Junior Member Registered: August, 2009 Location: Lexington, KY Posts: 30 2 users found this helpful | Review Date: January 8, 2012 | Recommended | Price: $10.00
| Rating: 8 |
Pros: | Small, well-built, close focus, well-corrected | Cons: | