A new dawn of affordable zoom lenses is here — the first Chinese autofocus zoom has been spotted, and that’s a big deal

Viltrox 35mm F1.2 and 135mm F1.8 LAB lenses under spotlight on a diagonal surface, plain gray background.

There's no shortage of lens manufacturers from China – several come to mind, including Laowa, Viltrox, 7Artisans, Meike, Sirui and Thypoch. Google lists 14 known Chinese lens brands in all, between them making lenses for Sony, Nikon, Fujifilm, Panasonic and Leica cameras, and more.

Laowa makes unique tilt-shift optics and high-magnification macro optics, while Thypoch engineers beautiful manual-focus primes for Leica M cameras, at a fraction of the cost of Leica's own.