High-end yet affordable primes designed in Germany and built in China
KIPON is a manufacturer that has quietly built a solid line of super fast photographer lenses and unique adapters that tackle medium format conversions. The company even has focal reducers for the GFX and Sony cameras to adapt Mamiya 645 glass. However, it's a bit of a niche tool, so finding one can be challenging.
Not content with staying in the photography space, the lens manufacturer started the new year by releasing a set of full-frame cinema primes ready to tackle productions that utilize mirrorless camera designs.
The new KIPON Colibri line of cinema lenses offers focal lengths ranging from a wide angle of 24mm to 90mm, giving creatives even get a solid choice of lens mounts. Let's dive in a bit deeper to see what the first-ever cinema lens set from KIPON has to offer.
The First KIPON Cinema Lenses
With a robust all-metal construction, the new KIPON lenses are compact and lightweight with moisture and dust-resistant seals, making one statement clear: this glass is ready for production. The five Colibri full-frame lenses offer multi-mount options, including the Canon RF, the Sony E-Mount, and the Panasonic L mounts.
Even with Canon’s legal efforts to disallow third-party RF lens options, it will be interesting to see what the RF lenses will offer in capability.
The entire KIPON lens line includes 24mm, 35mm, 50mm, 75mm, and 90mm, with a consistent T2.5 aperture across the entire lens focal range. The lenses have a 10-bladed aperture and a filter size of 77mm. KIPON also states that the specially designed iris provides a unique linear star-shaped bokeh with cinematic quality and outstanding color rendering.
However, every cinematographer has their taste, so it'll be up to you to see if you like the design these lenses produce.
These lenses can be used on RED cinema cameras, including the Komodo and V-Raptor, as well as Sony mirrorless and cinema cameras. The lenses also support the Canon and Panasonic mirrorless cameras, as well as their cinema variants.
Sadly, there is no PL mount on the horizon. With the focus on a thin flange distance, that might never come to fruition.
The lenses all offer 300 degrees of focus rotation and smooth and accurate focusing control thanks to a Swiss-made bearing system. The minimum focusing distances are 9.5 inches (.24m) for the wide angle 24mm, 13 inches (.33m) for the 35mm, 20 inches (.5m) for the 50mm, 24 inches (.6m) for the 75mm, and 27 inches (.7m) for the 90mm prime.
A New Player Has Joined
KIPON has been a quiet professional in the lens game. From what we can tell, the company isn't interested in fanfare. All it wants to do is make interesting lenses for creatives.
Our Tech Editor had a chance to be hands-on with the first production set in early December, and here are the cliff notes:
"The several focal lengths that I had a chance to see were built like tanks. Even so, the focus and aperture rings were incredibly smooth. I'd wager that any wireless follow focus, even the budget ones, could achieve precise focus. We used them on a RED V-Raptor and RED Komodo, and while they were heavy, the Colibri lenses were compact enough not to throw off the balance. This gave me a ton of ideas for gimbal or drone work."
The entire lens line is available for pre-order at a retail price of $9880, with an expected shipping date of March 1, 2023. B&H, however, is listing the set at a discount. They also list the lenses available for Nikon Z-mount and Fujifilm X-mount, which is a nice addition, especially if you're running the new Fuji X-H2s.
Also, the Colibri set is available from KIPON directly. For more information on that, check out the KIPON Colibri Website.
What do you think of these new lenses from KIPON? Are you excited or hitting the snooze button? Let us know in the comments!
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