[shoplink 20259 ebay]
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“jieying-usa” is a well known eBay reseller that modifies lenses so that they can fit on Micro Four Thirds camera without the use of adapters. And his latest creation is the modified [shoplink 20259 ebay]Kowa 77mm f/1.0 lens[/shoplink]. This is the description: “This lens is 77mm f/1.1~f/11 , was manufactory in Japan by Kowa. Lens rework on Panasonic Lumix G1 GF1 GH1 or Olympus E-P1 E-P2. After rework image little large than 77mm, Lens focusing from 5ft to infinity. (scale will not correctly you must use screen or viewfinder focusing). Glass looks mint, no fungus and no scratch. It is specially for Portrait use with full open aperture, image will be soft, when you step down after F/2.8 will get sharper, but when you use small aperture, corner image looks blur. I think buy this lens is to use large opening soft effect, smaller aperture doesn’t make any sense. Including a tripod mount, you may take it off if you feel not easy to carry on. (camera body for display only, not included)”
[shoplink 20259 ebay]Click here to see the Kowa 77mm f/1.0 lens at eBay[/shoplink].
I found a few image samples at Flickr (Click here). Let us know if you find more images!
22 Responses
Nice pricetag for a lens that will pretty likely look awefull wide open and is bigger than the G1
yeah the price is not acceptable. there such broad range of lenses which can be used instead for the same or even less.
Why do keep posting this? These lenses are modified in such a way that they become much slower!
Simple answer. The key to any site is adding new content constantly.
So he has to add new content even if it’s not a rumor or related to 43rds.
Hmmm, as always with articles…the truth is not all articles are liked by everyone. Simply skip if you don’t care about the news. I for example would be really interested in getting a 7mm f/1.0 lens! But that’s me 🙂
don’t think i mentioned anywhere about liking or not liking.
all i said was that web sites need new content constantly, therefore, whoever runs the site has to find new content all the time.
i didn’t say it was bad, did i? and you need not to be offended by my comment. ALL websites want/need new content – otherwise, they website simply dies over time.
I would also like a 77mm f1.0 lens. But this guy is modifying lenses with a negative lens to fix the focussing distance, this makes them slower than f1.0.
I would similar to taking a 50mm f1.2 lens and than add add a 2X tele-converter, saying it is a 100mm f1.2.
its good that such options exist, if you want to pay that money thats a matter of your priorities. I can imagine such lenses can result in great photos, provided its in the hands of a creative person, who knows how to use it.
We need Oly to release that 50mm in 1.2 with macro capabality.
Great for portraits, then sharpens up like a tack at 2.8 for macro work.
Is this possible?
@Bernhardt…i would prefer Olympus release seperate version for each purpose;
a 1.4 portrait 50mm and a 2.8 macro lens….it would keep the complexity/price of each lens at a reasonable level
It’s not particularly practical, as correcting for macro focus is at odds with large aperture. It can be done, witness the superb OM 50/2 and the DZ 50/2, but its expensive. Like Ulli, I’d rather have separate lenses that cost less each.
Here’s tehe “unmodified” one: http://cgi.ebay.com/77mm-f1-1-SUPER-FAST-lens-DIGITAL-ASTRO-applications-/310080137984?pt=Camera_Lenses&hash=item4832376b00
Many of the images on Flickr seem to be made with a Kowa 77mm spotting scope + adapter, rather than this 77mm f/1.0 lens. Noting this because a lot of those images (e.g. birds) look pretty sharp, and I doubt if the adapted lens will produce similar results.
I recently bought a 75mm f/1.3 c mount lens + M43 adapter for $160. Still waiting to get hold of it so can’t report on image quality yet…but I bet it’s not $400 worse than the above.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170603688323&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT
I think you bought one of those “CCTV” lenses, chances are the quality is indeed going to be bad.
Kudos to jieying-usa for making all these lenses to fit natively. Like an artist, sell one every so often to make a living. And it looks like the Kowa 55/1 for $499 is a popular item. Kudos also to admin for posting, giving us hungry buyers an alternative shopping option to the mainstream sellers.
Since it’s modified one, actually it’s not f1.1 lens anymore.So the admin would just like the mark f1.1?
The original KOWA 77/1.1 Back focus is too short,
So the possible way is to take some element out
and keep it can match the M4/3.
Why buy expensive poor quality fast glass converted to a format that does not have a guaranteed future?
Lumix 20/1.7 M4/3 makes sense because it’s fantasticly sharp.
Voigtländer 25mm f/0.95 M4/3 makes beautiful images, but I would prefer LTM or M-mount.
Cosmicar Television Lens 75mm f/1.4 is lovely, /cheap/ and C-mount.
Noktor HyperPrime 50mm f/0.95 does not make sense because it’s expensive, optically shoddy and dedicated to M4/3.
Ditto this.
While M4/3 bodies make sense because they can use almost any other mount’s lenses, I think you’ll find the flip side is their lenses can only be used on M4/3.
exactly!
Well, the old RF lens, like Nikon or Contax ones, will be nice choice. As for thw modified lens, I prefer the Japanese RF(fixed lens). I already made some of them by my own hands, like Yashica Lynx 14 and Half 14.
Just share some with Admin and other M4/3 fans.
How much slower are they?
yeah nice