is a fantastic wide aperture lens which is commercially available, affordable and a great value. Personally I tend to get bored if I am walking around with a 50mm lens but with that lens, the challenge of manual focus, the ability to take photos with hardly any light, and the ability to take dreamy photos like people have never seen I have so much fun. They make it for all the major camera brands.
Overall I am impressed with Chinese lens manufacturers who make other lenses like
I've got the 7A 35mm f/1.2 in M43 which is pretty nice for a walkaround lens.
I'd probably opt for the 50mm f/1.2 since it's 1/3 the price of the f/1.05 (£90 vs £260 for the M43 mount) if I didn't already have double-digit number of 50s in PK mount that I use with an adapter (and they're surprisingly good for 30-50 year old lenses.)
(I've got a 7A 10mm f/3.5 that I've not really got around to using much but now the UK is heading into Fake Summer, there's more light to make it useful.)
There have been significant advances in mainland china made scopes in the last 5-7 years as well. For instance the Arken EP5 5-25x56, 34mm tube first focal plane. Which until recent tariffs and things sold for around $400 to 500 USD shipped. No it's not as good as a $1299 or $2199 Vortex, but it's definitely not the junk-tier stuff that was completely disregarded by everyone who wanted something usable on a budget for >500 yards.
Sky Rover is releasing binoculars that are very comparable to alpha tier Euro brands. I tested their Banner Cloud 6x32; the total build quality package isn’t quite there against my Swarovski 7x42 SLC, but optically the Sky Rover is excellent.
> multiple scenes that specifically required a very thin depth of field
The images at the end of the post are indeed amazing, but I find it funny that we're so obsessed with shallow depth-of-field as a sign of "quality" and/or meaning.
For most of the history of moving pictures, cinema had the exact opposite problem: it looked for the deepest depth-of-field possible in order to make every part of the image count and not waste it to blurriness.
The advances of modern AF and focus pulling systems truly has led to a world of consequences in amateur and even professional film making. In a world where anyone can take half decent video with the phone they always have, its a sign of "I have dedicated hardware to have taken this". The chase for toneh https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQ8VodC19-g
Not only do many see it as a sign of quality, it lets you ignore the set and stage more than ever. Imperfections? Anomalies? Bah they're blurred out of recognition. Of course it can be used still mindfully and tastefully however such nuance is ever more rare.
Most of my cameras both digital and film alike are medium format. While I'm more of a photographer than someone who does much with video it pains me to have to remind people regularly, just because I can get insanely shallow DoF with the creamiest bokeh they've seen doesn't mean it always makes sense to. Theres a story to be told with foregrounds and backgrounds, and how they can be used to guide the viewer.
The harder to achieve has prestige due to rarity. When the rarity goes away the prestige makes whatever the item was highly popular before the prestige fades. Then the older form becomes more rare and valued by some, in a manner not quite the same as prestige but as a sort of decerning choice.
White bread did this, as did purple dye, and synthetic materials.
> we're so obsessed with shallow depth-of-field as a sign of "quality" and/or meaning
It's not necessarily a sign of "quality", but it is something we see less often, which makes it more interesting. Phone cameras can't do shallow depth of field, for example.
And of course, the human eye also has a limited DoF range. It is interesting to see things in a way that we cannot directly perceive.
> And, the combination of wide-angle-view and super-high-aperture would literally require light to pass through the metal of the camera in order to reach the sensor:
This isn’t necessarily true when using a retrofocus wideangle design (as most modern ultrawide lenses do).
They must mean by creating a composite image with multiple in focus areas? Otherwise I agree, I can't see anyway that multiple exposures would help, at least from some light reading on Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_exposure
This lens
https://7artisans.store/products/50mm-f1-05
is a fantastic wide aperture lens which is commercially available, affordable and a great value. Personally I tend to get bored if I am walking around with a 50mm lens but with that lens, the challenge of manual focus, the ability to take photos with hardly any light, and the ability to take dreamy photos like people have never seen I have so much fun. They make it for all the major camera brands.
Overall I am impressed with Chinese lens manufacturers who make other lenses like
https://www.venuslens.net/product/laowa-9mm-f-5-6-ff-rl/
which again are a great value and let me take pictures you haven't seen before.
https://mastodon.social/@UP8/tagged/9mm
I've got the 7A 35mm f/1.2 in M43 which is pretty nice for a walkaround lens.
