I have a Voightlander 25mm f0.95 and it's a gorgeous lens, especially on skin tones. I also have a Delft Oude Rayxar 50mm f0,75, which gives a dreamy ethereal quality and often unpredictable results.
Will say one thing, night shooting... you would be surprised what a digital camera can capture with a good lens using natural light. Every stop is crucial!
I have 4 Voigtlanders 10.5mm F/0.95, 17.5mm F/0.95mm, 25mm F/0.95 and the 42mm F/0.95. I use MFT so the fast lens work for me. I'm using the Panasonic GH5s along with 13 other vintage lenses. The ultra fast lenses are good. If I were using Full frame I would not bother so much with faster lenses. 2 of my favourite lenses are the Voigtlander 42.5mm F/0.95 and the Pentax SMC-A 50mm F/1.2
Back when I took photo and art classes, the prof says humans don't like pictures where one eye is in and one eye is out of focus. At least subconsciously, the brain prefers both. When did that change?
Heck if I know. I agree with your prof, though. I would argue that the best type of lens for a portrait is something in the (35mm/FF terms) 75mm to 120mm range at between f/4 and f/5.6, smaller if the background is suitable distant. (My preference, personally, is in the 75mm to 105mm range.) I've seen TONS of portraits where one eye is blurry or where the pupils are both in focus but the cheeks aren't. I can think of two cases where I know that worked for me. The first time that I recall thinking that look worked was in Boardwalk Empire in the scene where Purnsley shows up to kill Chalky. In that scene there are close-ups, face-filling-the-frame shots, of both characters where only their eyes are in focus. And that really works because its a very intense scene and those shots add to that a lot. Second, one of my best photos from this year did the exact same thing with a Yashica 445mm f/1.7 wide open (davidhancock.smugmug.com/2020-Top-20/i-sv9BjNN/A) and I think the result there was that it was a particularly captivating portrait that told a story about the wonder of being a young kid. But I'm not certain I know of many or any other instance where I'd say that look works. So I'd say that look CAN work, but typically is hard to achieve and there has to be some story behind the image that the specific look supports. By nature, doing a shot with a super-thin DoF on a person's face will require a very close portrait and it's an intimate-to-invasive-to-intimidating thing no matter how it's delivered.
DPreview in 2018 indicated they're three same and the optical formulae are identical. I don't know the arrangement that Ricoh and Tokina have, but I would hazard a guess that Tokina licensed the design to construct for non-Pentax cameras.
Hi! Sorry for being picky, but where on earth did you find that the refractive index of air is 0.5. I will not go into details here, but it basically means that the speed of light would go twice as fast in air.....!? (than in vacuum) Hint, a refractive index can't be less than 1 (at least in the case that applies here). Greetings from Sweden.
I think that came from Media Division's video on fast lenses, but you are correct (I just checked). RI in a perfect vacuum is 1 and in clean air it's 1.0003. I think I probably mis-stated it and I believe that what I meant was based on the RI in air, an aperture faster than 0.5 is impossible in Earth's atmosphere. I think that was what I meant. And thank you for pointing that out.
@@DavidHancock Ok, we all quote wrong at some time. In my refreshing (Googling) of my latent optics (physics) courses I discovered a remedy for f/0.5. Just do the lenses in diamond instead, RI=2.42 ;-) Best greetings from Sweden.
Necro-posting a bit, but based on some DoF calculations I've seen, this lens would have a similar look to the Canon RF 50/1.2 I had for a while, which is a cool look.
Hi David, I was watching this and first off I want to say great work! I did want to point out this lens is an MFT lens, so it's a 58mm F1.8-ish Full Frame equivalent. Being an MFT shooter I can see an easy use for this lens. Just wanted to throw my two cents in. Keep up the great work!
Old togs use to say f/8 and be there.Meaning it was more important to be on hand when an exceptional photo opportunity presented itself than any technical consideration. Hope you're staying well, David.
