Lomography Launches 17mm f/2.8 Lens for Full-Frame Mirrorless Cameras

Lomography has launched its Kickstarter for the Atoll Ultra-Wide 17mm f/2.8 Art Lens for Nikon Z, Canon RF, Sony E, and Leica M-mount. The fully manual lens makes many lofty promises for its $550 asking price.

The Lomography Atoll Ultra-Wide 2.8/17 Art lens (its official name) is a compact prime lens optimized for photo and video with a helicoid focusing mechanism, dampened aperture control ring, and short focus throw. It also ships with an included hotshoe-mounted optical viewfinder.

The lens is constructed of 13 “multicoated” elements arranged in 10 groups with an 8-bladed aperture with a range of f/2.8 through f/22.

Lomography is framing its ultra-wide lens as capable for a number of tasks, from landscape and action to street and travel photography. The company claims that it is both great at close-focused photos as well as ideal for near distortion-free wide, sweeping shots.

The lens has a wide 103-degree field of view with “minimal distortion” along with what the company touts as “vibrant colors and strong contrast.” Those colors are created by an enhanced rectilinear optics that Lomography says is used to offer “eye-popping colors and stunning saturation even in low-light situations.”

It has a close focusing distance of 0.1 meters (~3.9 inches) on Canon RF, Nikon Z, and Sony E with a slightly farther distance of 0.25 meters (~9.8 inches) with M-mount cameras. Speaking of M-mount, it is coupled for both digital and analog rangefinders. If nothing else, the number of lens mount options the lens offers prospective purchasers is impressive.

In order to make sure this awesome invention could be used with as many camera set-ups as possible, Lomography cleverly designed it to work with Canon RF, Nikon Z, Sony E cameras when the close-up lens base is attached and M mount analogue and digital cameras when it is not. Voilà! Now you can render iconic Lomography aesthetics across an impressive field of view using digital and analogue cameras with just one compact prime lens.

Below are several sample images Lomography provided to showcase the lens’ capabilities:

Lomography is offering the lens for $150 off the final retail price “for the first 24 hours” of the Kickstarter. At the time of publication, the lens was therefore offered for $400 in all four lens mounts. The final retail price, which is also the assumed Kickstarter price after the first day, will be $550. Lomography says that it intends to begin shipping orders of the lens in August of 2021.

As always, remember that Kickstarter is not a pre-order platform and while Lomography has successfully completed twelve previous crowdfunding campaigns on Kickstarter, back with caution.