Mitakon 85mm f1.2 first impressions and samples

Yesterday I received this lens from the good guys at infoto.pl and I immediately noticed the weight of that beast. It's heavy... to say the least, but a portrait 85mm lens of f/1.2 has to be big. That's just physics. The one I got is with the Nikon mount and I tested it on my Sony A7.

I immediately packed my bag and took it for a spin. I tested the lens at various apertures as I always do. Wink wink to the guys who recently criticized me for uploading only photos at open aperture. (more info at the end of this entry) Optical properties at f/1.2 are just breathtaking. Chromatic aberrations only appear at really contrastive parts of the photo (classic branch-in-the-sky case) and the sharpness is just crazy. I feel like the lens designers have been paying a lot of attention to those new 30, 40 and 50-something-megapixel cameras. In case of this lens though I decided to stop down a bit for some of the photos as it helped edge of the frame sharpness considerably. The centre sharpness is very very good across the apertures.

The bokeh is impressive. It's very smooth for the most part and outstanding sources or light are nicely eye-shaped if they are off-centre.  (As many as 11 aperture blades contribute greatly to that). The DoF is paper thin at times and your slightest move can ruin your focus so it's important to have that in mind. Breathe in and

bokeh at f/1.2

bokeh at f/1.4

Below are some sample photos for you guys, most of them at f/1.2, but some are stopped down a bit (not more than to f/2). The first couple of photos are wide open for sure, the following ones I'm not sure about to tell the truth. I encourage you to see details for some of the photos (links below them).

click for 1:1 detail crop

click for 1:1 detail crop you can see a fly and tiny webs

click for 1:1 detail crop you can see ants in detail

click for 1:1 detail crop

For enthusiast of stopping down fast lenses I did a comparison of f/1.2 and f/8. The in-focus area is perhaps a tiny bit sharper in the latter, but the main difference is considerable light fall-off at the edges in the wide open photo and lack of it when stopped down. This will happen with any fast lens.

What I like a lot about this lens is that you can slice out an object even if it's quite big and shot from quite far away. The background 'blur' makes the car stand out.

I adore a fast sharp lens more than anything else so when I someone spends a lot of cash on a lens I think it's fair to expect a lot from its open aperture performance and when the open aperture performance if top notch it doesn't make any sense for me to stop it down unless DoF is what you need.  An f/2 lens stopped down to f/8 will perform similarly to an f/3.5 lens of the same focal length stopped down to f/8. It may be an oversimplification, but there's a lot of truth to it. If a lens is not sharp at f/8 it just means that it is garbage and you shouldn't be using it.

Several 1:1 crops:

Samyang 135mm f/2 first impressions and samples

Today I had a rare pleasure to lay my hands on an extraordinary lens: Samyang 135mm f/2. Thanks to the guys at infoto.pl who made this possible. It's one of the latest releases from Samyang and I have been waiting for this for quite some time since the lens had a pretty good word of mouth right from the moment it was announced.

But first things first. Since the last time I have seriously upgraded my camera. I went from a Sony NEX5n which I still love to the 24MP Sony A7 so the quality of the photos should be much improved. I will try to post a complex review of the camera in the near future, but I will just say it's an amazing piece of gear and it surpassed my expectations in every aspect.

The Samyang 135mm is quite a bulky lens, but achieving such wide aperture at that focal length just takes its toll and there's no way those laws of physics can be bypassed. The first thing you notice are just huge front and rear optical elements, which are a promise of good optical quality and the first photos you take just confirm that 100%. If I could summarize the experience in just one sentence, it would be: "that is the sharpest lens I have ever used". I have seen a couple tests online prior to using it, but taking the photos myself and then seeing them on a large screen I just couldn't believe my eyes.
Some of my samples, all taken at f/2 because stopping down is not necessary here (and several 100% pixel per pixel crops):

100% crop

100% crop

100% crop

100% crop

But the sharpness is not all. This lens has got amazing colour rendition and contrast...

....and spectacular bokeh...

 ....and the chromatic aberration is basically nonexistent.

Every one of 24 million pixels is put to use by this lens. You can see on some of the crops that the detail is almost finer than the digital 'grain', I would love to see some samples from a Sony A7R or Nikon D600. I have not corrected chromatic aberration on any of the photos.

Using this lens I camer to had to remember to keep my exposure times short (as it is a tele lens) which was more than easy during the day, but in the afternoon I had too boost ISO100 to ISO800 to stay in the safe zone.

There is an old rule of thumb for exposure times. When handholding your shots your times shouldn't be longer than 1/(focal length), so basically for this lens the value was 1/135s and 1/160s when you round it off to an existing value. You have to remember though that this applies to full frame, when using a crop sensor, you need to calculate the equivalent. So when using Sony NEX5n (crop factor of 1.5x) with this lens the safe exposure time would be around 1/200s as 1.5 times 135 equals 202.5. You have to remember that this rule just tells you what is the longest eposure time you can safely handhold, it does not mean that all of those shots will be sharp. Shaky hands can ruin everything, but if you are steady, you can just as well pull off a longer exposure time. But still I think this is very useful to keep that in mind.