Definitely yes! Photos don't take themselves in a vacuum! And yes we are, Steve. I hope you are as well. We're doing pretty well, still hiking as the snow line chases our trailheads down the mountains. :D
Bigger apertures with lenses for smaller sensors is easier and cheaper. Voightländer has a lineup of many f/0.95 lenses for micro four third sensors. For example f/1.4 is uncommon with medium format lenses but very common with full frame lenses. Also Sigma has a lineup of affordable autofocus APS-C f/1.4 lenses while most full frame autofocus f/1.4 aren't affordable. There is the APS-C manual focus Kippon 40mm f/0.85 too. Nevertheless the Voightländer f/0.8 is an achievement and very useful because micro 4/3 videocameras doesn't have the shallow depth of field of full frame ones.
Really great discussion Dave! Imagine how many coffees we could consume trying to get to any kind of conclusion... we would certainly be buzzing! I might be mistaken here, but the fastest lens I'm aware of was the Planar 50mm f/0.7, though that was not a production lens, it was used by NASA during the Apollo program, and later by Stanley Kubrick. Generally speaking I feel the same as you, I don't often find any point in using a lens wide open and given enough light I'll definitely take a portrait on a 50mm at f/4 rather than f/1.4. That being said there have been occasions where a fast lens has let me make pictures that I would otherwise never have attempted, particularly street scenes at night, or incredibly low light situations like live music in a bar etc. In those cases a fast Rangefinder lens at f1.4 is definitely my preference over an SLR lens. For the majority of people there will be no need for these lenses but I feel there will certainly be people who have legitimate use cases for them too. There will also be those who buy them simply to celebrate how far we've come technologically.
Thank you, Michael. there are some faster, but you'll never see them. I know of a few mirror lenses that are faster, including one that was an f/0.38 designed for aerial work, which to me means it was used in space or the upper atmosphere because it has an aperture faster than the refractive index of air. For elemented lenses, the 50mm 0.7 has the fastest speed, but I'd argue that the 100mm f/0.73 that Zeiss made for x-ray machines should be considered faster (I'm open to the possibility that I'm wrong since the Planar was for 6X6, and I've no idea the formats for the 100 0.73 or American Optical 81mm 0.38.) There are also a handful of specialty lenses in the 0.6# range, too, but again probably reserved for use on things like satellites, the U-2, A-12, and so forth.
isn’t another factor - in addition to your point about critical focus - that an f1.2 lens will probably perform better at f1.4 or f2 than a f1.4 lens wide open. additionally, the “look” that you get from medium format can now be largely achieved with very fast lenses on full frame. it’s not so much the look out of focus areas at head and shoulders view rather the look at a full body environmental portrait (see the portraits of Richard Beaven to see an example of what i’m talking about)
that's a good point about the peak performance. And yes, as a general rule an f/2 would perform best around f/5.6 whereas an f/1.4 should start peaking around f/4. And that makes sense about the look, too.
@@DavidHancock 👍 thinking about it, the fetishisation of very fast lenses (at least for beginners/enthusiasts) seems to be partly driven by 2 things: 1) background blur being something that easily distinguishes photos from phone photos, and is easy to do - artificial bokeh isn’t quite good enough yet. 2) prevalence of aps-c cameras. if you have an aps-c camera you’re looking for a really fast lens just to get the same look as full frame. hence the 0.95 lenses from mitakon/7 artisans. on aps-c that’s equivalent in terms of DOF to 50mm 1.4 so not crazy. that said it’s still an incredibly shallow DOF on both formats...the difference nowadays compared to 20/30 years ago seems to be that the lens tech with use of elements etc gives a sharper result wide open at most focus distances? I have a Nikkor 50mm 1.4 and it’s pretty unusable at f1.4. it’s sort of an emergency setting...perhaps these days manufacturers would release a lens of that size as f2
Probably you could use the ultrafast lenses to properly expose this underexposed video footage! Jokes aside, totally agree with you about the shenanigans of this f-value craze.
