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12mm f/1.6 Noktor
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  • @vicharris, you can order one at:

    http://www.hondogarage.com/index.php/product/landing/follow-focus

    You'll need the gear attachment which is $10 more.

    I've now attached it to my gini cage rig, and adjusted the rails so there's even more range, basically the lens is all that's stopping it from going all the way around. Pictures coming next!

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  • Adorama has it in stock, and I decided to try it out. Low risk since Adorama's refund policy is nice. Plus 4% cashback through mrrebates.com.

    http://www.adorama.com/SLR1216MFT.html

    They have the latest batch units. The focus ring rotates counterclockwise like Canon FD. The mount has almost no play. Smooth focus ring. Tight aperture ring. Most of all the flare at max aperture looks better than earlier reviews. Instead of the crazy flare, I'm getting a few of thin sine wave like flares on corners at certain angles. It goes away past f/2. Sharp enough at f/2.8. Good sharpness at f/4 and f/5.6. The infinity focus is slightly past the mark.

    The bottom line. I like.

  • @stonebat Yep, seems like they've fixed all the issues. I'm really happy with mine. I'd love to see the 25mm but it seems a bit steep at that price.

  • @stonebat Good to hear they have a decent batch there at Adorama. I was going to walk on over to the store in pick one up today, but - ended up coming across a gentleman selling me some fine Canon FD lenses. He took all my money.

    If anybody (locally in NYC) wants to buy either a Canon FD 24mm f/2.0 or Canon FD 85mm f/1.2L lens to fund my purchase of a SLR Magic 12mm T1.6...message me.

  • I bought one of those $2 , 55mm-77mm step up rings on ebay, no vignetting. That's $2 including free shipping! Added a regular thickness ND filter ($6) and a 77mm metal wide angle adapter ($6). still OK.

  • @vicharris Only one SLRMagic lens is enough for me. Why not Nokton 25mm 0.95? It's as sharp as 20mm 1.7 at f4.

    @IvanUskokovic I sold my FD lens, too.

    @jleo Yeap Yeap 77mm filter worked for me, too.

  • @stonebat I agree! That's the same thing the Pany guys said.

    I just got back from Panasonic in LA and downloading the footage now. We used their lab af100 and shot with the SLRMagic, the Pany 8-14, 14, and 20. From what we saw on the 65" TV, the 14 blew it away in sharpness. We tested everything at 4 and 5.6 to have a level playing field and that's as fast as the 8-14 goes. The 20mm was awesome but damn, the 14mm 2.5 really impressed me! The 12 was pretty soft on the edges. I guess that's the tradeoff for the "personality" of the lens. I'd say the Tokina performs much better at 12mm stopped down at 4 and 5.6 for sharpness. The purple fringing was very bad until we stopped it to 5.6 as well. None of the other lenses showed this problem.

    I'll try to get the samples up soon. Have to prep a shoot for tomorrow and take care of kids tonight. Fun.

  • Never mind about the flare. I saw the crazy flare at night. Haha.

  • Yeah, I tried to do some fun stuff with the flares in the Santa Monica Night shoot I took.

  • I recieved my second copy of the lens the middle of last week and it is much better than the first one. It focuses to inifinity and has no vingetting when stopped down.

    I find the softness to be acceptable though as @vicharris is pointing out, if there is enough light to shoot at f2.5 then the Panny 14 mm with the WA converter would be cheaper, smaller and sharper. Given that I had to pay to ship the defective first copy of the lens back to SLR Magic, the actual price of this lens isn't that much under what you can find the Olympus m.zuiko 12 mm lens going for new on ebay and that lens is sharper at f2 and smaller. Given that the SLR Magic 12 mm really doesn't perform well at aperatures less than T2 (it gets a sort of milky haze), I am having some second thoughts(perhaps more like thrid, fourth or fifth thoughts) about buying this lens.

    Given the quality control problems that SLR Magic seems to have I can't imagine buying another of their "premium" Noktor lenses - particularly as the others seem to compete directly with excellent Voigtlander glass of similar or lesser price.

