Kase’s AF 150mm Reflex Lens Brings Donut Bokeh to Autofocus Shooters

Kase’s 150mm f/5.6 AF Reflex lens is built for photographers who want the lens flare oddities, circular highlights, and compressed perspective of a mirror lens without giving up autofocus. That alone makes it unusual. Autofocus is still rare in reflex, or catadioptric, lenses, and Kase’s move turns a once quirky manual-only look into something that feels far easier to use in the field.

The lens was first shown at CP+ in 2026 and is reported for Sony E, Nikon Z, and Canon EF mounts, with a manual-focus version planned for Canon RF. It keeps a fixed f/5.6 aperture, which puts it squarely in classic reflex territory. The design also leans into the format’s signature rendering instead of trying to hide it: donut-shaped bokeh comes from the central obstruction and mirror-based optical path, and Kase is clearly treating that effect as the point, not the problem.

That is what makes the 150mm focal length interesting. Reflex lenses are usually associated with much longer reaches, where compact size is the selling point against a conventional telephoto. At 150mm, Kase has made a shorter, more approachable version of the idea, one that looks especially aimed at portrait shooters and creative photographers chasing a surreal, vintage, highly stylized telephoto look rather than a clinically perfect optic.

Kase has already shown that the format can work for it. Its earlier Reflex 200mm f/5.6 MC is a manual-focus full-frame lens with 6 elements in 5 groups, a 2m-to-infinity focusing range, and a 67mm interface. That lens has been listed across Sony E, Canon RF, Nikon Z, Canon EF, Fujifilm G, Fujifilm X, Hasselblad XCD, and Nikon F, and Kase has described it as a compact reflex telephoto that creates circular bokeh. The new 150mm version looks like the same idea with a faster workflow.

The broader signal here is bigger than one oddball lens. Mirror lenses have long traded conventional image quality and adjustable apertures for portability and a distinctive look, and modern examples like Tokina’s fully manual SZ 900mm PRO Reflex F11 MF CF show the niche is still alive. Kase’s autofocus 150mm suggests that the next phase of reflex lenses may not be about perfection at all. It may be about making a very specific visual signature easier to reach, easier to track, and much harder to ignore.