| Author: | | Site Supporter Registered: December, 2011 Posts: 566 | | Review Date: April 29, 2021 | Recommended | Price: None indicated
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | good value, light, great for trying out at astro | | Cons: | soft at edges | | Sharpness: 8
Aberrations: 7
Bokeh: 4
Handling: 10
Focusing: 10
Camera Used: K-1
Value: 9
| |
 | | | | | | | New Member Registered: August, 2017 Posts: 5 | | Review Date: October 8, 2019 | Recommended | Price: $400.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Well build, good i.Q. | | Cons: | No AF | | Sharpness: 9
Aberrations: 9
Bokeh: 7
Handling: 7
Focusing: 9
Camera Used: K1
| |
There is nearly no other lens challenging the Irix. Except the Pentax Zoom (15-30mm). Therefor I cheered as it was been announced. I tried an old Tokina 17mm before. But I was not happy with it. The Pentax Zoom is too expensive for an amateure like me.
If you are looking for an ultrawide this is the only choice in my eyes. And not the worst too. Its sharp in the center. Corners are a bit soft. But this is normal among lenses of this focal length, isnt it?
CA`s and flare dont play any role.
The short focusing distance is a huge benefit and opens up new perspectives.
| | | | | New Member Registered: January, 2013 Posts: 7 | | Review Date: November 30, 2018 | Not Recommended | Price: $449.00
| Rating: 5 |
| Pros: | Good IQ (sometimes) | | Cons: | Bad IQ (sometimes) due to casually located OOF spots | | Sharpness: 7
Aberrations: 6
Bokeh: 9
Handling: 9
Focusing: 5
Camera Used: K70
| |
The 2 copies of the lens I tried had the same identical flaw, very evident if you used wide open. Backfocused spots in the left or right part of the image, depending on how you used the focus ring before. If you go to the correct focusing while turning clockwise, you have one result; if you were turning CCW you have another. I suppose the issue is due to decentering induced by excessive play in the IF movement. Probably a flawed mechanical project on an excellent optical project. I can't recommend this lens and I'll stay away from every Irix lens for some years, maybe they fire some engineer in between.
Same behaviour in dpreview samples, look for the wide open pictures in the center-left or center-right - you can find a pickup out of focus in one and some trees completely blurred in another (for copyright reason I can't attach crops).
Examples of the strange behaviour in this test, wide open with focus set to infinity and with 80-90% of the image tack sharp. (Center-left part of the image on APS-C.)
 | | | | | New Member Registered: December, 2017 Posts: 7
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: August 6, 2018 | Recommended | Price: $400.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Value, landscape photography | | Cons: | | | Sharpness: 9
Aberrations: 8
Bokeh: 8
Handling: 9
Focusing: 10
Camera Used: K1
| |
I purchased the Firefly variant as I decided I wanted to save some grams while hiking - haven't regretted that decision at all.
This lens is awesome. It is the anchor of my lens collection, and I don't see myself being tempted to go wider. This fellow is wide enough to handle just about anything when mounted on a full frame body. It also marvelously avoids most of the flaws that typically plague ultra-wide lenses, and which are allegedly more apparent in its 11mm sister lens.
It's a joy to use, as it pairs nicely with the K1 body and balances perfectly. The focus ring is smooth and the locking feature works like a charm - I'm shooting at infinity 90% of the time, so this comes in handy. Even though the handling is top-notch, I'm almost always using it on a tripod, meaning this factor matters a bit less than it might for other lenses.
In terms of image quality, I have no major complaints. Vignetting isn't terrible, and there is a Lightroom profile to correct both this and the (relatively) limited distortion. I love the way the lens renders colors. As others have noted, the only trouble occurs when shooting into the sun - flaring is something you have to work around. And considering you're shooting so wide, it's easy for the sun to sneak into your frame. Just requires either a bit of extra thoughtfulness when it comes to composition, or additional time in post-processing. The lens is sufficiently sharp throughout, and while having f/2.4 is nice, if you're shooting landscapes you'll probably be closer to the perfectly sharp f/8 most of the time anyway.
To end, I think the highest praise I can give this lens is that when I travel, I take it and my 28-105 and that's it. Probably the second most used lens in my system after my walk-around.
