# Mitakon Speedmaster 50/.95 shows up at CP+



## canonnews (Mar 6, 2018)

```
<p>The leaked Mitakon SpeedMaster 50mm .95 for the Canon EF mount was shown at the CP+ event.</p>
<p>There’s no word on the pricing or availability as of yet.</p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-34113" src="http://www.canonrumors.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/cpp14_o-728x546.jpg" alt="" width="728" height="546" srcset="http://www.canonrumors.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/cpp14_o-728x546.jpg 728w, http://www.canonrumors.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/cpp14_o-768x576.jpg 768w, http://www.canonrumors.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/cpp14_o-225x169.jpg 225w, http://www.canonrumors.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/cpp14_o-610x458.jpg 610w, http://www.canonrumors.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/cpp14_o.jpg 800w" sizes="(max-width: 728px) 100vw, 728px" /></p>
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## Hector1970 (Mar 6, 2018)

I always like the sound of 0.95 but I don’t think I’d actually use it.
Is it manual focus?
I’ll stick to the much maligned but actually very good 50 1.2
50 1.4 I also like until someone handed it back to me in two parts.
50 1.8 was also great. It was the first fast lens I owned and very good value.
0.95 is impressive though but to a very limited market.


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## BeenThere (Mar 6, 2018)

No electrical contacts, so totally manual including aperture setting.
Huge rear opening, expect mirror box clipping.


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## FramerMCB (Mar 6, 2018)

BeenThere said:


> No electrical contacts, so totally manual including aperture setting.
> Huge rear opening, expect mirror box clipping.



Be curious to note how many FF's it remains an actual f0.95 on...


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## mb66energy (Mar 6, 2018)

BeenThere said:


> No electrical contacts, so totally manual including aperture setting.
> Huge rear opening, expect mirror box clipping.



A good reason for mirror(box)less cameras!


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## chrysoberyl (Mar 6, 2018)

The Lenstip review (on a Sony) left me very unimpressed. I like manual lenses, but not this one - low IQ wide open, severe coma, etc.


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## Mistral75 (Mar 6, 2018)

chrysoberyl said:


> The Lenstip review (on a Sony) left me very unimpressed. I like manual lenses, but not this one - low IQ wide open, severe coma, etc.



Both Mitakon lenses have the same name but are nonetheless different lenses. This one was developed for the Canon EF mount (flange to sensor distance: 44mm), the former one, the one reviewed by LensTip, for the Sony E mount.

The Canon one is much thicker than the Sony one. For instance, its filter diameter is 82mm versus 67mm.


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## Ozarker (Mar 6, 2018)

I might be interested in this. I don't care about coma as I would not use it for astro. Might be fun! I'm all in for fun!


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## chrysoberyl (Mar 6, 2018)

Mistral75 said:


> chrysoberyl said:
> 
> 
> > The Lenstip review (on a Sony) left me very unimpressed. I like manual lenses, but not this one - low IQ wide open, severe coma, etc.
> ...



Noted. Where did you find spec's?


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## ahsanford (Mar 6, 2018)

BeenThere said:


> No electrical contacts, so totally manual including aperture setting.
> Huge rear opening, expect mirror box clipping.



+1. D-shaped bokeh balls (the size of Cleveland) for everyone!

- A


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## Ozarker (Mar 7, 2018)

ahsanford said:


> BeenThere said:
> 
> 
> > No electrical contacts, so totally manual including aperture setting.
> ...



That's too bad. Have they not announced price yet? I'd been wondering why Mitakon didn't have an EF mount version sooner simply because of the market penetration of Canon.

If under $500 I might still be interested... Dee balls and all! 

No contacts = no focus confirmation. Not good.


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## hne (Mar 7, 2018)

ahsanford said:


> BeenThere said:
> 
> 
> > No electrical contacts, so totally manual including aperture setting.
> ...



I would be utterly surprised to see D-shaped bokeh balls outside of the f/1.4-f/1.8 range, considering the mirror box geometry of canon cameras and the highly unorthodox shape of the rear light baffle of that mitakon lens.


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## ahsanford (Mar 7, 2018)

CanonFanBoy said:


> No contacts = no focus confirmation. Not good.



Nah, we're fine. Canon has tons of slick new FF SLRs with manual focusing screens, right?

Oh wait. They only sell one and it costs $5700. 

