Laowa is making a surprisingly aggressive move into the broadcast and live-production market with its new Ultima Zoom Series, a lineup of long-range parfocal cinema zooms built for sports, wildlife, and live-event production. Rather than chasing the crowded compact cine zoom market, Laowa appears to be leaning hard into extreme zoom ranges and operational flexibility instead.
Laowa’s Zoom Lens Pivot
The Ultima lineup consists of three lenses: the S35 12-120mm T4, the Full Frame 25-180mm T3.8, and the rather massive S35 25-600mm T4.2. On paper, all three are clearly aimed less at traditional narrative production and more at sports, wildlife, live events, houses of worship, and multi-camera broadcast environments.
This is a notable shift for Laowa. The company’s earlier 25-100mm T2.9 OOOM zoom was ambitious, but never really found its footing. Compact cine zooms are a brutally competitive category, and the OOOM entered a space already crowded with more established options. The Ultima series feels like Laowa learning from that experience and moving toward a segment where range, parfocal performance, and practical flexibility matter more than being small.
Optical and Mechanical Design Choices
All three Ultima zooms are advertised as true parfocal designs with constant maximum apertures and suppressed focus breathing. That is exactly what this category needs. In live production, refocusing after every zoom adjustment simply is not acceptable. A lens like this needs to hold focus, hold exposure, and stay mechanically predictable throughout the range. Interestingly, Laowa also appears to be keeping the lenses largely mechanical, with no mention of LDS, Cooke /i, or any electronic metadata communication. That may not matter much in traditional broadcast environments, but it does make the Ultima series feel more rooted in straightforward manual operation rather than the increasingly data-driven workflows seen in higher-end cinema production.
That said, Laowa does appear to be thinking about servo-assisted operation. One of the product images shows the 12-120mm T4 fitted with a Movcam servo unit, despite Laowa making no mention of that servo attachment in the announcement materials or spec sheets. Whether this is an officially supported accessory, a prototype configuration, or simply a demonstration setup remains unclear, but it does suggest the Ultima series may be intended for more traditional broadcast-style zoom control than the initial announcement implies.
Mechanically, Laowa is clearly leaning into cinema-style operation rather than traditional ENG ergonomics. All three lenses are listed with PL mounts, manual focus, dual distance scales, 0.8 mod gearing, and 180° of focus rotation. The 12-120mm and 25-180mm both use 110mm front filter threads, while the 25-600mm abandons any practical screw-in filter approach entirely, which is hardly surprising given its 167mm front diameter. These are not small camcorder zooms pretending to be cinema lenses. They are large, manual, PL-mounted production zooms built around controlled camera systems, support, motors, and operators who know exactly what they are getting into.
There is, however, a pretty obvious typo in Laowa’s spec sheet for the 25-180mm T3.8, which lists the optical formula as “20 elements in 26 groups.” Unless Laowa has discovered a way to arrange fewer elements into more groups than physically possible, we can safely assume that is reversed.
The 25-600mm T4.2 is the most interesting lens of the bunch, but also the most specialized. A 24x zoom range in a PL-mounted, parfocal, cinema-style lens is genuinely unusual. The tradeoff is the smaller Super 35 format coverage and a minimum focus distance of 12.92m, or 42.4 feet, which immediately removes it from any conversation about general-purpose production. This is not a lens for tight interiors, handheld narrative work, or commercial tabletop shots. It is a lens for being far away from the subject and staying there.
Interestingly, one of the product photos for the 12-120mm T4 reveals something else Laowa never actually mentions in the official press material. The carrying case includes dedicated cutouts labeled for both a 0.7x expander and a 1.5x extender. While neither accessory has been formally announced, it is probably safe to assume Laowa is at least developing optional optical accessories for the system. If that ends up being the case, it could make the Ultima lineup considerably more versatile, especially for productions trying to stretch a single lens across multiple camera formats or shooting environments.
Who Are the Ultima Zooms For?
The Ultima zooms make the most sense in environments where the camera cannot move much, but the framing needs to change constantly. Sports, wildlife, live concerts, stage production, large houses of worship, and event coverage are the obvious applications. These are situations where close focus is far less important than being able to punch in, pull out, and maintain focus without interrupting the shot.
The 12-120mm T4 is likely the most accessible of the three, offering a familiar 10x range for S35 cameras in documentary, corporate, and controlled live-production work. The 25-180mm T3.8 is perhaps the most versatile on paper, especially with Full Frame coverage. But the 25-600mm T4.2 is the headline lens. It is big, heavy, and highly specific, but it is also the one that most clearly separates the Ultima series from Laowa’s previous zoom efforts.
Pricing and Availability
The Laowa Ultima Zoom Series is available to order now directly through Laowa and authorized dealers. According to the company, the lenses are built-to-order rather than mass produced, with current lead times estimated between 2-4 weeks after payment confirmation.
Pricing for the lineup is as follows:
- Ultima S35 12-120mm T4 — $15,000 (Standard) / $16,500 (Lite)
- Ultima FF 25-180mm T3.8 — $17,000
- Ultima S35 25-600mm T4.2 — $30,000
Considering the zoom ranges and claimed parfocal performance, the pricing positions the Ultima series well below many traditional broadcast and large-format box lens systems, while still remaining firmly in professional production territory.
If you are considering adding one of the Ultima zooms to your production toolkit, purchasing through Duclos Lenses is one of the best ways to support The Cine Lens and the kind of in-depth editorial coverage we continue to produce. Duclos has long been one of the industry’s leading cinema lens specialists, offering lens tuning, modification, servicing, and real-world production expertise that goes far beyond simply moving boxes. Explore the entire line of Laowa cine lenses with Duclos Lenses.
Final Thoughts
The Ultima series feels like a more focused and mature zoom strategy from Laowa. Rather than adding more noise to the already crowded compact cine zoom market, Laowa is targeting productions that need long-range flexibility, parfocal operation, and broadcast-style reliability in a cine-oriented package.
These lenses are not for everyone, and that is probably the point. The close-focus limitations, size, and weight will make them impractical for plenty of traditional cinema applications. But for live sports, wildlife, event production, and long-lens broadcast work, the Ultima series could give Laowa a much clearer identity in the zoom lens market than the OOOM ever managed.
As always, tech specs for my fellow lens geeks.
| Lens | Format | Focal Range | Aperture | Zoom Ratio | Minimum Focus | Weight | Mount |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ultima S35 12-120mm T4 | Super 35 | 12-120mm | T4-22 | 10x | 1m / 39.4″ | 7.05 lbs (Standard) 6.39 lbs (Lite) | PL |
| Ultima FF 25-180mm T3.8 | Full Frame | 25-180mm | T3.8-22 | 7.2x | 1.2m / 47.2″ | 8.91 lbs | PL |
| Ultima S35 25-600mm T4.2 | Super 35 | 25-600mm | T4.2-22 | 24x | 12.92m / 42.4 ft | 15.65 lbs | PL |