First image sample taken with the Mitakon 50mm f/0.95 Full Frame E-mount lens.
Almost three months ago we reported about the first image samples taken with a prototype Mitakon 50mm f/0.95 Full Frame E-mount lens (SAR post here). According to one of our trusted source the lens will now be launched on April 20th! And it will cost $799. That’s $220 more than their other E-mount lens, the [shoplink 14656 ebay]35mm f/0.95 lens for ASP-C E-mount cameras (they are on auction here on eBay)[/shoplink] which doesn’t cover the FF sensor area.
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terrific.
This on the A7s will be incredible.
You can take nosie fre pics in absolute dark conditions…a dream come true 🙂
I’m sure there’s a black cats joke in there somewhere…
They are hanging out with the bats joke.
Not that much, actually. It doesn’t have OSS or IBIS.
The Sony F1.8 OSS would be better for lowlight shots (despite being an APS-C lens, I know that).
This just means we need to see IBIS on the A9!
F0.95 + ISO409.600 + IBIS. THIS is a combination I’d like to see! Heheheheh! (as crappy looking as it would be)
That is only relevant for static subjects taken hand held as IS of any kind does not help with movement, and a support tripod, gorrilapod , beanbag whatever will always give better results.
But unless you want really really shallow DOF, why would you need a fast lens like that if you’re going to use a tripod anyway?
Still, you have a point.
Since I’m a handheld shooter (of somewhat static subjects) I was with that in mind. Which is still valid.
The Canon 35mm f/2 IS can be handheld at 1/6 on the a7r with guaranteed sharpness. This f/0.95 lens is 2 stops (and 1/8) faster than f/2 but because it’s a non-stabilised 50mm you need a shutter that’s at least 3 stops faster (1/50). So you’re actually losing 1 stop.
One is 35mm the other 50mm… so not the same to start with. Then there’s always the consideration that IS only helps for static subjects.
Of course… you can also argue that no two lenses (designs) are alike… this and the Noctilux 50/0.95 and the Canon 50/0.95 have the same spec but they give different looks that someone might want to have for different occasions.
But at the end of the day, if you’re stuck in a dark place with no tripod, images captured with the 35/2 IS can get 1 stop more light than a 50/0.95 😉
OK. Let’s also throw in, then, the E-mount 35/1.8 and 50.1.8 OSS lenses, or the half-a-dozen SAL lenses faster than F2 that could be used on something like an A99 with IBIS. Some of those are even 50mm.
I have the E 35/1.8 OSS and 50/1.8 OSS as well but you get shake around 1/12 and they are APS-C, so they capture 1 stop less total light than FF.
The a99 can’t be considered… it’s not a real camera 😀 jk… we can’t talk about the a99 because it doesn’t do ISO400K… unless we’re pushing in post. Then we have to talk about all cameras.
I had the SEL35F18 and got some good hand-held shots at 1/6th.
The point is, the 35/2 IS is better… if you got 1/6s shots with the 35 1.8 OSS then you can get 1/3s shots with the 35/2 IS.
Here are 1/3s shots I did with the 35/2 IS:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/genotypewriter/11711166705/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/genotypewriter/11711412023/
I’ve gone as slow as 0.8″ with this lens. The 1/6s I mentioned before was a conservative figure.
With 1/3s, you could never take pictures of moving objects, so the advantage is moslty for scenes in which objects dont move… meaning you could use a tripod as well, right?
We don’t always have tripods with us… and sometimes tripods aren’t even allowed or they are impractical (e.g. standing in water, in the middle of a busy place, etc.). Good IS/OSS can only improve the opportunities to take photos.
And due to low res will still do a decent job of resolving the sensor. What a great combo! should be nice for video as well.
How much difference is there between A7S and 12mp-downscaled-A7R?
Actually you could down-res the a7r image even smaller than 12mp (to reduce noise) and still match the resolution of the a7s.
Could you please explain this a little more? I have the A7r, and don’t intend on getting the A7s, but its low-light capabilities are certainly appealing. I don’t “need” 36MP, but downscaling for web sizes, the images are still rather special.
Down scaling is the way to go because you’re basically “averaging” things out. As a result of this, noise levels are also reduced in the smaller image. For example dxo mark has the “screen” vs. “print” option when comparing noise between two sensors. The latter effectively compares sensors at the same resolution and the sensor with the higher resolution gets a favourable change in noise levels as a result. The more you downscale, the better it is for reducing noise (of course you need to draw a line and balance resolution vs. noise).
