The fastest MFT lens to date got a massive $700 off. The Ibelux 40mm f/0.85 now sells for $1199 at BHphoto (Click here), Adorama (Click here) and Amazon (Click here).
More deals:
There is a new low price on refurbished OMD cameras sold by GetOlympus US (Click here) and GetOlympus Canada (Click here). The E-M1 now sells for $999!
Samys has a Stock of Demo Panasonic GH4 cameras they sell with a $200 off on their [shoplink 52532 ebay]eBay Store (Click here)[/shoplink].
Olympus Spring savings at GetOlympus (list here).
You save $150 on those DEMO Panasonic FZ1000 sold on [shoplink 52742 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].
You save $90 on those DEMO Panasonic LX100 sold on [shoplink 52743 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].
24 Responses
And even at that price, there is still no reason at all to pick it over the Voigtlander option…
I doubt it is faster than the slrmagic 25mm T0.95. Still too big and too expensive. The Voigtlander Nokton 42.5mm f/0.95 is $200 cheaper offers essentially the same DoF and brightness, and is smaller…
So, a 25mm f/1.8 is essentially the same as a 25mm f/2.8?
No because in your example there is a difference of 1 and 1/3 of f stops whereas the difference between an f/0.85 and f/0.95 is just 1/3.
To give you an example if you focus on a subject at 50″, an f/0.85 will give you a DoF of 2″ whereas an f/0.95 will give you 2.1″.
When shooting in the dark, I’d think that the difference between f/0.85 and f/0.95 may be getting the shot or not.
Keep in mind that F stops are not the same as T stops so the f/0.85 and f/0.85 might have quite similar T values because as the F decreases it becomes really hard to improve the light transmittance of the lens.
Even in the case that there is a difference of 1/3 T stop it will not affect getting the shot at all since you can under-expose by 1/3 of a stop the f/0.95 and you get the same speed as the f/0.85 and the same exposure by lifting the exposure by 1/3 in post. Now if you believe that the noise from underexposing by 1/3 of a stop will make a difference of “getting the shot or not” then I am not sure many people will agree with you.
At the moment, front-side illuminated sensors really don’t show much increase in exposure value once you get below f1.0 or so. They mostly hit a wall due to pixel vignetting.
Note that this isn’t even an issue of real transmittance (T-stops vs. f-stops), but instead the ability of the sensor itself to absorb that intensity of light.
Whatever. You are splitting hairs at this point just to win an argument.
The deals at Amazon.com and Adorama don’t seem to exist. At 40mm, it doesn’t seem a useful focal length unless I was doing portraits in the middle of the night.
The 40mm f/0.85 on MFT is a fullframe equivalent of 80mm f/1.8. One of the most common FF focal lengths/apertures for portrait photography.
No, you are totally wrong! It is identical to 40mm f/0.85 on FF. You just have narrower field of view, hence requiring you to stand further for same subject framing if you don’t want to crop (or widen) your field of view compared to FF/m4/3.
“Totally wrong”? 😀
A 40/0.85 on MFT and a 80mm/1.8 on FF will have approximately the same DoF and FoV for the same subject distance.
The only differences are going to be differences due to differences in lens quality (i.e. distortion, sharpness etc) which are harder for wider focal lenses and larger apertures.
it’s 80/0.85 equivalent FF and 80/1.8 equivalent FF DoF.
Yes correct and the differences in the transmittance..
Did you notice where I mentioned portraits before you replied? 😉
Yeah but you didn’t mention portraits for any time other than “in the middle of the night” which could potentially make this lens quite useful 😉
Looks like it’s built like a tank 🙂 German design too (not a guarantee but they usually have high standards of engineering). I wonder what the bokeh looks like – with 10 blades it should be really smooth. Can anybody find example images taken with it? At that mm range it would be amazing if the optics are top-notch too. It’s a specialized lens for sure but… wow 🙂
A search on Google Images proves it’s really good, but I agree with those of you who say the Voigtlander or SLR Magic are better value.
Really? All the reviews I’ve read – and pictures I’ve seen – have shown it to be pretty poor at f0.85. And if you aren’t using it at f0.85, you shouldn’t own it.
http://admiringlight.com/blog/review-handevision-ibelux-40mm-f0-85-sony-e-mount/3/
http://www.stevehuffphoto.com/2014/10/11/the-ibelux-40mm-f0-85-lens-worlds-shortest-review/
I haven’t read the reviews but thanks for the links 🙂 I doubt I’ll ever buy it though – I have the SLR Magic 25mm T0.95 and that covers my need for ultra-apertures.
None of the images I saw so far allowed me to pixel-peep though, I’ll try your links.
Of course there’s the issue of how well it handles chromatic aberrations, and how hard it it to reduce them in post-processing (because it’s acceptable if it can be reduced to a satisfactory degree). I can accept CA at the edges of the frame, but in the middle I think I agree with you, it should be nominal. Also the lens should perform well at max aperture, especially if it’s not a wide-angle.
this ibelux was designed for asp-c so they are tanky. The bests natives mft lens are voigtlander (and SLR magic 25/0.95, sharper than the voigtlander 25/0.95)
Huh. Isn’t this sort of like the answer to a question that nobody asked?
You don’t really need lenses anymore, because sensors are so good nowadays.
Soon we won’t need cameras at all. Huge sensor spheres will be floating in the air all over the world, recording complete information about the light at every point and from every direction. The data will be stored in enormous databases from which anyone can extract light data whenever they want, and process it into pictures with the desired framing, depth of field, focus point, exposure etc. No need to go out in the field to take photos, because everything can be done at home in front of the computer.