Panomicron Bismuth 50mm f/2.8 1.5x Anamorphic Lens Expands to the M-Mount

Lens News

by Omri Keren LapidotNovember 24^th, 2025

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Panomicron, an indie gear maker, has recently launched a successful Kickstarter campaign for the new Bismuth 50mm f/2.8 1.5x Anamorphic lens. Leica M-mount cameras and lenses are renowned for their classic, compact, minimalist, and stills-oriented design. Anamorphic lenses, on the other hand, are well known as rather massive cinematic tools, not usually associated with compactness. The Panomicron Bismuth 1.5x Anamorphic Lens for M-mount tries to weld these two opposites into one: an anamorphic 50mm f/2.8 lens designed to feel right at home with cinematographers and photographers alike.

Panomicron is the brand name chosen by Swiss inventor Oscar Gustaf Oweson. Oweson has developed several indie cameras and accessories over the last decade or so, the last one being an anamorphic adapter – the Alum. With a refreshing blend of a crazy scientist and a calm mathematician, Oweson manages to convey an authentic, trustworthy, and innovative vibe with rare transparency over most, if not all, of his projects, and the same goes for this successful Kickstarter project.

The Panomicron Bismuth 1.5x Anamorphic Lens is now available on Kickstarter. While the campaign has ended, you can still back it and pledge your money for the future lens. This campaign has taken Oweson’s journey to the next level, producing a fully functional lens for film M-mount cameras as well as full-frame mirrorless cameras. Compact design, a tough all-metal build, manual operation with a de-clickable aperture, and an anamorphic element make this lens a truly unique offer. This new lens combines an innovative take on a classic Sonnar-based design with other features rarely seen in a single piece of glass.

An M-mount anamorphic lens – first of its kind

Anamorphic lenses are all the rage these days, coming in all shapes and sizes, even with autofocus. These vary in size and weight, but it is fair to include them on the more robust end of the spectrum. The Panomicron Bismuth 50mm f/2.8 1.5x will be among the most pocketable anamorphic lenses, small enough to fit Leica M cameras, mainstream hybrid cameras like the Canon EOS R6 Mark III, Panasonic LUMIX S1II, and even the most compact options like the SIGMA BF or the Panasonic LUMIX S9. All will make interesting use of the anamorphic lens and open-gate capabilities. It will also provide an intriguing companion to the current crop of compact cine cameras like the Sony FX3 and FX2, Canon EOS C50, Nikon ZR, etc.

In a sense, we may be looking at the first hybrid M-mount lens, though that might be a bit of a stretch. I do believe, however, that the Bismuth may be seen with both filmmakers, photographers, hybrid creators, and even on analog film cameras.

A personal note

I’ve been covering and personally pledging my hard-earned money to crowdfunding projects for more than a decade, witnessing the field’s changing trends and evolutions. I can hardly recall a more transparent project in which the creator shares so much information about the product, process, charts, and challenges. While it doesn’t promise anything, as Oscar Gustaf Oweson himself confirms, it instills confidence in the creator’s decency and motives. To top it all off, the campaign’s stretch goal aims to make the design fully open source. This is crowdfunding at its best: cooperative, community-based, and inspiring.

Price and availability

The Panomicron Bismuth 50mm f/2.8 1.5x Anamorphic M-mount lens is on Kickstarter now, and comes in two flavors: a “baseline” model priced at about €1,716 (CHF 1,600) and a premium all-brass model priced at €2,788 (CHF 2,600). There’s also an optional, cold-shoe optical viewfinder for €119. Estimated deliveries are set to June 2026 for the regular model or September 2026 for the all-brass version. The project has officially ended with a successful crowdfunding, but you can still back it and get your chance at the Kickstarter pricing of the Bismuth 50mm f/2.8 Anamorphic lens.

Just a friendly reminder: when you’re considering backing a project on a crowdfunding platform, it’s important to be aware of the potential risks. Please take a moment to review the platform’s terms of use, and remember that there might be some delays in receiving the product. Sadly, some projects don’t even make it to the finish line.

Would you pledge this kind of money to such a project? Will such a compact anamorphic lens appeal to you and complement your workflow? Let us know in the comments.