basspig
Veteran
After an 8 week wait for special order item, B&H finally delivered my Mitakon F/.95 lens.
This is a very unique lens. It can so some amazing things.
First, it's capable of off-the-wall absurdly shallow DoF. Want to blur a background? This is the lens to do it.
Second, it's low light capability seems more than the numbers suggest. Let me elaborate: When I set up the other night to shoot a star field, the results were about as I expected: twice as bright as my f/2 Rokinon prime. But then, after monitoring on the external monitor, I looked in the viewfinder to check something then I noticed it: the "ND 1/4" indicator was there. I shut off the ND filter and suddenly night became day! I was now staring at a blue sky full of stars. At midnight.
Why was the ND filter on in the first place? Because the dim lighting of my studio desk lamp, bouncing off some papers on the desk, re-bouncing off the white ceiling tiles, was illuminating the room too brightly for this lens to be wide open. Adding ND 1/4 gave me a proper exposure--in low light. At 500 ISO. Point the camera into a dark corner that is too dark for the eye to see clearly and it's bright. Outdoors on a moonlit night, it produced a fairly bright picture. Moonlight cast upon a boulder registered 60 IRE off the rock.
The video below has apertures varied from f/1.4 to f.95.
The lens is small, but heavy. Heavier than you would expect, compared to most DSLR lenses. It has a solid feel, smooth operation and good build quality.
You do have to be careful about off-axis light getting into the lens however. It will create internal reflections. French flags are obligatory when working with any overhead lights.
Stopped down a bit, it would make a great lens for shooting streetcorner dialog scenes where you want to anonymize the city and just have a menagerie of light in the background. The creative possibilities with this lens are amazing.
This is a very unique lens. It can so some amazing things.
First, it's capable of off-the-wall absurdly shallow DoF. Want to blur a background? This is the lens to do it.
Second, it's low light capability seems more than the numbers suggest. Let me elaborate: When I set up the other night to shoot a star field, the results were about as I expected: twice as bright as my f/2 Rokinon prime. But then, after monitoring on the external monitor, I looked in the viewfinder to check something then I noticed it: the "ND 1/4" indicator was there. I shut off the ND filter and suddenly night became day! I was now staring at a blue sky full of stars. At midnight.
Why was the ND filter on in the first place? Because the dim lighting of my studio desk lamp, bouncing off some papers on the desk, re-bouncing off the white ceiling tiles, was illuminating the room too brightly for this lens to be wide open. Adding ND 1/4 gave me a proper exposure--in low light. At 500 ISO. Point the camera into a dark corner that is too dark for the eye to see clearly and it's bright. Outdoors on a moonlit night, it produced a fairly bright picture. Moonlight cast upon a boulder registered 60 IRE off the rock.
The video below has apertures varied from f/1.4 to f.95.
The lens is small, but heavy. Heavier than you would expect, compared to most DSLR lenses. It has a solid feel, smooth operation and good build quality.
You do have to be careful about off-axis light getting into the lens however. It will create internal reflections. French flags are obligatory when working with any overhead lights.
Stopped down a bit, it would make a great lens for shooting streetcorner dialog scenes where you want to anonymize the city and just have a menagerie of light in the background. The creative possibilities with this lens are amazing.
rogar-Shock(DBG):