Last Updated on 03/05/2012 by Chris Gampat
In harsh contrast to their upcoming 50mm T0.95 lens for Leica M-mount, SLR Magic has just announced three new toy lenses for Sony NEX, Micro Four Thirds and Pentax Q. The NEX lens “Bokehmorphic” comes with interchangeable aperture inserts that create custom-shaped bokeh highlights, the new Micro Four Thirds “lens” is a pinhole cap with protection glass and the new Pentax Q offering is an adaption of the 11mm f1.4 toy lens released for Micro Four Thirds a while ago.
Correction: the apertures are built in. Thanks for the catch Andrew!
SLR Magic has a tradition of creating toy lenses for various systems, Micro Four Thirds and Sony NEX being the first two to be supported. Meanwhile, they extended their product range to serious offerings like their 28mm f2.8 lens for Sony NEX or the upcoming 50mm T0.95 HyperPrime lens for Leica M. Still, the company stays true to their heritage and continues to offer cheap and cheerful lens options for the creative photographer.
Their latest offering is a series of three toy lenses for Micro Four Thirds, Sony NEX and Pentax Q. The new lenses in detail are:
SLR Magic x Toy Lens Bokehmorphic
The “Bokehmorphic” toy lens for Sony NEX has a 28mm focal length and features interchangeable aperture inserts with various aperture shapes such as hearts, stars, flowers etc. As the name suggests, it will “morph” your bokeh to look like whatever aperture insert you use. With its field of view equivalent to that of a 42mm lens on 35mm full frame, it is to be considered a perfect “normal” focal length that is neither too wide nor too long.
SLR Magic x Toy Lens Pinhole
This one is a little different from SLR Magic’s previous offerings. It isn’t really a lens per definition, as it doesn’t feature any optical elements. Rather, it is more like a body cap with a very small hole in the center (hence the name) that lets only very few light pass through to the sensor. The effect is a slightly blurred image with strong vignetting, a bit like the “Pinhole” art filter in Olympus’ PEN cameras. The size of the hole, which is covered with protective glass to prevent dust particles from getting onto the sensor, is equivalent f128, which requires long exposure times and allows for interesting creative effects. The pinhole lens has a field-of-view equivalent to a 24mm wide-angle lens on 35mm full-frame.
SLR Magic x Toy Lens 11mm f1.4 for Pentax Q
This one is actually an oldie from SLR Magic. It was one of their first offerings for Micro Four Thirds, where it showed very strong vignetting. Due to the Pentax Q’s small sensor with its 5.7x crop factor, the 11/1.4 toy lens will act like a 60mm lens on 35mm full-frame, which is inbetween a long normal lens and a short tele lens. Also, the crop factor of the Pentax Q will eliminate any optical imperfections in the corners, cropping out only the best part of the image from the center.
All three lenses are manual focus only (except for the pinhole lens which is fix-focus) and will be available from April via official SLR Magic retailers, or through SLR Magic’s official eBay store. The Bokehmorphic lens comes in at US-$ 125 incl. shipping. The toy lens for Pentax Q is US-$ 169.99, and the pinhole lens for Micro Four Thirds will set you back US-$ 49.99 — including shipping.
We will receive review units of the Bokehmorphic and pinhole lenses soon, so expect our reviews of those two lenses in the coming weeks.
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