Brightin Star Just Dropped a $66 Fisheye Lens for Seven Mounts — Here’s What’s New in Gen II

Key Takeaways

• Brightin Star announced the 10mm f/5.6 II APS-C fisheye lens on May 17, 2026 at a $65.99 introductory price (regular $74.99 after May 25). Pre-orders are open at the official store with B&H Photo availability coming. This is the cheapest brand-new fisheye lens currently shipping for crop-sensor mirrorless.
• The lens covers Sony E, Nikon Z, Canon EOS M, Canon RF, Fuji X, and Micro Four Thirds — six mounts (seven SKUs counting EOS M + RF separately). One affordable manual-focus fisheye option for nearly every modern crop-sensor mirrorless body on the market.
• Compared to the original 10mm f/5.6, the Gen II adds 1° of field of view (172° → 173°), drops minimum focus distance from 0.2 m to 0.12 m, introduces Brightin Star’s IMC special coating to reduce flare and ghosting, and updates the aperture ring with hyperfocal-distance markings. Same f/5.6 maximum aperture, same manual focus.
• Set expectations honestly: this is a sub-$70 manual-focus lens. Optical quality, build, and edge sharpness will not rival a Sony 14mm f/1.8 GM or Sigma 14-24mm Art. It’s a creative-effect lens at the entry price tier — meant for skate/surf POV, music videos, architecture distortion, and experimental portraiture, not for landscape work that needs corner-to-corner critical sharpness.

Fisheye optics have never been this cheap across this many crop-sensor systems. Brightin Star announced the 10mm f/5.6 II APS-C fisheye lens on May 17, 2026 at a $65.99 introductory price (regular $74.99 after the May 25 launch window). It covers Sony E, Nikon Z, Canon EOS M, Canon RF, Fujifilm X, and Micro Four Thirds — six mounts, seven SKUs counting EOS M and RF as separate options. Watch the Amazon listings →

This is the second generation of Brightin Star’s budget fisheye, replacing a Gen I that has sat at the same $65-75 street price for the past three years. The headline upgrades are modest but real — a slightly wider 173° field of view, dramatically closer minimum focus (8 cm vs the original 20 cm), and the new IMC coating to fight flare. None of those changes make this lens compete with $1,000+ pro glass. They do make a $66 lens meaningfully better at the kinds of work people actually buy a $66 fisheye for.

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Six Mounts, One Affordable Fisheye Option

Cross-mount availability at this price point is the lens’s quietest superpower. Most budget fisheye options ship for one or two mounts — typically Sony E and Fuji X, sometimes MFT. The Brightin Star 10mm f/5.6 II goes wider: Sony E, Nikon Z, Canon EOS M (legacy), Canon RF, Fujifilm X, and Micro Four Thirds. That covers virtually every current and recent-past APS-C mirrorless body anyone is shooting, plus the entire MFT ecosystem (Panasonic GH-series, Olympus/OM System OM-1/5, Blackmagic Pocket 4K/6K). For Fuji X shooters specifically, the Brightin Star slots in as the cheapest fisheye option in a system that otherwise has no native Fuji fisheye under $200.

For Nikon Z APS-C shooters in particular (Zfc, Z50 II, Z30), affordable native-mount fisheye options have been thin. The Brightin Star isn’t a Nikon-designed solution, but at $66 it’s a fisheye that bolts onto a Z body without an adapter and starts shooting. For Canon RF-mount APS-C owners (R7, R10, R50, R100), the same story — Canon’s own fisheye options on RF are designed for full-frame at full-frame prices.

What the “II” Actually Improves

Brightin Star’s spec-sheet upgrades from Gen I to Gen II:

• Field of view: 172° → 173°. One degree wider. Functionally invisible in most compositions, but a real number, and the right direction.
• Minimum focus distance: 0.2 m → 0.12 m. This is the biggest practical change. Eight centimeters closer means you can stick the front element nearly on the subject for the exaggerated fisheye-close-up look that defined the early-2000s skate-video aesthetic. The original lens couldn’t.
• IMC special coating. Brightin Star’s claim is reduced flare and ghosting. Real-world testing will need to validate that — coating improvements are easy to claim and hard to verify until reviewers shoot into the sun. Until then, treat it as plausible but unproven.
• Updated aperture ring + hyperfocal markings. A redesigned aperture ring with proper hyperfocal-distance markings printed on the barrel. For a manual-focus lens this is genuinely useful — pre-set hyperfocal distance and shoot from the hip without focusing.

