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Our reader Chris made the very first review of the Mitakon 35mm f/0.95 E-mount lens ([shoplink 14656 ebay]Click here to grab one of the three lenses for sale on eBay right now[/shoplink]).
Here is Chris first impression review:
“I received my black Mitakon 35mm f/0.95 today and took a bunch of unboxing and night test shots. More test shots coming tomorrow.
Some general design comments:
The lens is built like a tank, all metal body and weighs a whopping 707g (my 50mm Voigtlander + the adapter weighs 535g.) The hood seems to be a generic vented hood, aluminum but has some minor finish issues. I’ll likely buy a higher-quality brand-name hood. Same goes for the cap, generic and functional but a mismatch to the quality of the body. The glass is high quality and the lens fits my NEX-7 body perfectly.
Both focus and aperture are dampened but do not have clicks (good for video!) Aperture seems stiffer. Aperture goes from 0.95-16 in about 90 degrees of ring rotation. Focus goes from infinity to 1’/.3m in about 100 degrees of focus ring rotation. Yay for close focus and stop at infinity.
Vignetting is ok, definitely noticeable wide open but not unusual for such a wide lens (comparable, in my estimation, to the Voigtlander 25mm f/0.95 m43 lens).
Definitely need more time to take test shots.
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.4964431908002.2200471.1215264081&type=1&l=cff004b3a0
and RAW full-size pics at:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/v123p87s79qpqhb/XaNPKd2xow”
Thanks Chris!
[shoplink 14656 ebay]Click here to see the acutions and price of the new Mitakon 35mm lens on eBay[/shoplink].
21 Responses
@Chris
Is focus peaking usable at F0.95 at night?
honestly, what is the point of such wide aperture? I have the minolta 50mm 1.4 it is mostly usable at f 2.0 above.
Low light. When you don’t want to push ISO values anymore, go for a wider aperture. My Canon 55mm f/1.2 FL-mount is my favourite lens when going in low light conditions. It lacks contrast, sharpness and have some problem with light coming from the sides, but it doesn’t matter as I get the shots I want with less noise.
Low light? Then why not get Olympus OMD and CV 25mm instead? Much smaller and lighter and with even better low light capability.
How can a 707gr lens be a perfect match on a Nex body?
You could get a D600 and 50mm f1.4 lens which will give you better IQ, better low light and functioning AF in a lighter package.
A 25 mm f/0.7, you mean? Where do I find that?
Aperture f/0.7 would be necessary to get the same amount of light into a camera with crop factor 2.0. And the amount of light into the camera is what matters if the sensor technology is equal in two cameras.
You forget that it doesn’t matter really since shutter speed is the same and OMD has better high ISO than NEX7 and it’s got IBIS which can help a lot in certain situations.
You don’t have to have f0.7 lens, and I bet CV 25mm has plenty shallow dof and will actually give you a much more usable image than 35mm f0.95
It doesn’t have better high ISO than NEX-7. Olympus cheats by marking ISO 100 as ISO 200, and so on. At same f-stop and “ISO” setting, OM-D uses lower shutter speed than NEX-7, resulting in HIGHER PHYSICAL EXPOSURE. No wonder, ISO 3200 of OM-D (which is actually 1600) is better than honest ISO 3200 of NEX-7.
If you would use camera for real shooting of moving people in low light, and put camera in auto-ISO mode or shutter priority mode, OM-D “high ISO” advantage vanishes…
Maybe the point with such a lens is to challenge your creativity and let you come up with ideas that will fit the f0.95 aperture. Ideas which you would not have had otherwise because the option wasn’t available.
Minolta 50/1.4 was restyled for Dynax 9. Perfectly usable after f/2 only, it made viewfinder brighter at f/1.4. Today the trend is towards video, I think.
I was shocked a while once seeing this lens mounted on NEX body. It seems to me like a kind of military equipment. What a bulky system!
Bulky? Have you never carried around a full size DSLR with a lens other than a 35 or 50 prime? Troll.
Having this big lens on DSLR will give you more balance than NEX body. Looking at the bulky size of this len with slender NEX body makes me laugh promptly.
Oh…and one more thing… a lot of people choose NEX because they want compact or compact system with high quality rather than something like enormous tank.
I’m quite used to using a Minolta Rokkor 58mm f1.2 on my NEX-5N, and it looks to be a very similar size to this. (and close in weight)
It actually works very well, particularly if you’re shooting at waist level with the screen tilted up. It sits really nicely in my left hand palm up, taking the weight and with my fingers to turn the focus; leaving the right hand for adjusting settings and pressing the shutter.
Even up at eye level, having a lens barrel to hold in your left hand makes the camera more stable.
But I’d agree entirely: in the case of ‘Looks’ it is a little unbalanced 🙂
a little problem, that there are no f/0.95 lens for SLRs…
Buy a Lunar if you need a bigger grip.
Are you sure that this is actually a lens. I thought it’s a bazooka. Hahahahaha
Will this lens also be usable with the NEX-VG900 or a future FF-NEX?
Of course, if you don’t mind some vignetting.
At SAR, there were samples from this lens on a VG900.
Couldn’t find that, maybe your mixing this up with the SLRmagic 50mm T/0.95 lens attached to a NEX-VG900 recently here.
A bunch of daylight shots have been uploaded to dropbox. In addition to testing against the Voigtlander 50mm and 35mm (my NEX street shooting lenses) and the Voigtlander 25mm (my m43 street shooting lens) I also tested against the Samyang 85mm f/1.4 (using the Sony LAEA1 adapter), which you can look up on DxOMark for performance information; it’s one of the highest-rated lenses (and a real bargain at $300US).
Sure, the Mikaton is a beast of a lens, but then I’ve gotten used to handheld shooting with my 70-400mm lens so it’s not THAT bad. 🙂
Regarding why bother with a f/0.95 lens? I like shooting indoors, particularly museums and concerts, both of which often use subdued lighting. I really notice the performance difference between f/1.4 and f/1.1–it can easily make the difference between shooting everything >= ISO1600 or getting some good hand-held shots at a concert or museum at < ISO1600 (which, in my opinion, the NEX-7 really shines. ISO1600 is only usable for smaller prints and online pics.)
Lastly, regarding focus peaking…It works great, as it does in other lighting conditions. However, the refresh rate on the EVF or display drops; I believe because the camera is taking multiple frames and combining it to give you a clearer view. This is true even if you're using a f/32 stop in daylight (but then in that condition, who cares about focus peaking? 😉
My overall impression is that Mitakon has a real keeper on its hands, particularly at the price (although eBay prices have increased since I bought mine ;). It's certainly not perfect; compare the f/0.95 shots between the Mitakon and the Voigtlander 25mm, particularly the corners/edges where the Mitakon falters, but it certainly is in the ballpark and is significantly less expensive.
at 0.95 looks like soup!
I bought this lens a week ago and made some sample shots. Sure it is not supposed to be used for shooting architecture or landscapes, but even here it shows some really good results. Look here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/90431256@N07/