The less than 12MP comment was because a 36MP image when rescaled to 12MP will have more detail than an image that comes from a 12MP sensor. The reason is, these Bayer CFA sensors capture less than the box-rated amount of effective resolution. If we say the real resolution is 75% of claimed resolution, an image captured by an a7r will have 27MPs worth and when resized to 12MP, it will have ~12MPs of effective resolution (depending on the algorithm used). The image from the a7s will have only around 9MPs worth to start with. If we go with this assumption (75%) we can roughly say that an a7r image when rescaled to around 9MPs will still have the same resolution as a full a7s image. It will also have much less noise than it originally had.
I thought so, I just wanted to check I wasn’t missing anything. Thanks for the exp.
For any sensible exposures, there will be very minute difference. For insanely high ISOs A7S will be somewhat better, but who shoots ISO 409600 anyway?
Honestly, this is the first product I’ve seen in a long time which looks appealing. The concept of f/0.95 on MFT seemed like a waste; you’re better of with FF and f/1.8. On APS was a little better, but really not there. On full frame — now there’s a winner, assuming the IQ is sensible (and by IQ, I mean colors, bokeh, etc. more so than sharpness).
“The concept of f/0.95 on MFT seemed like a waste; you’re better of with FF and f/1.8.”
Exposure wise f0.95 is always faster than f1.8.
If you’re talking DoF, as you seem to be, often with 35mm equiv and larger systems you find yourself stopping down for more DoF otherwise, for example, with a 50mm lens at that sort of distance DoF is often too thin to get both eyes sharp.
Uhm, exposure wise you could just increase ISO on full frame camera.
ISO 1600 on FF = ISO 800 on m4/3 in terms of noise, and same exposure if using f/1.8 on FF and f/0.95 on m4/3 🙂
oh please could you mFT fanboys stick to your own little demented world. Only in very specific conditions would you need to up the ISO to get a certain shutter speed/DOF combo on the FF typically low light of moving subjects.In nearly every other situation { daylight, flash/artificial/ light, static subjects in low light etc etc} .
Even here you really need to stretch the scenario to get the FF up to a super high ISO that is seldom needed in the vast amount of situations. The “2 stops” better for FF only applies to super high ISO , the best FF models are about the same at 1600ISO as the top mFT are at base that gives them a 3 stop advantage in nearly all shooting situations.
Equivalence works like this to be equivalent the image need to have :
“””THE SAME EFFECTIVE AOV””
“””THE SAME EFFECTIVE DOF””
“””THE SAME TOTAL LIGHT “””
EM1 200ISO vs DF 1600 ISO comparison below Imaging Resource RAW sample nothing done to file just opened in ACR defaults. And the A7s looks to be potentially better still
Funny that some folks hate MFT so much that they even attack people for not bashing MFT enough – when they just correctly explained why FF, by geometry, has no disadvantage in exposure speed when equivalent F-stops are used…
House: symptom of rabies
LOL! I was just thinking the same thing as I was re-reading his daft rant against poor Meowingtons… as if he saw the letters MFT and just began foaming at the mouth, eyes bugging out and furiously hacking at his keyboard with the caps lock down.
“Exposure wise f0.95 is always faster than f1.8.”
No, it isn’t. You would, while retaining about the same level of sensor output quality, of course use 2 EV steps more sensitivity with FF.
What I said was that exposure wise f0.95 is always faster than f0.95.
Use whatever sideways logic you like but that fact simply can’t be argured with.
Your “fact” exists only for a “photographer” who doesn’t know about ISO or maybe has his ISO dial glued to one fixed setting.
Eh? What planet are you on?
My point was that wide apertures ARE useful on smaller sensor systems and indeed they can have advantages and yet I get all this crap about raising the ISO and using smaller apertures? WTF? If you want to use a smaller aperture you don’t need f0.95.
I say this as an owner of an A7 and MFT and previous owner of APS-C.
No point really to argue here. You can’t explain that that there’s one stop difference so don’t waste your time.
Almost 2 stops between mFT/FT and FF due to the little one being almost quarter sized. It’s APS-C that is 1 stop from FF (half the area of FF).
If I understood woof woof’s comment, he just mentioned that f/0.95 lens will be always faster than f/1.8 lens (he didn’t mention the size of capturing device) in which case his argument is correct.
You might want to read the first line of his original comment. His reply was disputing Peter’s comment which is exactly about small sensor+faster lens vs. large sensor+equivalent (slower) lens.
ah ok, re-read it – lazy in the afternoon I am
The point is that, FF + f/1.8 lens has same noise as 43 + f/0.95 lens, but FF lens is sharper, cheaper, smaller and has autofocus. The main 43 advantage is sensor’s cost. 43 sensor may also have faster readout or better software that comes with it, but that isn’t fundamental and is a detail of implementation.
