Lomography have today announced a new Kickstarter campaign for a 17mm f/2.8 ultra-wide lens by the name of ‘Atoll’. The lens will be available in Canon RF, Nikon Z, Sony E cameras with a minimum focusing distance of 10cm and for M mount cameras with a MFD of 25cm.
The Atoll lens claims an “impressive ultra-wide 103º field of view with minimal distortion, vibrant colors and strong contrast”. They go on to say that is a “compact prime lens optimized for photo and video with helicoid focusing mechanism” with a “dampened aperture control ring and short focus throw.” The campaign shows it being used as a stills lens, and part of a video rig – albeit with a third-party focus gear accessory. Essentially, this seems to translate to it having a clickless aperture ring.
The extra-close 10cm focusing distance with the mirrorless cameras seems to be achieved using some sort of “lens base” lens adapter that goes between the native m-mount lens and the mirrorless camera. I’m not sure quite how this is achieved, short of the adapters being slightly too long, thus acting like a very small extension tube…? One way or another, it will be interesting to see how this has been achieved. As such, I have asked to be added to the list to receive a lens to review on both e-mount and m-mout, so hope to be able to share more in-depth thoughts in the next month or so…
In the meanwhile though, the Atoll does look very interesting and actually looks to be at a pretty low price point for what it is. The M-mount version – thanks to it not coming with the “lens base” is cheaper than the mirrorless versions too. It’s also even cheaper still if you back it within the first 24hrs of the campaign!
You can back it on Kickstarter here
Some samples:
