At the end of the DSLR era, Irix set out to compete with Samyang (with their XP series) and Zeiss (with their Otus and Milvus series) in the segment of higher end manual focus lenses. Somehow I didn’t come across reviewing any of those Irix lenses yet, but that is about to change now. Will this Irix 45mm 1.4 Dragonfly be a pleasant surprise? Let’s find out in this review.
Christmas is around the corner so everyone wants to sell their goods in November. The industry came up with a bunch of stuff like Single’s Day and Black Friday and many camera and lens manufacturers are also using this opportunity. In this article I will collect the deals I think are actually worthwhile.
Thypoch was the first to start their campaign this year, as soon as others follow this article will be updated.
Update: Laowa added
The campaign runs from October 22nd until December 3rd.
Pretty much all the Thypoch lenses are discounted in their official Thypoch Webshop (affiliate link) and you can get an additional 5% discount using the code “PRNET”.
I reviewed all of these lenses and there is no stinker among them. The 28mm 1.4, the 50mm 1.4 and the 75mm 1.4 are my favorites and they also made it my list of the Best Fullframe Lenses from China. Sadly the 75mm 1.4 and the 50mm 1.4 only received small discounts, but they were already easy recommendations at full retail.
The campaign runs from November 14th until January 2nd.
There are no huge discounts to be found here, but many lenses (not the latest releases though) received a 10% discount in their official Laowa Webshop (affiliate link). If you were already eyeing one of those, now is a good time.
Lenses worth looking at are the 85mm as well as 90mm 2:1 macro lenses and all the shift lenses. A discount for the 15mm 2.0 is also always welcome.
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In 1979 Nikon released a lineup of cheaper manual focus lenses called “Series E” instead of “Nikkor”. Today we will have a closer look at the Nikon 50mm 1.8 Series E, probably the most popular lens of that series and definitely the smallest.
Interestingly out of the big camera manufacturers of the (D)SLR era only Nikon ever produced a 28mm 1.4 fullframe lens. They started in 1993 with the world’s first lens with these specifications, the Nikon AF 28mm 1.4D, and then released an updated version in 2017, this Nikon AF-S 28mm 1.4E. It was one of their last f/1.4 primes still designed for DSLRs, so let us find out what it is capable of in this review.
Martin recently reviewed Lomo’s replica of a Petzval lens. I commented, perhaps slightly snidely, that vintage Petzval lenses are still around, often for less money, and often with better centre sharpness – and certainly with a vast choice of models and thus rendition nuances.
Martin suggested I share my knowledge in an article. And like an inverse Spice Girl, one became two. This one seeks to introduce you to the weird magic of Petzval lenses and their widespread availability from old cinema film projectors. The next will look at adapting them, and indeed any old projection lens, to a modern-day camera.
So here we go, I guess.
All pictures were taken on full-frame evils: a Sony a7r2 and an a7cr. Some were cropped; all were adjusted for proper blacks and whites according to ancient darkroom principles. None had additional sharpening or aberration correction applied.
Continue reading Projector Lenses – Reviving the Joy of Old Petzval Lenses (Guest Article)