users who want better products even if they are a little more expensive.
• Year-on-year sales of interchangeable lens cameras fell significantly in both unit volume and value. Although the decline narrowed in October, sales remain below the previous year’s level. Compact cameras are also showing a slowdown, with unit sales declining slightly in September and October. However, sales value remained above the previous year, with October sales value increasing by double digits to 115.3%. With prices of mirrorless cameras rising, it could be said that even relatively high-priced compact cameras are now looking cheap.
• The compact camera market structure has changed significantly in the past few years. Canon is by far the top five in terms of sales volume in September, with a large share of 31.1%, backed by the PowerShot and IXY series. Meanwhile, Fujifilm, in second place, took a 13.4% share, largely due to the huge sales of its instax mini Evo. Kodak and Kenko Tokina, in third and fourth place, moved into the “vacant lot” left by major manufacturers. They are the main players who have expanded their market share by leveraging their good cost performance, and have greatly changed the market. And Ricoh Imaging, with its GR series, has made it into the top five with a modest single-digit share. The GR brand, which has been around since the film era, still has many die-hard fans.

I wonder if 2025 will be the year where Sony finally revives their RX camera series. What do you think…is this going to happen or not?

The image you see on top shows an actual 100mm “Metalens” that is just 5mm thick. It has been displayed by the company Optor at the Nexty Electronics booth at CEATEC 2024 (Source: DC.watch).

What is a Metalens?

A metalens is a device that can achieve the same effect as a regular lens by arranging cylindrical lenses on a flat surface. As you can see from this image, The metalens is made up of an infinite number of lenses of different heights. This is done using an X-ray microscope, so the individual pillars can be seen:

Canon, Samsung and others are working on, and it is expected to make lenses significantly thinner. However, there are technical challenges to overcome, and it will be some time before it can be used as a camera lens.

The company claims that the resolution is equivalent to that of a normal lens, and that aberrations are also corrected. Normally, lens aberrations are corrected by combining multiple aspherical lenses, but this can be done with a single metalens, which makes it possible to make the entire lens unit thinner.
However, in principle, the method relies on the diffraction phenomenon, which causes color bleeding. Because this is a physical phenomenon caused by diffraction optics, the issue of how to deal with this bleeding becomes an issue:

Image shows the bleeding effect

For camera lenses, the company expects that by using multiple pieces of glass in addition to metalens, it will be possible to reduce the number of glass pieces used up to now while suppressing chromatic aberration, making the lens thinner and smaller.

A wide-angle lens with a focal length of 30 mm

Compared to regular glasses, metalens can change the focal length within a single lens by altering the wavefront, so one application could be to use a thin lens for both near and far vision depending on the viewing angle.

The company has already established a mass production system, and after the announcement at CEATEC, it plans to begin rolling out the technology to the market. Going forward, the company plans to make the device even thinner and to aim for a wide range of applications, such as camera lenses.

To summarize:

This technology is amazing, but it will be quite a while before we see lenses like this for our mirrorless cameras. But we are getting closer and closer to my dream of a 20-200mm f/2.8 pancake lens :)

SonyAlphaRumors has confirmed a November 19 announcement for Sony’s A1 II and a new 28-70mm f/2.0 GM lens. The A1 II is expected to keep its 50MP sensor but may feature an improved AI chip, enhanced frame rate, faster autofocus, and support for CFexpress 4.0. The new zoom lens will likely be compact, priced around $3,000. Both items could be available in early 2025. More details are anticipated closer to the announcement date.

For additional information, you can check the full article here.

You can preorder the new lenses now at BHphoto, Amazon, Adorama.