I get what you're saying and I mostly agree, especially when it comes to paying much more just to get lenses that are a little bit faster. The new Fuji 50mm 1.0 comes to mind. It is noticably bigger and more expensive than the 56mm 1.2, but the benifits don't outweigh the costs, for me at least. But I see benefits in some of the third party lens choices like the Mitakon 35mm 0.95, because it's actually cheaper than all the premium fuji lenses and even cheaper than some of the 2.0 lenses, but still offer a good amount of sharpness at 0.95 in the middle of the image. I can only speak for myself, but I find it very helpful for indoor photography and getting good background separation. I agree that 0.95 (around 1.4 FF equivalent) isn't necessary in terms of background blur, but for the price and size I don't see a downside to this lens. It's manual focus of course but if that isn't a dealbreaker, I would recommend it. I love your interpretive dance, by the way. :-D
I can see that point for sure. Third-party lenses, though, are such a mixed bag. For fun, I bought all the different APS-C Sony E-mount 35mm f/1.2 lenses for under $150. They included the 7Artisans v.1, Neewer/AP-C (no-name), Kaxinda/Hengyijia/third-one-I-forget-the-name-of, and Cheecar. I completely expected them all to be the same exact lens inside and perform exactly the same way. They aren't; and they aren't the same optical design, either. There are three different designs and the performance varies wildly across them even within lenses that look identical on the outside. Only two have infinity stops that are usable (7Artisans and Cheecar). Only one has a suitable close-focus distance (the Cheecar). The Kaxinda/Hengyijia/third-one-I-forget-the-name-of have different infinity focus points and minimum focus points despite the print being the same on them (at close focus on them, the scales are all wrong in different ways, for instance.) Mitakon is a somewhat better brand. I've used, I think, two of their new lenses in the last five or eight years. They're better than some of the off-brand makers in terms of build and focus and optics.
There was a company that tried making vacuum lenses I can't remember much more than that though. Must have had other issues since we don't see them around.
I would think those would have trouble keeping a proper vacuum. And focusing seems like it would be particularly hard since it would be focusing against the vaccum. Also those would need to be attached to the camera permanently or the vacuum would break at the lens mount.
Great aspect into camera industry trends. I have the Kamlan 50mm 1.1 II love it. Fantastic, especially for night photography. I definitely will be looking to get this lens I don't mind micro four thirds. I just hope Panasonic keeps there promise. I can't wait to own a 0.95 lens. BS I am always in a position to take photos in very dark places without a flash. I am a night owl, I do a lot of street photography.
There was an 'available light' cult among photographers back in the 60s and 70's, and SK being an astute photographer was also afflicted. Fad then, fad now, nothing new.
Yeah! That's the lens that Media Division discusses in the video I linked. It's an amazingly informative video. They use a 100mm f/0.73 X-ray lens to film scenes for that video. That's -- I guarantee -- faster than a 29mm f/0.8.
I have Zeiss R-Biotar 100 mm f/0.73. Covers 6x6 medium format. It's the time of pandemic now, so it's patiently waiting for its first gen Sony mirrorless camera to be vandalized beyond repair, because with its ultra-short flange distance, it is impossible to focus anywhere farther than 30 centimeters. The bayonet has to be cut off completely to bring the rear element closer to the sensor. And yep, agree, this ultra-fast craze is a fad. Biotar is fun to use and raises many eyebrows on the street, but to be honest, offers very limited use cases, hence adaptation to digital body is of low priority by now.
Nice! I won't lie, I'd like to play around with x-ray lenses, but not at the cost of a camera. And I didn't know that covered 6X6. What a fantastic bit of engineering.
Well........your rant 3 years later still doesn't hold any water......people are still obsessed today with trying to get the blurriest out of focus background areas in their photography......shame really, cause the best "Bokeh" doesn't make the best photos.
Yes and no. The images I see are more about using a blurry background as an image element rather than a defining character. So it seems like the approach to this has toned down some.
I have a Voightlander 25mm f 0.95 and there's many a time when I can't use the fastest aperture setting. My ISO would be at its lowest setting and the shutter speed would be 1/8,000th and at f 0.95 I would be almost 2 stops overexposed. I would be forced to stop down. Having said that though, it is a wonderful lens. One of my favorites out of 15 lenses that I own. I'm thinking about getting the 42.5mm f 0.95. It would be good for portraits I think.