  • Like CrazyPete my second copy of the lens was also much better and had no focus on infinity problems. Did couple of tests and for my purpuse the lens is to soft so I send it back again. I get my 399 euro returned. No extra costs thanks to great service of CameraNU

    I did love the flares, the 12mm, the F1.6 and the manual focus but I just need a sharper picture. Maybe I get me a lumix 14mm with the WAconverter.

  • The HyperPrime does have the unique personality and gave nice out-of-camera color. I knew it wouldn’t be as sharp as Lumix or Nokton.

    It has 15cm min focus distance where its barrel is much longer than the 14mm pancake. Since the front element can get much closer to a subject, I was intrigued by close shots from it.

    The distortion from long shots seemed just fine, but there seemed too much perspective distortion from close shots. At the end of the day, I decided to return it. But not much bad thing to say about this lens. Very nice OOC color. For candid stuff, it needed no color correction.

  • I tested mine a little more scientifically, it's off the first batches. The following shots are 100% crops of a picture.

    That's how it looks @ T1.6:

    http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3180661/12mm-T1.6-Hyperprime/%40T1.6.jpg

    And this is how it looks @ T5.6:

    http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3180661/12mm-T1.6-Hyperprime/%40T5.6.jpg

    I think it's really sharp at T1.6 but you definitely notice the shot is a lot more hazy and also has a bit of purple fringing.

  • Guys, before talking about how the grass is greener.. Remember that a wide angle converter usually takes away a stop / half a stop of light and makes it more prone to flaring. If you want a very sharp / neutral wide angle lens I suggest you wait for the new zoom.

  • Just got back from business trip to Sydney. Shot a portion of Sydney Harbor Ferry ride. Enjoy:

    No hack, no post. And yes, I had a 58mm UV filter on it which did vignette some, since my 77mm filter didn't come in time for the trip.

  • For those in Canada (or visiting), I picked my lens up at http://www.thecamerastore.com/ in Calgary for 499 CAD which is one of the best deals around. They had several in stock and I got to test out the lens to make sue there were no manufacturing flaws. The lens works great so far. Some test footage coming soon.

  • I got mine SLR Magic at the Camera shop in Canada too. It was 499. It is a really nice lens.Flares like crazy however. But the flare looks cool in the right lighting.

  • Finally some in Canada! SLR Magic doesn't ship to Canada, so it was a hard to get item. Mine doesn't flare too much. The prototypes had more flaring. The prototype lenses I've seen selling used for around $300 US.

  • Anyone interested in buying one? Performs well. I'm in NY right now (so a deal possible here) will be back in Sweden the 16th of July. PM an offer if interested.

  • RRRR is yours still available? if so, see my PM pls.

  • I've had this lens a few days and so far I'm really impressed.

  • The more I use this thing, the more I think the right side is softer than the left past4 to 5 feet or so. Close up it's good, anything far away I'm thinking looks...not good. Thought I had a good one.

  • @vicharris Why not get Lumix 14mm 2.5 + DMW-GWC1? Yeah keep the SLRMagic 12mm, too. They are quite different from each other, and both fun. I'd get both one day :)

  • So I've decided to attach more permanent focus gears to all my lenses for integration with my fifty dollar follow focus. I found the gear attachment really works great so I'm keeping it on always.

    With the SLR Magic 12mm, Originally I had the Lanparte adjustable gear belt (see previous post), but the adjustable part was a bit bulky, so it's going on a different lens.
    I cut off the leftover gear belt from another existing gear ring (link below), drilled two small holes at each end, and looped zip ties to secure it to the focus ring of the SLR Magic 12mm.
    The key here is to make sure the zip tie area is right over infinity so you still have complete focus turning from infinity to macro.

    This is the gear belt I used: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005UUJZ2E/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00 The width covers the area of the focus ring just right. Got the idea from Half Inch Rails...might go with their zip tie gear belts next time.

    Pictures coming soon...