The Inspire 2 was a major step forward for creating cinematic images in the sky affordably. Among the many other improvements, the interchangeable DL lens mount, combined with their custom designed lenses, gave filmmakers higher quality optics and wider apertures by offering a choice of primes. However, the widest lens available was the 16mm, which is pretty wide for the sensor size, but Venus optics have no released an even wider lens for those truly epic wide lens arial moments.
Interested in the Inspire 2? Check out the behind-the-scenes of the world's first Inspire 2 drone short film!
This lens offers a full 113° field of view, compared to the 80° field of view from the 16mm DJI lens. This enables aerial filmmakers to get wider shots while keeping the drone closer to home, and to create some truly epic moving shots when skimming that wide lens across landscapes. As scene in the comparison video below, when getting close to the ground the sense of motion from the lens is really quite dramatic.
Of course, there are some drawbacks, the primary one being weight. The stock DJI lenses have carbon fiber bodies, with the 16mm lens weighing only 178grams. This 9mm, built in a traditional body, weighs in at 210grams, by no means a deal breaker, but it might cut slightly into battery life, both since it'll be extra weight to carry and extra weight to stabilize. However, considering the excellent results many users have gotten from Venus, and effort they have put into making this extra wide lens have very low distortion as seen in the samples, this lens should prove very popular despite the slight increase in weight.
Available now for $499.
- 9mm
- f/2.8 max aperture
- 15 elements in 10 groups
- 2 aspherical elements
- 3 extra-low dispersion elements
- 7 bladed aperture
- 49mm filter thread
- Super35mm coverage area
