Time Stood Still – An Extreme Low Light Video – Sony a7SII & SLR Magic 50mm f/1.1 from Johnnie Behiri on Vimeo.
The new SLRmagic 50mm f/1.1 FE lens was actually supposed to ship on December 10 according to BHphoto (Click here). But after some concern raised by early reviewers SLR Magic sent a message to Cinema5D:
From the two weeks of real life testing by several testers, we received 3 main concerns.
– Corner softness at infinity
– Sharpness at f/1.1
– Lens flare
We are currently making some changes within our capability to address the issues. The new changes would improve corner sharpness at infinity by approximately 20% but do not expect perfection after the changes. Sharpness at f/1.1 is not affected. Lens flare would be addressed with an optional lens hood.
So it’s yet unclear when the lens will actually ship.
9 Responses
This is the sort of video I see today and totally drives me to get the A7s, or A7sII.
I just came back from Sweden filming a frozen forest during an almost full moon, and filming the borealis lights in Lofoten Islands. My first low light experience with the A7SII, it’s completely worth it, and this lens is a must have for me now.
This is good news, but I wonder how much improvement they could see by putting more quality materials into it. That $350 price point has obviously got some compromises in it. I’d rather pay a bit more (even double would be cheap for a cinema lens), and get much better performance. When you average out the price of a lens over its expected lifetime, it’s totally worth it.
And what’s with the f-stop for a cine lens? Very weird.
It’s really not a cine lens, people need to stop thinking that. It’s most likely cheaper to make the iris stopless and they could only justify that by claiming that it’s a cine lens. The gears are probably just as cheap to produce as some other potential ring design, so, they’re thrown in to make it look a little more convincing.
improvements are always good, but corner sharpness is not the most important thing. especially not with a lens like this. if you want perfect corners get a sigma and stop it down a bit or get a otus….
Mmm do you think the mitakon is a best choice?
I did buy multiple copies of the SLR Magic 12/1.6 and have to say they seem to produce more effect lenses like a lensbaby, rather than real all around lenses. Couldn’t really focus to infinity and pretty soft. Perfect for dream sequence filming or macro art. I personally would prefer to do this in post.
Well at this price point, compromises are expected. Who is surprised?
this lens is useless nowadays.