- A


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## ahsanford (Mar 7, 2018)

hne said:


> I would be utterly surprised to see D-shaped bokeh balls outside of the f/1.4-f/1.8 range, considering the mirror box geometry of canon cameras and the highly unorthodox shape of the rear light baffle of that mitakon lens.



Right, but a lot of people would shoot this thing near wide open, so I would imagine it _is_ going to be a problem. For many folks, telling them that their exotic f/0.95 lens has a problem that is unattractive and uncorrectable in post unless you stop it down to f/2 kind of defeats the purpose of lugging all that glass around.

But please educate me for a moment here, as this phenomenon was unknown to me until the 85 f/1.4L IS was released. The D-shaped bokeh is less about the rear baffle and more about the sheer wide open aperture actual size being bigger than the mirror box, right? What in particular does the baffle have to do with this?

- A


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## mistaspeedy (Mar 7, 2018)

Another manufacturer trolls ahsanford with yet another 50mm lens release.

You can have any new 50mm lens you want, as long as it doesn't say 'Canon' somewhere on it


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## Ozarker (Mar 8, 2018)

ahsanford said:


> CanonFanBoy said:
> 
> 
> > No contacts = no focus confirmation. Not good.
> ...



Haha! On a strange note of classic m42 mount lenses vs Mitakon... They are easily adapted to EF mount and can actually be "AFMA" when that adapter has the dandelion chip. It really bewilders me as to why Mitakon hasn't incorporated what must be simple tech into a product like this. I only pay about $24 for the adapters with the chips already installed.

Edit: AFMA was a bad choice of acronym. What I mean to say is that the dandelion chip allows for the adjustment of front/back focus and focus confirmation. These lenses I'm talking about are all manual focus and range from old Soviet lenses to the Super-Takumars. Same chip for all the lenses. So why Mitakon didn't do that is puzzling.


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## hne (Mar 8, 2018)

ahsanford said:


> hne said:
> 
> 
> > I would be utterly surprised to see D-shaped bokeh balls outside of the f/1.4-f/1.8 range, considering the mirror box geometry of canon cameras and the highly unorthodox shape of the rear light baffle of that mitakon lens.
> ...



The mirror box and the rear baffle both prevent out of focus point light sources from projecting as circles on the sensor.

This is the same thing as people do with pieces of cardboard with heart/star shaped cutouts in front of their lenses, but permanently part of the lens mount and on the rear side. Like this excerpt irregular instead of circular:

http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?50292-Swirly-Bokeh-Modifying-Lenses-Non-Destructively-to-Get-it


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## JRWPIX (Mar 8, 2018)

Unlike most of you, I find this announcement most exciting! If you have not worked with a Speedmaster 0.95, you do not know what you are missing. I consider these lenses to be far more interesting than the "safe, do-it-all" Canon glass. These lenses are not for everyone...and who says we should all be driving Camry's? If you lack the skill and patience to slow down and focus a lens, do not buy this lens. I purchased the 35mm 0.95 Speedmaster for the EOS M5, with the native EF-M mount. It's jaw dropping! Color, saturation, acuity and super shallow DOF, all in one lens. Wide open, it makes images you cannot make any other way...if you think it's soft, you do not know how to process images. Stopped down, the micro contrast and acuity makes anything I've put on the camera look downright flat and dull. The great thing about mirrorless is the ability to test apples and oranges on the same camera. I set up a test scene in my studio and had a 50mm shootout with 11 different brands and/or models of lenses, on the M5. Guess what? The Mitakon can out resolve and hold high frequency details that none of my other lenses could do. Upshot? I dumped my Sigma Art 35 & 50mm 1.4's. They were a joke compared to many other lenses in the high frequencies and whites. And they weren't even the sharpest. On the M5, I had better tones and equal acuity to the 50mm Apo-Summicron @ f4, by 3 different lenses. (I know the Leica glass is not designed for a Canon sensor) The Mitakon makes many modern lenses seem dull.
I do agree with other posters that it is odd that ZY Optics does not show the contacts on the back of the lens, however, this was spotted more as a prototype, and not a ready for the showroom product. ZY is one of but a handful of lens makers still using "leaded" glass. The lenses are notably heavier, but boy do they ever sparkle! ZY has chosen to make different paint brushes, for different effects, than the mainstream lens makers. I was highly doubtful that Speedmaster's were nothing more than junk. Have I been pleasantly amazed! It never leaves my M5 now. It's more than a one-trick-pony. I wish I had a FF Speedmaster for my 1Dx and my 5DsR. Fingers crossed I will, soon.


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## Admin US West (Mar 10, 2018)

ahsanford said:


> BeenThere said:
> 
> 
> > No electrical contacts, so totally manual including aperture setting.
