L-mount and Nikon Z shooters are getting a tiny, feature-packed 40mm lens from 7artisans

7Artisans is making its tiny, lightweight 40mm F2.5 lens available to more shooters. The $159 full-frame option launched for Sony E-mount earlier this year after its announcement at CP+, but is now available Nikon Z mount and L mount.

The lens is the same one we saw at the trade show in February. It has a clicking aperture ring, tiny function button, 46mm filter ring and a manual focus ring, as well as a switch to go between manual and auto focus modes. The latter is provided by a stepper motor, and the lens can focus as close as 0.4m (15.7″). Despite this list of features, which is about as complete as you could hope for a compact prime lens, it only comes in at around 90g (3.2oz).

Optically, the lens consists of 7 elements in 6 groups, with one aspheric lens and three high refractive index elements. It has a 9-bladed aperture. 

Zorta / 7artisans

When the lens was announced in February, options for small, lightweight lenses were relatively thin on the ground for Z and L mount users. However, there have since been a few new options released: Panasonic announced its compact 40mm F2, and Viltrox has come out with a tiny 26mm F2.8 pancake for E and Z. Both fit into the same role as a small, walkabout lens (though obviously the 26mm offers a very different focal length), though they are also a fair bit more expensive.

The Z and L mount versions of the 40mm F2.5 are now available through 7artisans’ website, though they haven’t made it to online retailers like Amazon or B&H at the time of writing.

About the Author: Mitchell started taking pictures at 10 and hasn’t stopped since. It’s been a wide-ranging adventure, spanning a wide variety of genres and locales, and occasionally dipping into fascinations with video and filmmaking. They honed their technical knowledge doing documentation, programing and QA, writing for The Verge, and just generally messing around on the computer to see what breaks.