* The lens I tested was a Nikon mount and I used an adapter to mount it. This does not change anything, but I thought some people might wanna know that.

edit 19.04.15 - I'm adding some more samples:

Voigtlander 28mm f/2 between two cameras

I've recently had another opportunity to test a lens by Voigtlander. It was 28mm this time. The lens is really compact (you can see how it fits in my palm above) and fast for a wide angle lens as it is f/2. Seems like a perfect lens for a street photographer. I took it for a spin along with a Fuji X-A1 that I borrowed off my mate.

I was expecting a sharp lens and was not disappointed. Stopped down to f/2.8 it really gives satisfactory results. I was really surprised to see that this lens has very little (if any) chromatic aberrations, even when pointed directly at light sources. In the photos above you can see that I was trying really hard to get the worst lighting conditions possible, but the aberrations are at a really low level.
As usual with Voigtlander products the lens renders colour beautifully and the bokeh is pleasant to look at thanks to as many as 10 aperture blades. I would be very anxious to test that lens on FF as it would really spread its wings on a bigger sensor.
Another thing I wanted to do with this lens is compare if it works any different on two cameras by various manufacturers: Sony and Fuji.
My first impressions of the Fuji I was getting to know were not positive. The LCD display is not really easy to judge focus by (much less sharp than my Sony NEX5N's) and the camera on the whole has a much more plastic feel to it. But actually when I uploaded the photos to my computer I found out that the photos are really decent. The sensor is really efficient and similar to work with to that of my NEX5N's. Below you can see some side-by-side comparisons.

I deliberately used the same settings on both cameras and didn't process the photos much. The only difference you notice right away is the was the two sensors render colours and it seems to me that the Sony camera I've been using for the last couple of years produces photos a little tinted with yellowy green warmth, while the Fuji images are much cooler and a bit more neutral, but the difference is very slight.
Kind thatnks to the guys at infoto.pl for sending over the lens for a test. I hope I will be able to test it on FF in the future.

Voigtlander 50mm f/1.5 lens test sample shots

It's one of those lenses that you have to get to know to really appreciate. I've had it for a couple of weeks now and my opinion changed a complete 180. And that just proves that doing tests of studio setups and preparing resolution charts sometimes says completely nothing about a piece of equipment. This lens has integrity and there are no numbers that can express that. Thanks to infoto.pl for letting me test this lens.

Voigtlander as a brand has been known to combine new technologies with tons of legacy and I would say that this lens is a great example of that approach. First of all it is really compact and light and has got a fantastic feel. It just is a small piece of craftsmanship. I know that those things don't affect the way it takes photos, but they do affect the smoothness of focus and aperture rings which is just amazing. The lens feels really solid and there is exactly zero backlash so if at any point you feel like changing the direction of focusing you just do it without the unpleasant rattling. Another thing is that the focus throw is rather short which I adore so you will be able to run through the whole focus range without having to let the focus ring go at any time. (some people might not like this, but it wasn't a problem for me)

The next thing that I really appreciate is the bokeh. Not only is it amazing, but it is in perfect sync with my preferences when it comes to stopping down. Most lenses will have the best bokeh at maximum aperture, but to my amazement this one has the best bokeh just a little stepped down. This will probably be caused by the aperture having as many as 10 blades. (Nikkor 50/1.4D has 7 blades for example) Many photographers I know will usually step down half a stop or a whole when they use very fast lenses just to get that sharpness kick in. When I did this with the Voigtlander 50/1.5 I realised that the bokeh at f/2 is even better than at f/1.5. That's why 95% of the photos were taken at f/2.

All the sample photos taken with my Sony NEX5N through a Voigtlander NEX-VM adapter.

What I love: great bokeh combined with superb sharpness (100% crop below) at f/2

butterflies' 'horns' and the fabric of the dress are sharp as a tack at f/2

Another thing that most of those modern lenses lack is the ability to preserve crispness of colour. No trouble with that here:

colour and contrast rendering abilities are just top notch

exceptionally good bokeh visible through the window and pleasantly soft out-of-focus legs

super lens for portraits (100% crop below)

really nothing much left to wish for when the details are as fine as the 'grain'

No lens is perfect and this one isn't either. At f/1.5 the centre of the image is very decent, but like with the lenses from the olden days the corners in this one are just a tad soft. Thankfully stopping it down does a lot of good to the focus as well as the bokeh so no harm there. Another weak point is the hromatic aberration, but this is an issue that all fast lens freaks have to deal with in their own fashion. ACR comes to the rescue so you can remove those green and purple ghosts as easily as it gets.

some chromatic aberration in contrastive sections, nothing serious though

 +

- outstanding bokeh (10 aperture blades)
- solid, well designed and compact body
- sharp enough at f/2
- good colour and contrast rendering
- comfortable focusing / high precision focus ring
- vintage feel

-

- some chromatic aberration