Not trying to be a dick, but: discussed, not really reviewed. I've found a single English language review of this lens on YT so far, another in German, and one or two from east Asia. I've seen a lot of other videos where people talk about the lens without putting hands on a copy or taking any pictures.
Not a fad nor is it a new thing. Super Fast lenses are not going away. This particular lens could sway me away from an entire Fullframe system. It would be F1.6 equivalent for DOF on FF which is not particularly fast but close enough to an F1.4. So the way I think of it is simply trying to get to where I am with Fullframe. If you're like me juggling m43 and Fullframe it would be nice to take the best of both and combine. Also the out of focus area on my Sony 50 GM F1.2 is superb. Same for Leica Nocitlux. So poor bokeh quality is on the lens itself not necessarily a quality of ultra fast lens physics. Having one eye in focus is annoying and I don't like it either. Time to back up. It's a specialty lens. You're making an assumption that it can only be used close up to where that happens or stop down. Backing up with subject further out creates a 3D quality that's artistic with a wow factor with the the whole subject in focus. Don't blame the tool if someone uses it poorly.
That 3D look, the photographic tem is subject isolation, the results are better on a larger image media with a longer lens. That's, IIRC, the point I was going for here.
I have a Voightlander 25mm f0.95 and it's a gorgeous lens, especially on skin tones. I also have a Delft Oude Rayxar 50mm f0,75, which gives a dreamy ethereal quality and often unpredictable results.
Nice! I can imagine that the ultra-fast lenses work that way, yes.
Will say one thing, night shooting... you would be surprised what a digital camera can capture with a good lens using natural light. Every stop is crucial!
That's a fair point, though more important for handheld, available-light night photos.
The Nokton lenses f0.95 are very helpful in m43 Cameras when filming in lowlight. Dream Lenses with smooth MF ring and nice Bokeh
Thank you! Also, good point about the DoF mirroring larger formats.
I have 4 Voigtlanders 10.5mm F/0.95, 17.5mm F/0.95mm, 25mm F/0.95 and the 42mm F/0.95. I use MFT so the fast lens work for me. I'm using the Panasonic GH5s along with 13 other vintage lenses. The ultra fast lenses are good. If I were using Full frame I would not bother so much with faster lenses. 2 of my favourite lenses are the Voigtlander 42.5mm F/0.95 and the Pentax SMC-A 50mm F/1.2
Back when I took photo and art classes, the prof says humans don't like pictures where one eye is in and one eye is out of focus. At least subconsciously, the brain prefers both. When did that change?
Heck if I know. I agree with your prof, though. I would argue that the best type of lens for a portrait is something in the (35mm/FF terms) 75mm to 120mm range at between f/4 and f/5.6, smaller if the background is suitable distant. (My preference, personally, is in the 75mm to 105mm range.)
I've seen TONS of portraits where one eye is blurry or where the pupils are both in focus but the cheeks aren't. I can think of two cases where I know that worked for me. The first time that I recall thinking that look worked was in Boardwalk Empire in the scene where Purnsley shows up to kill Chalky. In that scene there are close-ups, face-filling-the-frame shots, of both characters where only their eyes are in focus. And that really works because its a very intense scene and those shots add to that a lot. Second, one of my best photos from this year did the exact same thing with a Yashica 445mm f/1.7 wide open (davidhancock.smugmug.com/2020-Top-20/i-sv9BjNN/A) and I think the result there was that it was a particularly captivating portrait that told a story about the wonder of being a young kid. But I'm not certain I know of many or any other instance where I'd say that look works. So I'd say that look CAN work, but typically is hard to achieve and there has to be some story behind the image that the specific look supports. By nature, doing a shot with a super-thin DoF on a person's face will require a very close portrait and it's an intimate-to-invasive-to-intimidating thing no matter how it's delivered.
The Dog! LOL So cute Subscribed
:D
I read that Pentax 50mm f1.4 use the same fomular find on Tokina opera 50mm f1.4 which is a very sharp lens indeed. Not sure if it is truth.