Think of FF body as 43 body with permanently attached 0.5x focal reducer to it
A typical m43 set is (still) smaller than a typical FF set because
(1) there is no ‘typical’ FF mirrorless set yet available, ie, FF set means DSLR which means larger lenses than mirrorless would.
(2) there are no f/4, f/5.6, and f/8 lenses for FF for common focal lengths equivalents: 7-14 mm f/4 -> 14-28 mm f/8, or 45 mm f/1.8 -> 90 mm f/3.5 (outside of macro), or 12 mm f/2 -> 24 mm f/4, or 75 mm f/1.8 -> 150 mm f/3.5 (though we had once had a 180 mm f/4).
But this only applies to the ‘set’ idea which assumes that people have both slow and fast lenses and also might be content with only fast-ish lenses in their set.
Except sensors noise doesn’t scale linearly with size. Large sensors are always less efficient than smaller sensors.
There’s more than ten years of empirical proof now that sensor noise indeed does scale linearly enough with size – from the smallest compact camera sensor at least up to FF.
While every sensor design is different and therefore will have little differences even at the same size, the size difference between small sensors and larger ones, like mFT vs. Aps-c and aps-c vs. FF is big enough to make the larger sensors get a winning lead at the end of the day. Add that to the benefits of simpler lens designs and it’s a win-win for the larger formats.
That was back in the days of film when you had limited options with film emulsions. With digital you can increase the ISO on the larger sensor to compensate for a smaller f-number. At the end of the day, equivalent lenses on larger formats win because they’re simpler and therefore sharper, smaller and cheaper too.
Well, no. I’m not back in the days of film as I own a “FF” digital camera.
Yes, with FF you can stop down and increase your ISO but what’s the point f0.95 then?
f0.95 is fine for very low light and artistic use if you’re willing to accept that little will be sharp but if you want increased DoF and keep the same framing and shutter speed then smaller systems can actually have an advantage.
Anyway, I’ll stop teaching you to suck eggs. I just felt that it was worth pointing out that wider aperture lens use on smaller than FF cameras are not pointless and in fact can offer advantages.
You have mixed everything up. Please read again…
The point made is, if a mFT camera shoots at 1/100 at ISO100 with a 25/0.95 lens, a FF camera can also get that shot just with a 50/1.8 (1.9 actually) lens at 1/100 but at ISO400. As the FF sensor has around 2 stops better noise, the 2 stop increase in ISO wont introduce more noise.
As the answer to your question why anyone would do this… first, a f/1.8 lens is optically simpler than a f/0.95 lens for the same FOV, making it possible to optimise the slower lens better for image quality. The simpler lens is also cheaper to produce because although it is a larger focal length, the number of elements necessary and the quality of glass needed makes the overall cost of the lens lower. It is also easier quality control as there are fewer things to go wrong.
So, with digital, there absolutely is no benefit in going for a smaller sensor with a faster lens as opposed to a larger sensor with an equivalent (slower) lens. If you have an issue with that you need to take it up with physics 🙂
mmmm…
i read that “equivalent” site too, then try everything on my own and you know what… its full of crap
“if a mFT camera shoots at 1/100 at ISO100 with a 25/0.95 lens, a FF
camera can also get that shot just with a 50/1.8 lens at 1/100 but at
ISO400″
NO it does NOT
the guy who wrote that site, may know a little about math, and certainly can make a kool-aid… but i bet he wrote it in mind and never tested theory.
i tried everything he preach, i own cell phone camera, 1/2.3 cameras, 1” cameras, APS-C cameras and FF camera, not a single claim he does hold water in all the sensors and lenses i tested, in fact the wider the gap between sensor size the more his theory fall apart.
In short, NOT, a FF camera will not give you “equivalent” shots to tiny sensors just stoping down the f and increasing the ISO.
He even contradict himself several times, somewhere he wrote a lense its a lense and does not matter the sensor its attached on, then when he needs it, he say the size of the sensors is everything for “total light gathering” that its his shot versus the f2.8=f2.8 no matter sensor size, yeah he uses the “old table math” of equivalent exposures, twisted it with DOF, and came up with their results… results that in real life are a blatant lie to anyone with a couple of fair eyes.
PD
My guess, he owns a FF, and try to convice himself (and others) that his FF can shot everything that an APS and 4/3 can, and its true for FF lenses attached to APS and 4/3, but lenses designed to match sensor size its a whole total diferent story and proves that “equivalence” at least as he preach it its mythology.