> ...



Imagine what a Canon f/0.7 IS III would be like.


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## aceflibble (Mar 10, 2018)

It's interesting it appears to be a whole a new design, as the existing Sony 50/0.95 and the equivalent 35mm/0.95 for APS-C mirrorless systems already perform extremely well _considering the limitations of such a fast optic_. You can't open a lens up that far without sacrificing some technical quality, of course, but Mitakon capitalised on that by going for rendering rather than 'lab' quality, and the resulting lenses are really very good. (Especially the 35mm mark II; I bought Christopher Frost's copy off him and it's not been removed from the Fuji body I put it on since I got it.)
It's hard to imagine there is much more they could do to improve on the optical formula, and simply moving to the Canon mount doesn't _require_ new optics; they could have just stuck the Sony formula on the larger EF mount. I would guess that the larger front element and filter thread is to reduce vignetting, which is one of the few genuine faults of the existing designs, but that also makes the corners harder to master. Seems like a lot of work for a lens which I doubt anybody really expects to be a _technical_ A+ anyway.

For what it's worth, though yes these lenses are manual focus only and f/0.95 may seem daunting at first, it's really not _that_ much different from focusing an f/1.4 lens (you get diminishing returns on apertures after f/1.6, so f/1.4 to f/0.95 is only really about half a stop difference in terms of both depth of field and light gathering) and the other Mitakon lenses' focus rings are nearly perfect; the only manual lenses I've used with better focus rings are the top Zeiss lenses and the Samyang XP 85mm, and those are only _slightly_ ahead of the Mitakon 50 and 35. They are _far_ better for manual focus than any Canon, Nikon, Sony, Sigma, or Tamron lens.

Of course, this lens could turn out to be a huge mess, we don't know, but at least on paper and given how the current similar Mitakons have turned out, this is a lens that 50mm prime fans should be every excited for.



ahsanford said:


> But please educate me for a moment here, as this phenomenon was unknown to me until the 85 f/1.4L IS was released. The D-shaped bokeh is less about the rear baffle and more about the sheer wide open aperture actual size being bigger than the mirror box, right? What in particular does the baffle have to do with this?


It's the mirror box. The rectangular shield on the back of this lens is actually to combat flare. Several Canon FD and early EF lenses also use this, and it does not interfere with the rendering of out of focus areas, as they are engineered so the image circle coming out is still more than large enough (and round).

The reason that cutting shapes out of card and the camera's own mirror box can interfere with the rendering is because they are blocking out light from the image circle. This shielding doesn't, or, at least, _shouldn't_.

But as you're well aware,_ the mirrorbox of Canons will clip the image circle anyway, so it's basically irrelevant_. The only way to get a lens faster than f/1.4 on a Canon _without_ the mirrorbox clipping would be to move to a shorter focal length, something like 22mm or so if my rough, late-night maths is correct. 22/0.95 results in an aperture half the size of 50/0.95, and that should be able to _just about_ project an image circle _just_ escaping the mirrorbox. (Though the angle the edges would come in at would be so broad, I'd expect the corner quality to be shockingly bad.)

One advantage of going all the way to f/0.95, though, and especially with the even, 'easy' rendering that Mitakon use, is that everything gets so blurred-out you don't really make out any particular background shapes anyway. You'll only notice the clipped highlights if you're basically doing a YouTube-esque 'bokeh test' shot with christmas lights against a stark backdrop, and, well, I doubt many people are actually shooting that as part of their 'real' photos. Similar to how the Canon 50mm and 85mm f/1.2s are kind of awful lenses in strict testing, there's more to a lens than simply its ability to pass the disconnected, arbitrary testing of most reviewers. The rendering is far more important for lenses like this, and clipped highlight shapes haven't really been a problem for the Canon 85mm f/1.2, and that lens has been producing them for decades now.


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## alliumnsk (Mar 11, 2018)

aceflibble said:


> It's hard to imagine there is much more they could do to improve on the optical formula, and simply moving to the Canon mount doesn't _require_ new optics;


It will have to be another optical formula, because rear elements in the Sony version sit where the Canon has mirrorbox.



aceflibble said:


> I would guess that the larger front element and filter thread is to reduce vignetting,


You can't, except for rare exceptions, just make front element bigger.



aceflibble said:


> (you get diminishing returns on apertures after f/1.6, so f/1.4 to f/0.95 is only really about half a stop difference in terms of both depth of field and light gathering)


Depends on sensor. Except Canon everyone else's moving from FSI sensors to BSI sensors, where this issue (almost) doesn't exist. Probably Canon will, too.