DPreview in 2018 indicated they're three same and the optical formulae are identical. I don't know the arrangement that Ricoh and Tokina have, but I would hazard a guess that Tokina licensed the design to construct for non-Pentax cameras.
Hi!
Sorry for being picky, but where on earth did you find that the refractive index of air is 0.5. I will not go into details here, but it basically means that the speed of light would go twice as fast in air.....!? (than in vacuum)
Hint, a refractive index can't be less than 1 (at least in the case that applies here).
Greetings from Sweden.
I think that came from Media Division's video on fast lenses, but you are correct (I just checked). RI in a perfect vacuum is 1 and in clean air it's 1.0003. I think I probably mis-stated it and I believe that what I meant was based on the RI in air, an aperture faster than 0.5 is impossible in Earth's atmosphere. I think that was what I meant. And thank you for pointing that out.
@@DavidHancock Ok, we all quote wrong at some time. In my refreshing (Googling) of my latent optics (physics) courses I discovered a remedy for f/0.5. Just do the lenses in diamond instead, RI=2.42 ;-)
Best greetings from Sweden.
@@rudolfabelin383 Obvious! Why nobody thought of that before!
Necro-posting a bit, but based on some DoF calculations I've seen, this lens would have a similar look to the Canon RF 50/1.2 I had for a while, which is a cool look.
Hi David, I was watching this and first off I want to say great work! I did want to point out this lens is an MFT lens, so it's a 58mm F1.8-ish Full Frame equivalent. Being an MFT shooter I can see an easy use for this lens. Just wanted to throw my two cents in. Keep up the great work!
Thank you!
Old togs use to say f/8 and be there.Meaning it was more important to be on hand when an exceptional photo opportunity presented itself than any technical consideration. Hope you're staying well, David.
Definitely yes! Photos don't take themselves in a vacuum! And yes we are, Steve. I hope you are as well. We're doing pretty well, still hiking as the snow line chases our trailheads down the mountains. :D
Bigger apertures with lenses for smaller sensors is easier and cheaper. Voightländer has a lineup of many f/0.95 lenses for micro four third sensors.
For example f/1.4 is uncommon with medium format lenses but very common with full frame lenses.
Also Sigma has a lineup of affordable autofocus APS-C f/1.4 lenses while most full frame autofocus f/1.4 aren't affordable.
There is the APS-C manual focus Kippon 40mm f/0.85 too.
Nevertheless the Voightländer f/0.8 is an achievement and very useful because micro 4/3 videocameras doesn't have the shallow depth of field of full frame ones.
Good point. The register distance and sensor size, and the bayonet size, all play roles in maximum lens speed for a system.
Really great discussion Dave! Imagine how many coffees we could consume trying to get to any kind of conclusion... we would certainly be buzzing!
I might be mistaken here, but the fastest lens I'm aware of was the Planar 50mm f/0.7, though that was not a production lens, it was used by NASA during the Apollo program, and later by Stanley Kubrick.
Generally speaking I feel the same as you, I don't often find any point in using a lens wide open and given enough light I'll definitely take a portrait on a 50mm at f/4 rather than f/1.4. That being said there have been occasions where a fast lens has let me make pictures that I would otherwise never have attempted, particularly street scenes at night, or incredibly low light situations like live music in a bar etc. In those cases a fast Rangefinder lens at f1.4 is definitely my preference over an SLR lens.
For the majority of people there will be no need for these lenses but I feel there will certainly be people who have legitimate use cases for them too. There will also be those who buy them simply to celebrate how far we've come technologically.