Are you nuts? Do you think I learned about equivalence from some guy’s site? ROFL Google my name.
Didn’t even read the rest of your post…
If you think the theory is not correct, show us where it is not correct. If the theory is not applicable, show us why it is not applicable. If you have a position, either show us the theory that supports your position OR show us enough empirical evidence to contradict the theory genotypewriter and me are basing our position on. And please take into account that empirical evidence used to contradict a theory must be experimentally sound and based on a large enough dataset to be statistically meaningful.
If you want more DOF than f/22 (or maybe f/16) on FF provides, yes, then smaller formats have an advantage, otherwise, not. As long as people believe that noise is primarily created at the sensor and its absolute value is independent of exposure (ie, the relative noise, ie, what we see as brightness variations is a function of noise over exposure), people will keep thinking that exposure (light per area, ie, f-stop x exposure time x light level) is what matters and that thus smaller sensors have a DOF advantage because they have more DOF per exposure.
That is the fundamental misunderstanding, without starting with the same basic axiom (what is noise, what process creates noise), there is zero point in discussion anything related to light levels and noise.
You are probably not aware of PIXEL VIGNETTING. Sensors with microlenses gather light efficiently only in one direction, and as light cone goes wider, efficiency falls (angular response decreases). Because 43 sensors are still front-illuminated and their pixels are smaller than FF pixels, they suffer more pixel vignetting.
The f/0.95 will have also more glass-to-surface transitions than the f/1.8 making it lose light, too. The f/0.95 has more geometrical vignetting etc etc.
Well, the f/0.95 beeing av waste on a MFT depends on you buy it for its bokeh or its light gathering abilities. And normally choosing between a MFT and FF is not only about out of focus abilities. With a MFT lens with f/0.95 you don’t have to sacrifice the out of focus abilities buying a MFT camera.
But a f/0.95 lens on mFT is not going to be as sharp as a decent f/1.8 lens on FF. The FF lens will also be smaller, lighter and cheaper too.
well now what can we achieve with this and a A7s ? regardless to say that it will cost around 2700$ which is about 15000$ less than the similar leica combo !
buy one, wait for the a7s and full moon, than go out and take awesome portraits 🙂
You might not even need the full moon for that combination
Is this manual focus only?
DAT BOKEH!
The bokeh is a little weird.. close to perfect though.
I don’t understand why lense manufactures don’t make more STF lenses with double aperture.. such lenses would be in high demand I bet.
yes. I wish sony would make a whole line of them.
MF lenses aren’t popular in the mass market. Sony better come up with a trick to allow limited AF with these STF lenses. In addition, they’ll probably look at current 135 STF sales and say: Nah… We’re not going to do that…
well maybe rokinon can start making them. I think I will shoot them a email and see what they say.
STF lenses must have no geometrical vignetting, and with large apertures it’s difficult.
ohh that explains why there is only a 135mm available.
Tele is easy to make vignetting free
$799 is a bargain for a FF f0.95 lens. Lets hope it performance is good. As in Voigtlander good.
43% more glass for 38% more money.
What’s the “Budgetilux”? (I get that it’s a budget ‘lux, but which lens in particular?)
The Canon 50/0.95 is an interesting lens – rather expensive and though I’ve seen a few, they’re mostly not for sale.
This lens does interest me, if it is close to, or surpasses the CV 50/1.1.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/586190-REG/Leica_11_602_50mm_f_0_95_Noctilux_M_Aspherical.html
It’s a name I made up for the Canon 50/0.95 because it’s like the poor man’s Noctilux 50/0.95. The two are nothing alike. The canon’s images are similar to the f/1 Noctilux than the new one which has smoother bokeh.
Here are some photos by the Canon 50/0.95:
http://www.flickriver.com/groups/50mmf095/pool/interesting/
They come up for sale very frequently on the auction site. Personally I wouldn’t waste my money on it, at that price. Better to go for the Noctilux or even this new lens.
where is 43% figure from? If 50/0.95 is just scaled up 35/0.95 lens, it has (50/35)^3 = 2.9 times more glass, or (50/35)^2 = 2 times more area
Yup… calculation issue 🙂 2 times area. Thanks for pointing out.
An f0.95 lens on a 409,000 iso camera.
Shooting video of the Aurora is something I could never do properly on the Canon!