I'd probably opt for the 50mm f/1.2 since it's 1/3 the price of the f/1.05 (£90 vs £260 for the M43 mount) if I didn't already have double-digit number of 50s in PK mount that I use with an adapter (and they're surprisingly good for 30-50 year old lenses.)
(I've got a 7A 10mm f/3.5 that I've not really got around to using much but now the UK is heading into Fake Summer, there's more light to make it useful.)
Manual focus I keep for film, I feel like it's a part of the process.
But I do wish my Sony 50 was a little less noisy/slow. Suppose I should pick up the GM version at some point.
There have been significant advances in mainland china made scopes in the last 5-7 years as well. For instance the Arken EP5 5-25x56, 34mm tube first focal plane. Which until recent tariffs and things sold for around $400 to 500 USD shipped. No it's not as good as a $1299 or $2199 Vortex, but it's definitely not the junk-tier stuff that was completely disregarded by everyone who wanted something usable on a budget for >500 yards.
Sky Rover is releasing binoculars that are very comparable to alpha tier Euro brands. I tested their Banner Cloud 6x32; the total build quality package isn’t quite there against my Swarovski 7x42 SLC, but optically the Sky Rover is excellent.
> multiple scenes that specifically required a very thin depth of field
The images at the end of the post are indeed amazing, but I find it funny that we're so obsessed with shallow depth-of-field as a sign of "quality" and/or meaning.
For most of the history of moving pictures, cinema had the exact opposite problem: it looked for the deepest depth-of-field possible in order to make every part of the image count and not waste it to blurriness.
It's a weird reversal of expectations.
The advances of modern AF and focus pulling systems truly has led to a world of consequences in amateur and even professional film making. In a world where anyone can take half decent video with the phone they always have, its a sign of "I have dedicated hardware to have taken this". The chase for toneh https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQ8VodC19-g
Not only do many see it as a sign of quality, it lets you ignore the set and stage more than ever. Imperfections? Anomalies? Bah they're blurred out of recognition. Of course it can be used still mindfully and tastefully however such nuance is ever more rare.
Most of my cameras both digital and film alike are medium format. While I'm more of a photographer than someone who does much with video it pains me to have to remind people regularly, just because I can get insanely shallow DoF with the creamiest bokeh they've seen doesn't mean it always makes sense to. Theres a story to be told with foregrounds and backgrounds, and how they can be used to guide the viewer.
The harder to achieve has prestige due to rarity. When the rarity goes away the prestige makes whatever the item was highly popular before the prestige fades. Then the older form becomes more rare and valued by some, in a manner not quite the same as prestige but as a sort of decerning choice.
White bread did this, as did purple dye, and synthetic materials.
> we're so obsessed with shallow depth-of-field as a sign of "quality" and/or meaning
It's not necessarily a sign of "quality", but it is something we see less often, which makes it more interesting. Phone cameras can't do shallow depth of field, for example.
And of course, the human eye also has a limited DoF range. It is interesting to see things in a way that we cannot directly perceive.
I think next-level would be a hypercentric lens that can see around / behind objects as build buy Applied Science: https://youtu.be/iJ4yL6kaV1A?si=QG7YfeXkOqzoK46O
Could also combine with the "scanner back" and not have the intermediary screen you have to photograph.
Of course everything has to remain quite still…
Next level indeed: https://youtu.be/KSvjJGbFCws
This photographer seems to be chasing the Alec Soth look which can be had with a large format camera and a scanner back.
https://www.mcad.edu/events/visiting-artist-lecture-alec-sot...
> And, the combination of wide-angle-view and super-high-aperture would literally require light to pass through the metal of the camera in order to reach the sensor:
This isn’t necessarily true when using a retrofocus wideangle design (as most modern ultrawide lenses do).
Doesn’t that remove the narrow depth of focus the author is going for?
what if I want the opposite effect?
I hate blur, how do I remove all of it?
Shoot at f/64
There was a whole group of people who did this, apparently.
Shoot at a higher fstop with a sensor with a high native ISO, like 12,800.
The trade off is so much noise
Focus stacking.
pinhole camera and an insane amount of light.
Or, multiple exposures and HDR.
Not sure how multiple exposures helps?
Smaller sensor, tighter aperture. So yes, more light or a more sensitive sensor.
They must mean by creating a composite image with multiple in focus areas? Otherwise I agree, I can't see anyway that multiple exposures would help, at least from some light reading on Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_exposure
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focus_stacking :)
> Now, here's the kicker:
Come on now.