{"id":42639,"date":"2017-12-07T11:34:25","date_gmt":"2017-12-07T15:34:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/?p=42639"},"modified":"2017-12-10T22:03:07","modified_gmt":"2017-12-11T02:03:07","slug":"review-mitakon-zhongyi-speedmaster-50mm-f-0-95-lens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/review-mitakon-zhongyi-speedmaster-50mm-f-0-95-lens\/","title":{"rendered":"review: Mitakon Zhongyi Speedmaster 50mm f\/0.95 \u00a0lens"},"content":{"rendered":"

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review: Mitakon Zhongyi Speedmaster 50mm f\/0.95 \u00a0lens<\/h1>\n

The\u00a0Mitakon Zhongyi Speedmaster 50mm f\/0.95<\/a> \u00a0(B&H<\/em><\/a> \/ Amazon<\/em><\/a>), is an immediately impressive lens – it has that unusually wide aperture. Zero point nine five. Just how good is it then, you may well ask. Lenses with super-wide apertures tend to show some softness and optical aberrations when used wide open. Similarly then with the Mitakon Zhyongi – there are definite optical flaws, but this also adds to the character of the images you get with this lens. It’s not just the super-shallow depth-field that defines what photographs taken with this lens might look like – the optical flaws help give a painterly quality to the photographs. I photographed several models with this lens and the images in this review should give you a clear idea of what you can expect from this lens. All the images here were shot at f\/0.95<\/p>\n

This lens is a Sony mount lens, and is manual focus only. Fortunately, the Sony A series cameras are ideal for using with manual focus lenses in the way that the Electronic Viewfinder (EVF) implements being able to see the focus details in the viewfinder. It also helps that the Sony bodies are stabilized – this is invaluable in clearly seeing the highly magnified image without camera shake.<\/p>\n

You’re going to need that magnified view to accurately focus this lens. With that narrow depth-of-field, your margin for error is really small.<\/p>\n

How sharp is this lens? \u00a0Sharp enough … at the center. The edges go really soft, and there’s a gentle haziness to the edges at full aperture. This helps give images that dream-like painterly quality. However, you will find your compositions will have to mostly centered. Portraits that are composed off-center don’t fare well – they are just too soft with the critical details of the person’s face. There are two examples in this review which show the sharpness at 100% at the widest aperture. As you’ll see, it is “sharp enough” at that aperture (in the center portion of the photo. I did a few tests at medium apertures, and then this lens is really sharp edge-to-edge, but this isn’t why you’d buy this lens or use this lens. You want that f\/0.95 aperture.<\/p>\n

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