The new SLR Magic 50mm f/1.1 is now shipping at Adorama, BHphoto and on [shoplink 43532 ebay]eBay[/shoplink]. And as you know SLR Magic improved the performance of the lens right before the first shipment. Cinema5D published the only review of the new lens and tells us what has been improved:
One of the problems were the very soft left side corners of the lens when the aperture was wide open. (The right side looked sharper). As you can judge from the above photo (crops from the upper left hand corner of the image produced by the lenses), this is no longer the case. The optical performance of the SLR Magic Cine 50mm f/1.1 was significantly improved and now is matching the right hand side of the lens.
Well done SLR Magic!
UPDATE: Judd Weiss early thoughts on the new SLR Magic 50mm f1.1 E-mount can be read on his Facebook page!
18 Responses
where is the link to the review?
Another review with high-res samples, not sure if it’s the new version
http://www.alexk.com/reviews/slr-magic-50mm-f1-1-review/
OK the author of this review said on DPReview forum that this is the “final version”
I think the corners are still pretty soft? But couldn’t complain for such a price…
There’s always the Samyang 50 1.2
It is not – its only APS-C.
BTW, where is firmware for A7s !!!!!!
I actually had this lens. The bokeh of Samyang 50 1.2 is the worst nightmare I’ve ever seen https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f0d77ea138f8d41ee56987f6d5c37c637363d1b972821007b513187f2b58b02a.jpg
Holy crap!
Looks like the back of people’s eyeballs lol
on the other hand, to be fair, the bokeh disk has a soft transition toward the edge, so this lens is capable of producing creamy bokeh during day time. Also it can render a single color light source into multiple colors as you can see on this pic, this is something I’ve never seen before. So if you boost the saturation a little bit, the bokeh could be very colorful! I just love and hate this lens at the same time. But it is kind of expensive so finally the hate got upper hand and I returned it.
The price is right, the aperture is interesting. It’s just a shame it has no electric contact for exif just like Loxia lenses.
It’s a feature I wouldn’t mind paying another 50 bucks for, I really hope more manual lens manufacturers understand how awesome electric contacts are for E-mount cameras that have IBIS.
Agreed – I’m really curious as to what the dev and production costs would be to add it. It doesn’t seem like it would be all that expensive, and like you, I think it would totally worth at least $50.
Considering this certainly would be a lens sold in very small quantities, I doubt very much that 50 USD would cover the R&D and manufacturing costs for chips and electrical contacts. So alaijmw, I am afraid this most probably WOULD be too expensive to be implemented.
Not a review, but just my thoughts on this and the most logical competitor, the Loxia 50mm pertaining to video/cine use. Manual focus – both. Internal focus – neither. Technical mage quality – Loxia, although the SLR does go down to 1.1, which makes it capable of unique specialty/creative shots, however the flaws in the SLR make it difficult to use for all-around use. Geared rings – SLR and the aperture on the Loxia is actually below average, sort of difficult to grasp although the focus action is some of the best I’ve seen. Focus throw – not sure here, the Loxia is about 180 which is good enough for its price bracket, what’s the SLR? de-clicked iris, both whereas the Loxia can be clicked if desired. All in all, neither lens really seems like it was really designed with cine in mind, but at least the Loxia is a good (great) all around photography tool. If SLR Magic had a full line of lenses for e-mount, it wouldn’t be such a tough sell, but at $349 it’s cheap, but not cheap enough to not consider putting that money towards a Loxia. My biggest annoyance with the Loxia is that it focuses past infinity on the hard stop. 21/35/50 makes for the start of a great set, hope they continue. Let’s see what SLR has to offer in the future, but for now I ended up canceling my pre-order after the initial excitement wore off.
And neither is color matched. Just don’t think of them as cine lenses. A friend of mine is getting the SLRmagic for photography only, just because it’s fast and cheap and small.
I’d just need the A7000 to go with it and switch from M43.
I need an A7iii
Seems like a simple assembly problem to me.
I’m wondering how this compares to the Mitakon Speedmaster 50mm f/0.95 which also is aimed for cine use and has an uncommonly fast aperture.