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12mm f/1.6 Noktor
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  • @Ptchaw Re: distortion see Seb Farges video above.. the tilts at 0:44-0:47.. You won't notice anything wierd on a still because there are no points of reference! If you think about how extreme the OLY distortion is (uncorrected) it is not hard to understand why these things happen, and why the SLR Magic would be easier to try and correct in post.

    On the OLY, extremes resolution is 30-20% lower than centre (30 wide open up to ) from wide open up to 5.6, when it starts to even out slightly more. Extremes and border resolution is pretty similar for this lens - troughout - the only exception is wide open when the extremes suffer quite a bit more than border resolution. On the SLR Magic, extremes resolution is 40-30% lower than centre in the extremes (40 wide open up to f4) whereas border resolution is in-between 5-10% of centre sharpness troughout the entire range. If you crop the image (to 2.35:1 for instance), you will loose the extremes alltogether.

    The differences in construction is clear - slr magic sacrifice a lot in the corners and little in the borders whereas OLY sacrifice borders and corners troughout for centre sharpness - where you get about a 5% increase in resolution compared to the SLR Magic. I would hardly make that out to be such a massive difference as you describe. (tack sharp vs. super soft out wide)

    I'd avoid both in instances where I want things (in focus) happening in left and right edges of the frame.

    Then you talk about how you cannot shoot the SLR magic wide open.. well - the OLY starts from f2 not f1.6. Stopping down a faster lens to avoid flares cannot really be a problem in comparison to a slower lens - unless you need to stop down a lot - which you don't! It evens up already at f2-f2.8!

    How these two work for stills photography is a different matter alltogether.

  • Hey, I made a small video with this lens. You can see here :

    I used a hacked GH2, no filters, I applied a noise reduction filter in post for the second half of the video

  • Now that I have the lens again with all elements intact, I'm looking for the right 58-77mm step up ring to use for filters..anyone have suggestions and what they're using?

  • @jo447 Good work. That's exactly what the fast wide angle lens is for. That's OOC color?

  • @jo447 The ending to your video is particularly terrific - the fireworks look spectacular and the way the light reflects off of the people in the scene... I really liked it. What was the music?

  • @fosterchen

    Got a couple of these - thin and sturdy enough to hold a Kood 77m WA hood + LCW Fader ND

    http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/200696126710?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649

  • Sorry, forgot to share my first opportunity to use this lens: it's exactl(e)ly what I thought - bitchy, flary lens with a personality :) I could have gotten an Oly 9-18 for much better results, but I was selfish. All in all, a great lens for the price!

  • It is, offcourse sharper than most my FDs.

  • please click on the linkas embedding does not work

  • When you are in a cramped hotel room, you are reminded it's only a 24 on a full frame, but either you can work it or not! Lovelly sharpness, colors (I bleached this out as requested) and build quality like from the 70-ties! An absolute YES to this lens, even if Oly 9-18 would have done a better job. I bought this one for me :)

  • @stonebat: Thanks, there was no color correction applied in post. Only a denoiser filter (starting at the starbucks section)

    @Crazypete: Thanks, the fireworks looks really good with this lens (it actually looks pretty good without camera as well). The music is from ewan dobson. It's a great lens. It's a good addition to my voigtlander 25mm

  • @jo447, your video might actually make me buy this lens. I wonder what's the ETA time when I order this lens from SLR magic in the US.

  • Hi HillTop1, that's good news, I might get a free lens if everybody say that!!! :D I don't know if they are still in back orders. But I would say it takes around 1 month to get the lens after you order it directly from the manufacturer.

  • @jo447 nice video thanks!

    What were your aperture settings? Did you shoot at widest 1.6 or stopped it down to 2.0 - 4.0? What recording mode did you use: cinema or nostalgic or standard or else? my experience was that in the range of 1.6-2.0 aperture with GH2's cinema mode (-2,-2,-2,-1) 24p the details were too much blurry in sunny days (no nd filter as well). Used Driftwood's patch at 176mbs. My test footage was actually looking as if it was shot at lower resolution and showing strong chromatic abberations, the image quality was similar to cheap camcorder/smartphone. my consideration was that I was doing at wrong camera settings, aperture/exposure. I believe I have to increase sharpness settings up to 0 or +2, may be changing from cinema to nostalgic or standard recording mode, stopping down aperture to 8, adding ND filter during sunny days might be a plus as well. Please inform about your suggestions.

    If I do not succeed with other settings, could it be due to defective lens?

  • Mine feels way to soft at 1.6, almost unusable. Is it mine lens or is it the same for the rest of you? I would love to see some phootage to compare. Please post some pictures with 1.6 and 4.0 of the same subject, try to focus on something a couple of meters away.

    1.6.JPG
    4752 x 3168 - 6M
    4.0.JPG
    4752 x 3168 - 7M
  • @Alfaerik thanks for posting, yes, my Noktor is pretty much similar at 1.6. I will add some stills samples later today.

  • oh wow, that sounds scary @dream_beam, can you upload some clips? @jo477, free lens, what you mean?

    If you look at the video posted above by RRRR made by Seb Farges, at 1.6 it's not as bad. @dream_beam, is yours any close to that or way off?

  • My lens arrived from konj last week and the whole picture is distorted and blurred. Definitive a damaged lens. I have returned it now (konj have good and fast service ) and hope that the next one will be better. Slr magic seems to have really bad production quality. After this lens I will not buy one of their products again.

  • @sunboy, thanks for the update. I guess slr magic made the "good" quality 12mm lenses and send them to their 'elite" class of friends and seller for reviews test footage then send shitty lenses to the rest of the people. I wonder how many people have this lens and it's having problems with it. Kinder makes me now think twice about getting this lens.

  • @HillTop1 I would not be straight forward that much about SLR Magic, let us firstly double check settings and post samples to judge about image quality, I still hope that my poor footage could be due to my mistake on aperture/exposure/recording settings. Anyway, I will post some stills today and video by the end of this week.

  • I am sure there are many good lenses out there and I am also surethat they are great lenses for the price. But SLR Magic seems not to be able to contol their production quality and so the fact that there are so many poor lenses out there after we had to wait very long time for them is inacceptable in my opinion. But I do not believe that they ship the good lenses to certain people only. I remember one guy who tested an SLR Magic preproduction lens on his Blog and had recieved a poor model too. Directly from slr magic. So I think they simply have production problems at all and due to the fact that they do not have a working, open way of communication with their customers and end users like some other companies have (e.g. black magick) I do not feel comfortable with SLR Magic.

  • Hello!

    I´ve just received the 12mm 1,6 and I think something´s wrong: I can´t focus in the distance! Standing in my room pointing my GH2 to the windows, which are 4m away, I can´t get them in focus. On 1,6 till 6 or 8 that is. Then it gets sharp also in the distance. Is that normal? I used to have the 12-60mm Oly and I can´t recall having this problem.

    So, broken? Thanks!

  • @Jackbayer - you have 3 meters of focusing space until it reaches infinity. I believe you have only been adjusting the aperture? (in the front of the lens?)

  • No no, I turn the focus ring alright :)

    When wider that F5.6 I can´t get things in focus that are a few meters and more away from me.

  • Ok, I just did another test, outside. I couldn´t focus on a chimney, which is some 30m away, until I moved the aperture ring even farther down than 5,6.