Here's a gallery of images I've shot using this lens: https://www.flickr.com/photos/78185089@N02/albums/72157687945643872 | | | | | | | New Member Registered: February, 2015 Posts: 1 | | Review Date: June 18, 2018 | Recommended | Price: $490.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | sharpnes, price | | Cons: | handling | | Sharpness: 8
Aberrations: 8
Bokeh: 8
Handling: 5
Focusing: 9
Camera Used: K-3II
| |
As I bought the lens mainly for astro and landscape, the flare issue can be avoided.
There is (at least with my model) huge issue. I simply cannot use the lens in other than the landscape mode, because otherwise due to the weight of the lens, the mount data pins become disconnected and the body loses aperture information. This can be quite frustrating especially if you want to do shots with a reversed tripod setup with the head between the tripod legs. I had to find something to support the lens and push it so the prepper mount pin connection is achieved.
However, the pictures are sometimes really astonishing.
| | | | | Forum Member Registered: July, 2017 Posts: 93 | | Review Date: May 21, 2018 | Recommended | Price: $400.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Good sharpness, distortion control, Construction | | Cons: | None | | Sharpness: 10
Aberrations: 10
Bokeh: 8
Handling: 9
Focusing: 10
Camera Used: Pentax K-1
| |
I was pleasantly surprised by this Irix, it is manageable, comfortable to use, with a good sharpness and resistance to flares. Well controlled distortion. The Bokeh is very correct, without being spectacular and has a very good construction to not be metalic.Very recommended , for the one who looks for an extreme angle. | | | | | Veteran Member Registered: August, 2016 Posts: 1,784
2 users found this helpful
| | Review Date: May 20, 2018 | Not Recommended | Price: $500.00
| Rating: 4 |
| Pros: | Price-performance ratio (high) | | Cons: | Extremely jumpy and warped near-field focusing field curvature | | Sharpness: 8
Aberrations: 4
Bokeh: 6
Handling: 9
Focusing: 7
Camera Used: K-1 MK2
| |
I purchased this lens to use with star trail stacking and occasional milky way photography. But, as it is several months before it can be used in such cases where I live, I have experimented with it a bit in traditional UWA landscape photography.
Positive thing first - lens handles very well. It is as bulky as K-1 body is. Focusing ring has a nice tab for extra grip and clicks at infinity (which may well vary copy-to-copy). My copy seems to hit infinity very well. Lens mounts firmly in place and has tight fit, perhaps thanks to rubber rear seal. So far so good.
Then, as the negative - lens has severe issues with near-field focusing. Focusing field becomes warped and jumpy. Imagine letter W as the shape. One needs to use careful zooming in live view to get near corners sharp and then use focus stacking to combine far field details in the final image. However, if you focus to near MFD, the image becomes so warped compared to infinity focus that even focus stacking may fail! Helicon Focus could not handle some cases anymore and final stack looks blurred in many areas of the image.
This is an UWA suited to infinity focus scenes but WATCH CLOSELY when there are objects near you. Not a jack-of-all-trades UWA by any means.
PS.
Irix 95mm CPL filter is top quality filter. In practice it handles flare well and is easy to clean. Does not cause any vignetting thanks to super slim frame.
--
Focus stacked sample photo:
 | | | | | Site Supporter Registered: January, 2013 Location: Hampshire, UK Posts: 1,653
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: April 29, 2018 | Recommended | Price: None indicated
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | Remarkably value for the quality | | Cons: | None | | Sharpness: 10
Aberrations: 9
Handling: 9
Focusing: 10
Camera Used: K1
| |
>
I've surprised myself and have really taken to this lens. I've never been a fan of ultra-wide. Having briefly experimented with the massive DFA*15-30 I could not manage the bulk nor the weight and to be honest, the quality at 15mm of the zoom did not impress me that much in comparison with the Irix, when price and size were taken into account.
The (Firefly) version is a well built, plastic version of the Blackstone. It's the same optics, and the same WR spec up to the objective as its metal (more expensive) relative. I've fixed a B+W clear filter to effectively bring it to the same WR spec as the Blackstone - confirmed by Irix.
It is tremendous value for the price.
The packaging is excellent, by the way. From the start it looked good.
