Lenses

At its annual developer conference last week, Xiaomi announced an upcoming wide-aperture lens that retracts into the body of a smartphone when not in use, promising long optical zoom without increasing the girth of our ubiquitous mobile companions.

Researchers have developed a flat lens that's one one-thousandth the thickness and one one-hundredth the weight of a conventional model.

One of the oldest problems in optics has been solved. Rafael Gonzalez from the Tecnologico de Monterrey has come up with an almost comically dense equation that can be used to almost completely eliminate spherical aberration in optical lenses, and the effects could be widespread.

Lens filters are an important tool for many DSLR photographers, but dealing with different diameter lenses, stepping-rings, square filter mounts and the rest can be frustrating and expensive. But now, an ingenious filter system for mirrorless camera adapter mounts, looks to shake things up.

Presbyopia is a common form of age-induced far-sightedness. Now a Stanford team has developed a pair of high-tech specs called autofocals, which use fluid-filled lenses, depth-sensing cameras and eye-tracking technology to make sure whatever a wearer is looking at stays sharp.

​Before zoom lenses arrived on the scene, film makers used cameras featuring a few different lenses mounted to a rotating disc. Looking for a quick way to switch between different zoom ratios on large format modern cameras, Ian Kerr, CSC, tapped into the past to create the MultiTurret.​

​Here's an extraordinary photography project worth keeping an eye on: the Lensrentals team has been working on building the widest angle fisheye lens in existence, a C-4 Optics 4.9mm, f/3.5 hyper-fisheye monster with a 270-degree field of view - that's right, it can see behind itself.

​Why carry a dedicated camera around these days when your phone can take care of most moment capture needs? Chinese photographic equipment maker Yongnuo has revealed the YN450, a smartphone-like mirrorless camera that runs Android and is compatible with Canon camera lenses.​

This is one of the weirdest and most extraordinary new camera lenses we've come across. Laowa's 24mm f/14 probe lens looks bizarre, works like nothing else we've come across, and offers a truly immersive and endlessly fascinating way to experience and document the world at the microscopic level.

Back in 2014, Canon stunned pro videographers with an absolute monster of a lens. The Cine-Servo put top-grade glass behind camcorder-like controls to offer unprecedented flexibility. And it only came to be after a wildlife videographer laid down a challenge.

The idea of a universal lens cap to replace any that get misplaced is a good one. But the Kuvrd universal lens cap​ takes things a step further, protecting any lens in a bunch of ways your standard caps can't by making them waterproof, shockproof, dust-proof and scratch-proof.​

For the price of a year-long backpacking trip around the world, you can now own the fastest-ever 75mm aspherical lens. Leica's new Noctilux-M 75mm f/1.25 is a US$13,000 piece of glass with a monster aperture and a razor-thin depth of field to deliver dreamy out-of-focus bokeh.