Zhong Yi Optics announced the PITTURA 30mm f/2.4 on August 7th, a medium format wide-angle prime selling right away for $499. In a segment where a single lens can cost as much as a camera body, that price turns heads even for a rental house like ours that shoots full frame almost every day.

What Zhong Yi announced

These are the official figures, all confirmed on the manufacturer’s product page:

  • 30mm focal length, 84.5-degree angle of view (roughly a 24mm equivalent in full frame terms)
  • f/2.4 to f/22 aperture with a clicked ring and 11 blades
  • 13 elements in 12 groups with a floating focus design
  • Manual focus, 0.20 m minimum focusing distance
  • 58mm front filter thread, roughly 550 grams
  • Fujifilm G (GFX) and Hasselblad XCD mounts, all-metal barrel
  • $499, available from August 7th, 2026

Why we cover it when it isn’t a cine lens

Because medium format stopped being a stills-only conversation. Since Fujifilm put the G mount on a body built for motion work, every new lens on that bayonet is potential set gear. And for producers the medium format problem was never the sensor: it was the glass. Wide primes for this format run into four figures and usually stop at f/3.5 or f/4. Here you get a 24mm equivalent that opens to f/2.4 and costs less than an afternoon of camera car.

In our opinion the real value is simple: it lowers the entry point. A production that wants to try the medium format look on a couple of scenes, without rebuilding the whole budget, now has a way in.

The limits, stated plainly

The aperture ring is clicked. On set that means no iris pulls during a take: if the sun keeps ducking behind clouds while you shoot exteriors, you either play with ND or you shoot it again. Focus is manual, and Zhong Yi publishes neither the focus throw nor standard 0.8 mod gearing, so fitting a follow focus becomes an adaptation job. There are no weather sealing claims, so we would treat it carefully in the mountains in winter. This is a stills lens borrowed by video, not a cine lens: anyone expecting a matched prime set will be disappointed.

Medium format and rental: the maths

The reasoning we go through with clients applies here too, just reversed. A $499 lens is something you buy; renting it makes no sense. The body behind it is the part worth renting. That is where rental protects the budget of an Abruzzo production: you take the camera for the three shooting days instead of amortising it over five years and hoping the right job shows up.

In the field, for 90% of the shorts, commercials and documentaries we support in Abruzzo, full frame is still the right call: known workflows, glass everywhere, no surprises in post. Medium format earns its place when the project has a specific aesthetic reason for it and the schedule allows you to work around it. When someone asks us whether it is worth it, our first question is always the same: how many shots will actually use that look?

What we rent

Our inventory stays on bodies that go out on jobs every week: the Sony BURANO for high resolution full frame with internal NDs, the Blackmagic URSA Cine 12K when you want a big negative and generous RAW in post, and the ARRI ALEXA Mini when the colour simply has to work with no debate. The rest of the catalogue, lighting and support included, is on our equipment page.

Official source: Zhong Yi Optics. Industry verification: Newsshooter.