Thank you, Michael. there are some faster, but you'll never see them. I know of a few mirror lenses that are faster, including one that was an f/0.38 designed for aerial work, which to me means it was used in space or the upper atmosphere because it has an aperture faster than the refractive index of air. For elemented lenses, the 50mm 0.7 has the fastest speed, but I'd argue that the 100mm f/0.73 that Zeiss made for x-ray machines should be considered faster (I'm open to the possibility that I'm wrong since the Planar was for 6X6, and I've no idea the formats for the 100 0.73 or American Optical 81mm 0.38.) There are also a handful of specialty lenses in the 0.6# range, too, but again probably reserved for use on things like satellites, the U-2, A-12, and so forth.
isn’t another factor - in addition to your point about critical focus - that an f1.2 lens will probably perform better at f1.4 or f2 than a f1.4 lens wide open.
additionally, the “look” that you get from medium format can now be largely achieved with very fast lenses on full frame. it’s not so much the look out of focus areas at head and shoulders view rather the look at a full body environmental portrait (see the portraits of Richard Beaven to see an example of what i’m talking about)
that's a good point about the peak performance. And yes, as a general rule an f/2 would perform best around f/5.6 whereas an f/1.4 should start peaking around f/4. And that makes sense about the look, too.
@@DavidHancock 👍 thinking about it, the fetishisation of very fast lenses (at least for beginners/enthusiasts) seems to be partly driven by 2 things: 1) background blur being something that easily distinguishes photos from phone photos, and is easy to do - artificial bokeh isn’t quite good enough yet. 2) prevalence of aps-c cameras.
if you have an aps-c camera you’re looking for a really fast lens just to get the same look as full frame. hence the 0.95 lenses from mitakon/7 artisans. on aps-c that’s equivalent in terms of DOF to 50mm 1.4 so not crazy. that said it’s still an incredibly shallow DOF on both formats...the difference nowadays compared to 20/30 years ago seems to be that the lens tech with use of elements etc gives a sharper result wide open at most focus distances? I have a Nikkor 50mm 1.4 and it’s pretty unusable at f1.4. it’s sort of an emergency setting...perhaps these days manufacturers would release a lens of that size as f2
Probably you could use the ultrafast lenses to properly expose this underexposed video footage!
Jokes aside, totally agree with you about the shenanigans of this f-value craze.
Lol, yeah. A cloud moved on and covered the sun while I was recording. I was not thrilled when I opened the video in the editor.
I get what you're saying and I mostly agree, especially when it comes to paying much more just to get lenses that are a little bit faster. The new Fuji 50mm 1.0 comes to mind. It is noticably bigger and more expensive than the 56mm 1.2, but the benifits don't outweigh the costs, for me at least. But I see benefits in some of the third party lens choices like the Mitakon 35mm 0.95, because it's actually cheaper than all the premium fuji lenses and even cheaper than some of the 2.0 lenses, but still offer a good amount of sharpness at 0.95 in the middle of the image. I can only speak for myself, but I find it very helpful for indoor photography and getting good background separation. I agree that 0.95 (around 1.4 FF equivalent) isn't necessary in terms of background blur, but for the price and size I don't see a downside to this lens. It's manual focus of course but if that isn't a dealbreaker, I would recommend it. I love your interpretive dance, by the way. :-D
I can see that point for sure. Third-party lenses, though, are such a mixed bag. For fun, I bought all the different APS-C Sony E-mount 35mm f/1.2 lenses for under $150. They included the 7Artisans v.1, Neewer/AP-C (no-name), Kaxinda/Hengyijia/third-one-I-forget-the-name-of, and Cheecar. I completely expected them all to be the same exact lens inside and perform exactly the same way. They aren't; and they aren't the same optical design, either. There are three different designs and the performance varies wildly across them even within lenses that look identical on the outside. Only two have infinity stops that are usable (7Artisans and Cheecar). Only one has a suitable close-focus distance (the Cheecar). The Kaxinda/Hengyijia/third-one-I-forget-the-name-of have different infinity focus points and minimum focus points despite the print being the same on them (at close focus on them, the scales are all wrong in different ways, for instance.) Mitakon is a somewhat better brand. I've used, I think, two of their new lenses in the last five or eight years. They're better than some of the off-brand makers in terms of build and focus and optics.
There was a company that tried making vacuum lenses I can't remember much more than that though. Must have had other issues since we don't see them around.
I would think those would have trouble keeping a proper vacuum. And focusing seems like it would be particularly hard since it would be focusing against the vaccum. Also those would need to be attached to the camera permanently or the vacuum would break at the lens mount.
