Laowa is doubling down on its commitment to the macro probe lens and has teased yet another variant on the design. In a short YouTube teaser, we can see glimpses of the upcoming 24mm T8 2X Macro Pro2be cine lens. This will join the company's existing Macro Probe and Periprobe lenses, sharing the latter's interchangeable front tubes - a feature that lets you apply a choice of angled lens modules to achieve different shooting perspectives.
By freezing the teaser video at the right point, we can see that the new Pro2be has at least three different interchangeable front modules: a normal, forward-facing 'Direct View Module', a periscope-style module, and an angled 35-degree Module which allows you to shoot with your camera pointed downward at an angle, while the front of the lens captures a conventional, forward-facing perspective.
Like Laowa's existing probe lenses, the new variant as 2x macro magnification, but unlike its predecessors, the maximum T8 aperture is a great improvement over the f/14 rating of previous Laowa probe lenses. The faster aperture will give you more lighting flexibility, thereby reducing the need to resort to higher shooting sensitivities.
Past Laowa probe lenses have incorporated a tiny ring light into the lens tip for illuminating very close subjects, but this feature isn't obviously apparent in the Pro2be. It's possible Laowa has seen fit to delete this feature on account of the faster maximum aperture, but we can't be sure yet.
The teaser video doesn't give away any details about mount options or lens pricing - we'll have to wait until the official launch on August 15th for that information. But assuming the Pro2be is a manual-focus lens like Laowa's other probe lenses, it'll likely be available in numerous mount options.
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