What didn’t change: f/5.6 maximum aperture, manual focus only, APS-C-only image circle, all-metal compact barrel. The Gen II is the same lens with the same physics — just with the rough edges sanded down.

Who Actually Buys a $66 Fisheye

Fisheye lenses are creative-effect tools. Nobody puts one on for a portrait commission. The realistic buyer profiles for the Brightin Star 10mm f/5.6 II:

• Skate and surf shooters — the bulging-front-element look that defines the genre, on a sacrificial lens that costs less than dinner instead of the $1,200 Canon EF 8-15mm f/4L that will get scratched anyway.
• Music video and short-film directors using APS-C bodies as B-cams. The new 12 cm minimum focus enables the tight-performance angle work that wasn’t possible on Gen I.
• Architecture, interiors, and experimental portrait shooters using fisheye distortion deliberately — tight stairwells, ceiling work, environmental portrait flattening.

Who it isn’t for: landscape photographers shooting for print, anyone who needs autofocus, professionals who’d want guaranteed corner-to-corner sharpness, or shooters whose work requires consistent technical quality across a body of images. The Brightin Star at $66 is a creative tool with predictable budget-tier compromises — soft corners, average mid-frame sharpness wide open, color rendering that benefits from RAW post-processing. Set expectations accordingly.

Where It Fits in the 2026 Lens Landscape

The third-party APS-C lens segment is exploding through 2026 — TTArtisan, 7Artisans, Brightin Star, Pergear, Meike, and Voigtländer all shipping aggressively. The Brightin Star 10mm f/5.6 II joins TTArtisan’s 7.5mm f/2 fisheye silver edition and the new Meike AF 85mm f/1.8 for Fujifilm GFX as proof that the third-party market is no longer chasing the majors — it’s filling gaps the majors don’t want. At $66, this lens isn’t competing with the TTArtisan 7.5mm ($100+), the Samyang 8mm f/3.5 (~$300, legacy mounts), or the Canon EF 8-15mm f/4L ($1,200, DSLR) — it owns the entry-tier slot all to itself. It’s also the opposite end of the lens market from this week’s other big launch: the Sony FE 100-400mm f/4.5 GM OSS at $4,298. Same week, 65× the price difference, both have buyers.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does the Brightin Star 10mm f/5.6 II work on full-frame cameras?

No. The image circle is APS-C only. If you mount it on a full-frame Sony A7-series, Nikon Z6/Z7, or Canon RF body, you’ll get a hard vignette — black corners around an APS-C-sized circle in the middle. Use it in crop mode on a full-frame body if needed, but it’s purpose-built for crop-sensor mirrorless.

Is it really manual focus only?

Yes. At f/5.6 and 10mm focal length, depth of field is so deep that practical hyperfocal-distance focusing works for most shots — set the focus ring to the hyperfocal mark on the barrel, and everything from roughly 30 cm to infinity is acceptably sharp. The new hyperfocal markings on the Gen II make this easier than on the original.

When does it actually ship?

Pre-orders are open now at the Brightin Star official store. The introductory $65.99 price runs May 15 through May 25; afterward, regular price is $74.99. B&H Photo availability is listed as “coming soon” — expect first units to ship in late May or early June. Amazon listings for Gen II haven’t appeared yet but should follow the B&H rollout.

Why is it called “10mm” but advertised as 173° field of view?

Fisheye lenses use a non-rectilinear projection — straight lines near the edges of the frame curve outward. That projection captures a much wider angle of view than a rectilinear lens of the same focal length would. A rectilinear 10mm APS-C lens would have roughly a 100° field of view; the fisheye projection bends that out to 173°. It is what makes the look look the way it does.

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Image credit: editorial composition and old-vs-new sketch infographic by PhotoWorkout. Launch details and pricing sourced from Brightin Star’s official store, Photo Rumors, and Nikon Rumors — cited below.

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