This is the world’s first “modular” pancake lens for Sony E-mount.

The CM33 is a 33mm f/2 pancake-style prime lens that delivers stunning image quality and very close macro focus range with specialized optics. It also includes two new unique features for photographers:

• “Mods” open up a world of powerful and modular optical effects
• “Focus Finder” provides the greatest possible manual focus precision

The CM33 project can be supported on Kickstarter (Click here).

Matthew: “I just wanted to let you know about a Kickstarter project that my company has taken live today that your readers might take interest in. We are Modula Optical, a small group of engineers in the optical industry, and we have developed a really unique 33mm f/2 prime lens for mirrorless cameras (Fujifilm X, Sony E, and Canon M) called the CM33. We love the compactness of mirrorless cameras, so we wanted to create a nice flexible pancake style lens where we push the optical quality absolutely as far as it can go using the design techniques we’ve learned over the years in other industries. And we also wanted to bring to modern cameras some of the really wonderful feel and usability of the classic manual focus lenses we grew up.

The other cool thing about the CM33 is a range of modular upgrade options. The most unique option is what we call “Mods” — special optical elements (filters, lenses, etc.) that can be inserted into the middle of the lens near the aperture stop, rather than screwed on the front ring. This lets us create some really interesting optical effects in a completely “as needed” way, rather than requiring a specialized lens to, for example, get a bokeh apodization effect or well-controlled soft focus effect.

If you’re interested, you can take a look at our Kickstarter campaign page, as well as a press release we’ve put out today and our new webpage. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me of course. I’m a frequent reader of sonyalpharumors, so I’d be thrilled if we warranted a mention there. We’re offering a very limited number of CM33 lenses at a significant “earlybird” discount for those who back us early, which may be of additional interest to your readers. By the way, I’m also sharing this info with your sister sites fujirumors and canonwatch (since it’s also relevant to those systems).

Some relevant links:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/modulaoptical/cm33-compact-manual-focus-lens-for-mirrorless-with
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2015/11/prweb13059961.htm
http://www.modulaoptical.com
https://youtu.be/J7hemNnkut4”

Editor’s note: I posted Matthews text in a recent Tidbits post. But I realized afterwards the project deserves a proper spot on SAR ;)