At first I struggled with the manual focusing with so much in the frame. A loupe, LV and x4/x8 nailed the problem. Now my focusing is spot on.
There is scope to make fine adjustments to the infinity focus. There's a click at the factory set infinity, but then the focusing ring can be rotate a few degrees further. On my version I have to go beyond the click to get infinity focus. I could adjust it, but I actually find that I focus to the click and go a little beyond - not quite to the stop - and I know where I'll be focusing. I go to the stop for infinity, but at f8 upwards, the click point is tends to be where I want the focus to be - a little in front of infinity. So I'll not be adjusting it. I checked with Irix that's it's find to use the lens by constantly adjusting either side of the click - wear and tear is not an issue.
I'm very happy with its handling.
The flare resistance is excellent, which is so often needed as when going this wide the sun seems to find its way into the frame so often.
I haven't been bothered with any troublesome fringing. Distortion is well controlled.
For an ultra-wide lens the sharpness at the edges/corners is impressive. It should be said that, as I write this I realise, I have rarely gone wider than f4 - I've mostly been in the range f5.6 to f11 range, which for the garden shots I wanted it for and for what I call my Discovered Landscapes (read Intimate Landscapes).
As a moderately priced, high optical quality ultra-wide option, it has been a great success.
| | | | | New Member Registered: July, 2017 Posts: 14
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: August 22, 2017 | Recommended | Price: $400.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | Relatively undistorted. Reasonable IQ | | Cons: | Blurry at the edges. Some vignetting. Non-infinite focus is hard. | | Sharpness: 8
Aberrations: 10
Bokeh: 9
Handling: 8
Focusing: 8
Camera Used: K1
| |
I'm including this photo not because it's particularly nice, but because it's typical of the results you get with this lens. It's sharp towards the middle and there's almost no distortion. (Look at the lamp post.) However, if you look at the building towards the left of the lamp post you'll notice that the IQ is much poorer if you pixel peep.
This lens is good at infinity, though the focus ring "has character". It makes a gentle click when at infinity, but allows you to move past. If you do, anything you shoot will be blurry. The lens is also pretty good at portrait range, but if you want to photograph a small room full of people with it then pray thee to ye gods that you can somehow focus correctly. The K1's focus assist only sometimes helps. The on-screen assist is essentially worthless. The other assist (I forget what it's called) will give you a beep if you hit AF. If this happens you really will get a sharp shot, but getting it to happen is an exercise in patience and in low light levels it's close to hopeless.
| | | | | Pentaxian Registered: June, 2008 Location: Holy Land Posts: 1,165
3 users found this helpful
| | Review Date: May 8, 2017 | Recommended | Price: $400.00
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | Fast, great color, very wide and a great build & handling lens. | | Cons: | None | | Sharpness: 10
Aberrations: 10
Bokeh: 9
Handling: 10
Focusing: 10
Camera Used: K-1
| |
Build quality is superb. Smooth focus with clicks in at infinity. Very sharp lens out to the corners. Distortion is very well controlled. Little bit of vignetting but not bad. Easily fixable in post processing, if necessary. Very easy to use, for most my shots I set it on at infinity and set the aperture more than f5.6 to get every things in focus.
 | | | | | New Member Registered: August, 2015 Location: Stockholm Posts: 15
2 users found this helpful
| | Review Date: January 9, 2017 | Recommended | Price: $550.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Sharp, minimal distortion, filter | | Cons: | None | | Sharpness: 9
Aberrations: 9
Bokeh: 8
Handling: 10
Focusing: 10
Camera Used: Pentax K-1
| |
Very sharp in center wide open, corner sharpness comes along after 5,6 if one cares about that, I don't... Distortion is suprisingly minimal and it can be pointed straight into the sun without problems with flares. I have got some minor flares to show up (see picture) but they have been easy enough to be removed in PP. It is like a big, bulky version of DA 15 Limited Bokeh is quite good but not fantastic.
95mm filters are huge and pricey!
Bought this to replace my Samyang 14mm 2.8, it beats it hands down in all aspects ! Very satisfied with this lens !
@ f2.4:
30 sek @ f14 (using ND1000 filter)
 | | |
;)
;)
