Great Joy 50mm T2.9 1.8x Anamorphic Lens Announced

Lens News

by Francesco AndreolaApril 28^th, 2022

After releasing their first full-frame anamorphic lens back in October 2021, the Chinese company is back at it with a more compact solution. Their new Great Joy 50mm T2.9 1.8x anamorphic lens is clearly here to compete with the SIRUI 50mm T2.9 1.6x. The Indiegogo campaign for this new lens will go live on May 11th, 2022.

A few months ago, we covered the release of the Great Joy 60mm T2.9 FF 1.33x anamorphic lens. When combined with a dedicated 1.35x anamorphic adapter, the total squeeze factor of this system becomes 1.8x, thus resulting in a pretty stylized anamorphic look.

Although this 2-in-1 solution provides a good amount of flexibility, combining a lens and an adapter can make things a little slow and clunky for most shooting scenarios. Luckily, Great Joy came up with a more compact and streamlined solution: the new Great Joy 50mm T2.9 1.8x anamorphic lens. Let’s take a look.

Great Joy 50mm T2.9 1.8x anamorphic lens: does it seem familiar?

The specs of this new Great Joy 50mm T2.9 1.8x anamorphic lens remind me of those of the SIRUI 50mm T2.9 1.6x. We talked extensively about this lens here at CineD. My colleague Johnnie conducted a full review with sample footage, while I took the lens out for a spin on my RED KOMODO.

Despite the obvious difference in the squeeze factor, these two cine lenses have a lot in common. The image circle of the Great Joy 50mm T2.9 1.8x covers 33x24mm sensors (aka full-frame sensors with a little side cropping) and has a maximum aperture of T2.9. The lens comes in six mount options: Canon EF and RF, PL, Sony E, Leica L, and MFT.

Being a 1.8x anamorphic lens, the Great Joy delivers the vertical field of view of a 50mm lens and the horizontal one of a 27.8mm glass. This squeeze factor will result in 2.4:1 aspect ratio images when using a 4:3 sensor mode. Moreover, it should deliver a stronger “anamorphic look” than what the SIRUI’s can do.

Physical characteristics

When I first grabbed my SIRUI 50mm T2.9 1.6x, I was immediately impressed by its lightness. Weighing between 1040 and 1090g without a lens cap (depending on the lens mount), the Great Joy 50mm T2.9 1.8x should provide a similar feeling.

The lens is a little larger than that of their competition. In fact, the Great Joy E-Mount version measures 162.3mm in length. That’s about 12.3mm longer than its SIRUI counterpart.

Optical design and cinematic housing

The optical design of the Great Joy T2.9 1.8x anamorphic lens features 16 elements in 12 groups. Furthermore, its 11 aperture blades should deliver a nice and soft oval bokeh. 

With its minimum focal distance of 0.7m, the Great Joy offers a little advantage over the SIRUI model (close focus: 0.75m). It’s worth mentioning that, if you want to get extremely close to your subject, the use of diopter filters is almost a “must” with this type of lens.

Just like the SIRUI, the Great Joy comes with a cinematic housing out of the box, without the need for lens modding. And here’s where this new entry shines. In fact, the Great Joy 50mm T2.9 1.8x offers a longer focus ring excursion: 270° versus 95.5° on the SIRUI. This much longer scale should result in more precise and smoother focus pulling operations.

The lens housing features industry-standard 0.8 MOD focus and iris rings, an 82mm filter thread, and a 1/4”-20 threaded hole at the bottom for extra support. However, while the SIRUI displays focus distance in both feet and meters, the Great Joy only relies on the metric system.

Price and availability

I must admit that it looks like the company did a great job in developing a valid alternative to the SIRUI 50mm T2.9 1.8x. The more extreme squeeze factor is tempting and the lens seems to be overall well-built. I’m curious to see how it performs against the incredibly sharp-for-the-price SIRUI on the field.

This lens will go live on Indiegogo on May 11th, 2022 and the first batch should start shipping on May 21st. The new Great Joy 50mm T2.9 1.8x anamorphic lens will initially be available at the discounted price of $1,279. This represents 20% off the official retail price. For reference, the SIRUI 50mm T2.9 1.6x is currently priced at $1,499.

Finally, Great Joy announced that two additional focal lengths with similar physical characteristics should join the lineup by the end of this year: 35mm and 85mm.

We are saying this at the end of every crowdfunding-related article: please be aware of the risks when backing a project on a crowdfunding platform. Please read the platform’s terms of use and keep in mind that there can be significant delays when delivering the product. Some projects even don’t get delivered at all.

For more information, please visit Great Joy’s website here.

What do you think about the new Great Joy 50mm T2.9 1.8x anamorphic lens? Would you pick it over the SIRUI 50mm T2.9 1.6x? Let us know the reasons for your choice in the comments below!