Okay, sure, Sony's autofocus is incredible, but sometimes your project needs a manual focus lens. Thanks to the popularity of the Sony E-mount, third-party lens manufactures have made some incredible glass for creatives to choose from.
For this "Deals of the Week," we look at options from Zeiss, Voigtlander, and Venus Optics, so you can upgrade your lens kits.
Zeiss Quality
Zeiss is a lens company that has been around for over 100 years. At least in one form or another. When you don't want to spend an arm and a leg, the current iteration of the brand has some of the best photo and cinema glass on the market.
The Loxia series from Zeiss is specifically designed to be used with Sony E mount cameras. With de-clicked apertures, compact size, and the Zeiss' build quality, the Loxia lenses are a great set for a compact cinema camera build.
ZEISS Loxia 4-Lens Kit
Loxia-series lenses are distinguished by their manual focus operation along with a manual aperture ring that can be de-clicked for silent operation; making them especially suitable for filmmaking applications. Loxia lenses are also characterized by their compact form factor and all-metal lens barrel, which incorporates engraved focusing and depth of field scales, for fine-tuned control.
Voigtlander Macro
Voigtlander is also a name that has been around for over a century. Currently, the brand is listened by Cosina out of Japan, with the company making some amazing manual lenses for a range of cameras.
The Sony E-mount version has solid build quality and a classic lens design that can be used for photography, video, and cinematography. The macro version are also great for product work, portraiture, or closeup.
Voigtlander MACRO APO-LANTHAR 65mm f/2
With an apochromatic design, the Voigtlander MACRO APO-LANTHAR 65mm f/2 Aspherical Lens is able to deliver crisp, aberration-free imagery, even with the high resolutions of modern digital sensors. It boasts outstanding sharpness, helped in part by an aspherical element, meaning users will be able to resolve the finest details in their subjects. On top of this, the lens features a relatively fast f/2 aperture.
Venus Optics Wide-Angle
Venus Optics is a unique part of the lens ecosystem, carving out a niche in the wide-angle space and, more recently, in the anamorphic world. But today, we're looking at a lens that started it all—the wide-angle.
While the 9mm we chose for this list doesn't have the "zero-distortion" feature the company's other lenses carry, it's still one of the widest lenses you can get for your Sony camera. With that kind of FOV, it allows creatives to achieve some unique compositions for their photography and cinematography work.
Venus Optics Laowa 9mm f/5.6 Full-Frame
Characterized by its extremely wide field of view and rectilinear rendering, the Sony E-mount Laowa 9mm f/5.6 FF RL, offers a uniquely wide perspective that is well-suited for interior, architecture, nature, and landscape subjects. The immense 135° angle of view is complemented by an advanced optical design that uses low dispersion, aspherical, and high refractive index elements to control a variety of aberrations and distortion to achieve high sharpness, clarity, and color accuracy.