aceflibble said:


> The only way to get a lens faster than f/1.4 on a Canon _without_ the mirrorbox clipping would be to move to a shorter focal length,


No, it just needs aperture stop to be close to mirrorbox front; FL per se is irrelevant. However the optimal position of aperture stop is typically somewhere in the middle of the lens;


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## Alan (Mar 12, 2018)

Any updates? CP+ is already over, but the lens was never announced...


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## CanonGrunt (Mar 14, 2018)

JRWPIX said:


> Unlike most of you, I find this announcement most exciting! If you have not worked with a Speedmaster 0.95, you do not know what you are missing. I consider these lenses to be far more interesting than the "safe, do-it-all" Canon glass. These lenses are not for everyone...and who says we should all be driving Camry's? If you lack the skill and patience to slow down and focus a lens, do not buy this lens. I purchased the 35mm 0.95 Speedmaster for the EOS M5, with the native EF-M mount. It's jaw dropping! Color, saturation, acuity and super shallow DOF, all in one lens. Wide open, it makes images you cannot make any other way...if you think it's soft, you do not know how to process images. Stopped down, the micro contrast and acuity makes anything I've put on the camera look downright flat and dull. The great thing about mirrorless is the ability to test apples and oranges on the same camera. I set up a test scene in my studio and had a 50mm shootout with 11 different brands and/or models of lenses, on the M5. Guess what? The Mitakon can out resolve and hold high frequency details that none of my other lenses could do. Upshot? I dumped my Sigma Art 35 & 50mm 1.4's. They were a joke compared to many other lenses in the high frequencies and whites. And they weren't even the sharpest. On the M5, I had better tones and equal acuity to the 50mm Apo-Summicron @ f4, by 3 different lenses. (I know the Leica glass is not designed for a Canon sensor) The Mitakon makes many modern lenses seem dull.
> I do agree with other posters that it is odd that ZY Optics does not show the contacts on the back of the lens, however, this was spotted more as a prototype, and not a ready for the showroom product. ZY is one of but a handful of lens makers still using "leaded" glass. The lenses are notably heavier, but boy do they ever sparkle! ZY has chosen to make different paint brushes, for different effects, than the mainstream lens makers. I was highly doubtful that Speedmaster's were nothing more than junk. Have I been pleasantly amazed! It never leaves my M5 now. It's more than a one-trick-pony. I wish I had a FF Speedmaster for my 1Dx and my 5DsR. Fingers crossed I will, soon.




You are definitely the fella that left the review of this over at B&H...

Echoing my friend's sentiments here, but far less poetically, I also have the Mitakon 35mm f0.95 MK II Speedmaster for my M5, and it is amazing in all the ways. If this lens is like that one, then count me in. But if it's like the Mitakon Creator series lenses, then it will leave something (or a lot) to be desired.


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## hne (Mar 14, 2018)

aceflibble said:


> ahsanford said:
> 
> 
> > But please educate me for a moment here, as this phenomenon was unknown to me until the 85 f/1.4L IS was released. The D-shaped bokeh is less about the rear baffle and more about the sheer wide open aperture actual size being bigger than the mirror box, right? What in particular does the baffle have to do with this?
> ...



Your late night arithmetic seems fine, but your late night geometry could use some sleep. Any f/0.95 lens needs an exit pupil with an apparent diameter 1/0.95=1.05 times larger than its apparent distance. The limitations by the EF mount are 44mm flange distance and 54mm throat, giving a theoretical limit of f/0.815. But if you need half a millimetre of metal around the rear element for the bayonet, you're already at f/0.83. Any pixel that can't see a circular exit pupil will be a pixel where OOF hilights will have funny shapes in some circumstances. Any point in space that is within the field of view but from which one cannot see a circular entrance pupil would have OOF points of light placed there project as funny shapes on the sensor.

The reason it works well with some lenses is because they have such small apertures. My 17-40/4L has no problems because of its baffle, but 44mm/4=11mm and the baffle has an opening much larger than that.


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## veng (Mar 16, 2018)

BeenThere said:


> No electrical contacts, so totally manual including aperture setting.
> Huge rear opening, expect mirror box clipping.


Other faults addressed in this thread, if you are buying an f/0.95 lens and using it at anything less than about f/2 you are wasting your money. In any specific lens, you'll find the maximum aperture you are happy with sharpness at and it'll never leave that setting. If you want an f/8 lens, just spend 80$ on the 50 f/1.8 and be done with it.


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