Venus Optics has just announced a new full-frame wide-angle macro lens with 1:1 magnification ratio and 110° angle of view. The Laowa 15mm f/4 Wide-Angle 1:1 Macro Lens is available for Canon EF, Nikon F, Pentax K, Sony A, and Sony E mounts. A rare accomplishment, an ultra-wide-angle lens that still offers true macro close focus, will allow photographers to focus on foreground items as close as 4.7" while still incorporating background context. In addition, this manual focus, manual aperture lens features a shift mechanism with an adjustment of +/- 6mm to correct distortion when used on APS-C cameras. The shift mechanism is particularly effective for landscape and architectural photography and, of course, the lens also functions as a straight ultra-wide-angle lens for numerous applications. One extra-low dispersion and three high-refractive lens elements reduce aberrations and distortion and a nearly circular 14-blade aperture helps to create pleasing out-of-focus highlights. On APS-C cameras bodies or in crop modes, the lens offers a 35mm equivalent focal length of 22.5mm with an 85° angle of view.
Also new from Venus Optics is the KX-800 Flexible Macro Twin Flash. This shoe-mount flash unit features two 19" flexible arms to avoid unwanted shadows on close subjects and best position the lights for your particular application. It also offers a third arm with an LED focusing assist light. This manually controlled flash has a combined guide number of 190' with 8 levels of power adjustment that can be independently controlled in both lights. The flash unit recycles in as fast as 2 seconds, runs on four AA batteries, and can also connect to a camera’s PC port.