Great aspect into camera industry trends. I have the Kamlan 50mm 1.1 II love it. Fantastic, especially for night photography. I definitely will be looking to get this lens I don't mind micro four thirds. I just hope Panasonic keeps there promise. I can't wait to own a 0.95 lens. BS I am always in a position to take photos in very dark places without a flash. I am a night owl, I do a lot of street photography.
This is definitely your lens. 😀
@@DavidHancock Your right Cityscape photography too 😆 Have a great Thanksgiving!
Zeiss designed a 50mm f0.7 for Nasa. That’s the lens Kubrick later used on Barry Lyndon.
There was an 'available light' cult among photographers back in the 60s and 70's, and SK being an astute photographer was also afflicted. Fad then, fad now, nothing new.
Yeah! That's the lens that Media Division discusses in the video I linked. It's an amazingly informative video. They use a 100mm f/0.73 X-ray lens to film scenes for that video. That's -- I guarantee -- faster than a 29mm f/0.8.
Good point. Lens fads get recycled like my jokes with new groups of people. :D
With MFT, the DoF of that Voigtlander wouldn't be an issue.
It would still be thing, but your point is correct in that it would not be as thin as with larger formats.
I have Zeiss R-Biotar 100 mm f/0.73. Covers 6x6 medium format. It's the time of pandemic now, so it's patiently waiting for its first gen Sony mirrorless camera to be vandalized beyond repair, because with its ultra-short flange distance, it is impossible to focus anywhere farther than 30 centimeters. The bayonet has to be cut off completely to bring the rear element closer to the sensor. And yep, agree, this ultra-fast craze is a fad. Biotar is fun to use and raises many eyebrows on the street, but to be honest, offers very limited use cases, hence adaptation to digital body is of low priority by now.
Nice! I won't lie, I'd like to play around with x-ray lenses, but not at the cost of a camera. And I didn't know that covered 6X6. What a fantastic bit of engineering.
Where are the sample images?
I don't think that this lens has been released yet.
You are wrong, it will make me happy!
:D
Well........your rant 3 years later still doesn't hold any water......people are still obsessed today with trying to get the blurriest out of focus background areas in their photography......shame really, cause the best "Bokeh" doesn't make the best photos.
Yes and no. The images I see are more about using a blurry background as an image element rather than a defining character. So it seems like the approach to this has toned down some.
I have a Voightlander 25mm f 0.95 and there's many a time when I can't use the fastest aperture setting. My ISO would be at its lowest setting and the shutter speed would be 1/8,000th and at f 0.95 I would be almost 2 stops overexposed. I would be forced to stop down. Having said that though, it is a wonderful lens. One of my favorites out of 15 lenses that I own. I'm thinking about getting the 42.5mm f 0.95. It would be good for portraits I think.
Voigtlander lenses are almost always spectacular to use, without a doubt.
Fast lens review by underexposed expert.
Thank you!
Not trying to be a dick, but: discussed, not really reviewed. I've found a single English language review of this lens on YT so far, another in German, and one or two from east Asia. I've seen a lot of other videos where people talk about the lens without putting hands on a copy or taking any pictures.
Not a fad nor is it a new thing. Super Fast lenses are not going away. This particular lens could sway me away from an entire Fullframe system. It would be F1.6 equivalent for DOF on FF which is not particularly fast but close enough to an F1.4. So the way I think of it is simply trying to get to where I am with Fullframe. If you're like me juggling m43 and Fullframe it would be nice to take the best of both and combine. Also the out of focus area on my Sony 50 GM F1.2 is superb. Same for Leica Nocitlux. So poor bokeh quality is on the lens itself not necessarily a quality of ultra fast lens physics. Having one eye in focus is annoying and I don't like it either. Time to back up. It's a specialty lens. You're making an assumption that it can only be used close up to where that happens or stop down. Backing up with subject further out creates a 3D quality that's artistic with a wow factor with the the whole subject in focus. Don't blame the tool if someone uses it poorly.
That 3D look, the photographic tem is subject isolation, the results are better on a larger image media with a longer lens. That's, IIRC, the point I was going for here.