Irix 21mm F1.4 Dragonfly Announced for Pentax

A high-performance ultra-wide lens for full-frame

By wadge22 in Third-Party Announcements on Mar 21, 2022

Irix continues to show support for the K-mount by releasing another high quality lens to its lineup available for Pentax cameras. The new Irix 21mm F1.4 Dragonfly was originally released as a video lens, but is now being offered with a new body as a photo lens. This lens contains 15 elements in 11 groups, including four ultra-low disperison, four high reflective, and two aspherical elements. It covers a field of view of 89.7 degrees on full frame, yet delivers distortion below 2%. The lens is currently available for £675.75 directly from Irix Europe.  An official US release is expected in the future. This lens It joins a lineup of no less than 5 other Irix lenses for Pentax.

Irix lenses offer high-performance optical designs with plenty of modern features such  as weather sealing and nano coating—no other third-party lenses for Pentax are weather sealed. This particular 21mm is an ultra-wide-angle lens designed for full-frame such as the Pentax K-1, and offers automatic aperture with manual focus, similar to Pentax A-series lenses. Unlike A-series lenses however, focal length data is transmitted to the body for Shake Reduction and EXIF data purposes, and there is no aperture ring on the lens. The lens will of course also work with APS-C bodies, and two seperate lens hoods will be included, one for full-frame and one for APS-C.

To learn more about how Irix lenses fare, see also our in-depth and user reviews:

• Irix 11mm F4 in-depth review
• Irix 15mm F2.4 in-depth review
• Irix 30mm F1.4 user reviews
• Irix 45mm F1.4 in-depth review
• Irix 150mm F2.8 in-depth review