DIY Photography

Your one stop shop for everything photo-video

Search

Submit A Story

50mm f/0.95

Lens review: Leica Noctilux 50mm f0.95 ASPH M – A Nocturne

by Add Comment

If I remember correctly, I briefly held this lens in Sydney 2011 Photokina. Good old days when there weren’t too many product releases, and each excited you. Noctilux is like Mount Everest for every Leica lover, the holy grail. We climbers reach the base camp with the Summilux, and we are all waiting for the right moment to climb the top without a sherpa. You have to try it once to feel the power. You don’t have to buy it, just bring your wife or girlfriend to a local dealer and try this lens. Show them the picture. I am confident they will like it.

50mm is my favourite focal length. I almost bought this lens by trading in the Noctilux 50mm f/1.2 ASPH reissue to a local dealer. But I walked out of the store without a 0.95 because that copy suffered a front-focusing issue. I kept searching for another copy in Hong Kong; a copy that focuses accurately will suffice. Thanks to my good friend Andrew for letting me try his lens. Now I know what’s so magical about this lens.

Meike has announced a new $249 50mm f/0.95 APS-C mirrorless lens

by Add Comment

Meike has announced their new 50mm f/0.95 manual focus lens for APS-C mirrorless cameras. It’s available in five different mounts including Sony E, Fuji X, Canon EF-M, Nikon Z and Micro Four Thirds. With a maximum aperture of f/0.95, it joins the wave of low budget ultra-wide aperture lenses being released lately, and it’s very competitively priced at only $249.

It’s not quite the cheapest of the bunch – that honour goes to TTArtisan at $218 – but when compared to much of the 50mm f/0.95 and similar competition, it’s still a very low price point. The only question is how well it holds up to the competition.

TTArtisan’s new low-budget 50mm f/0.95 APS-C mirrorless lens isn’t a limited edition this time

by Add Comment

TTArtisan has released their new 50mm f/0.95 lens for APS-C mirrorless cameras. Like most of TTArtisan’s lenses, this is a manual focus lens and when used on an APS-C body, it offers a field of view equivalent to that of a 75mm lens on a full-frame body. The fast f/0.95 aperture allows for shooting in very low light conditions. It also offers a very shallow depth of field that’s particularly well suited to portraits.

For APS-C mirrorless cameras, this low-budget $218 lens is available in Fuji X, Sony E and Nikon Z mounts. There’s also a Micro Four Thirds version, which gives the equivalent field of view to that of 100mm on full-frame due to the 2x crop factor of the MFT system. From looking at the product page on the TTArtisan website, it appears versions will also come for Canon EF-M and RF mounts as well as L mount.

This 50mm f/0.95 face-off puts Laowa vs Mitakon vs TTArtisan vs Brightin Star lenses against each other

by Add Comment

There seem to be a lot of very fast lens options these days, even for full-frame cameras. Very few are them are coming from the long-established big-name companies like the camera manufacturers themselves or even Sigma and Tamron, but there are a lot of manual focus ones coming from some of the newer Chinese lens manufacturers.

In this video, Christopher Frost puts four full-frame 50mm f/0.95 lenses to the test to see how they stack up against each other, including the Mitakon, TTArtisan, Brightin Star and the recently announced Laowa Argus lens. The Laowa is a hair wider than the other three at 45mm rather than 50, but it’s close enough.

TTArtisan launches silver anodised version of their 50mm f/0.95 lens for Leica M

by Add Comment

Initially released last year, TTArtisan has expanded its colour options for their 50mm f/0.95 lens for Leica M mount once again. As well as the standard black and limited edition shiny “Silver Black” and red versions, there is now an anodised silver version available. Unlike the other non-black models, this one doesn’t appear to be a limited edition.

As well as the various Leica M mount versions of the lens, TTArtisan also released a very limited run of Sony E and Fuji X mount versions of the lens last year – they only made 20 of each. Like the other Leica M mount versions, though, the lens is identical in spec other than the colour.

ZY Optics brings its Mitakon Speedmaster 50mm f/0.95 to Leica L mount

by Add Comment

ZY Optics has announced the release of their Mitakon Speedmaster 50mm f/0.95 lens for L mount. The fast aperture manual focus lens is designed for use with full-frame mirrorless cameras and is compatible with the complete line of L mount cameras from Sigma, Panasonic and Leica.

The Mitakon Speedmaster 50mm f/0.95 was initially offered in full-frame format with Sony E mount in 2014. A Mark II came in 2017 and it was then refreshed in 2019 with a new Mark III version. The Mark III was still available in Sony E mount but also Nikon Z and Canon RF, too. Today’s release now makes it available for every full-frame mirrorless system currently available.

TTArtisan is making a 50mm f/0.95 lens for Sony & Fuji – but it’s limited to only 20 units of each

by Add Comment

It’s not that often you see limited edition lenses these days, except with the likes of Leica. Even then, it’s usually just a limited edition colour of an already existing lens (or to launch a new one). TTArtisan, however, is making a very limited edition 50mm f/0.95 for the Sony E and Fujifilm X mounts. Only 20 will be produced for each mount.

TTArtisan hasn’t made an official announcement about the lens that I’ve seen yet, but it’s shown up on the website of Japanese distributor Shoten Kobo. It is a manual focus lens offering about a field of view equivalent to about a 75mm lens on a full-frame body. And the price? Well, it’ll only be around $400.

The Mitakon Speedmaster 50mm f/0.95 III is back, now in Nikon Z and Canon RF mounts

by Add Comment

The Mitakon Zhongyi Speedmaster 50mm f/0.95 lens was discontinued, but now it’s back. The full-frame lens is designed for mirrorless cameras and will be available in Nikon Z, Canon RF, and Sony E mount. The new and improved version is officially announced, promising improved performance and image quality compared to the old version.

These are the advantages and challenges of shooting portraits with a 50mm f/0.95 lens

by Add Comment

The first two things that come to my mind when someone mentions an f/0.95 lens are “bokeh” and “low light capabilities.” And sure, these are both great. However, shooting with a lens this fast isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. In this video from Manny Ortiz, he’ll show you the good and the bad sides of photographing portraits with a lens like this, and he’s using a Mitakon 50mm f/0.95.

Free Resources

Advanced lighting book

Learn photography

Recent Posts