Admin should start a list of examples!!! (:-)
that is sweet but it’s going to be hard to grab focus fast given it’s MF and razor thin DoF….there will be a steep learning curve to use this lens properly….assuming the IQ is there
minipixels.net | Automotive Photography + Design
Not interested. The voigtlander 17, 25 and 52mm on the olympus are more interesting. Give me this on a FF at that price point and we’re talking a different game then.
Keep dreaming. FF glass is always going to cost more and have less options than crop sensor. Especially outside of the Canikon realm.
I couldn’t agree more in regards to the MFT Voigtlanders. Wish they would take a real stab at developing fast lenses like those at those wide angle focal lengths for full frame. But I am afraid it would really cost and arm and a leg. I think they were only able to pull off the 17 & 25mm 0.95’s (and without making the lenses HUGE) because they were for MFT….
I read about this lens on Xitek and saw some early pre-production sample shots, not great, but to be honest, if it’s gonna be 799, I don’t see why I wouldn’t wanna mount it to my A7.
I hate people writing in capital letters and putting multiple exclamation marks behind their childish sentences, but… O – M – G ! ! ! Where can I preorder?
Would like to see more samples shot with it. Not a fan of the non circular blobs of light nearer the edges. Doubt it would look good at all if you were shooting at night with in a city, kind of reminds me of the strange light blobs I’ve seen on shots done with a metabones speed booster on a fast lens…
I always thought elliptic blobs come from the light source itself. If due to the perspective the light source isn’t circular, how can the bokeh be?
Also saw this on shots taken with Zeiss FE 55/1.8.
I’m pretty sure it comes from the lens.
As a bokeh-interested person, when I was looking for the 50mm I would like to buy for my A7, I have been analyzing many pictures of bokeh, from many lenses.
On lenses that dont make circular rings, if you look closely, these eliptic circles have all the same caracteritics : They look like a circle that has a “flatened”, or “less circular” section. And you will see that this section is allways oriented to the center of the frame.
Therefore, it must come from the lens.
But all “very wide aperture” lenses have these, close to the corners, when they are wide open. Even the Leica 0.95.
You’re right, I saw that too, the flat part is always oriented to the center. Still, I wasn’t quite sure if it really is the lens. Oh well… Still love the creamy stuff.
Some of the uncorrected aberrations (lens) cause this.
Not sure if it can be called that… it’s mechanical.
it’s from lens vignetting
is this better than the Zeiss FE 55/1.8 lens?
No.
Yes.
(Define better.)
I would guess :
Zeiss has better image quality and shaprness.
Mitakon has more bokeh and light.
Choose the Zeiss if you want clean, precise images.
Choose the Mitakon for more “arty” pictures.
Another thing : only the Zeiss has an autofocus.
It’s very common. Stopping down improves it. If you want decent circles at f/2, you need a faster lens and stop it down (but it should also have a nice circular iris) rather than getting a f/2 lens.
Since this is a f/0.95 lens, it’ll create fairly round circles at f/1.4 than a f/1.4 lens. So the wonky circles will be there at the max aperture in most lenses.
Every ultra-fast normal or wide-angle photographic lens has such “lemon” bokeh. No exceptions.
I understand that… but these blobs don’t look as symmetrical as they are on other fast lenses. Just glances at some shots from a Nikon 50 1.2 those blobs are more like perfect ellipses while these look like and ellipse that got had one side shaved off. I wonder if it is just from the increased speed or more to do with the quality of the design.
Yirmin, the cut-off is due to blockage of light rays after exiting the last element to the sensor (can be the light baffle installed on the lens or the surrounding area of a sensor). If you look closely at samples from any lens faster than 1.2 on any Canikon camera, you will see the same thing. Just do a flickr search for the Canon 85 1.2 II. Those portraits with lots of highlights would show cut-off. If this lens delivers, it’ll be one of hell of an achievement. I know Mitakon makes lens’s housing out of metal instead of the plastic crap from Samyang.
Haters gonna hate. I think the samples show a very capable lens for a very reasonable price. I’m excited to try it.
Fast lenses on FF give out a strange smell… it’s the m43 fanbois browning their pants
How many dia blades does it have?
9 blades
35 / .95 has 10.
58mm filter thread, weighs around 700g
mmmmm….
f0.95 + a7s
How do they have the same lens for both NEX and 4/3? What happens if you put the NEX version on a speedbooster?
I think it won’t focus as the FL is not long enough.
The Chinese forum is over here: http://newbbs.fengniao.com/3157237_8.html
And it said that the one that is selling within China only is about RMB 7000. BUT, for international version, it would be about 3000 USD.
Can you only change the aperture via the mechanical ring or does it have some sort of electronics on it?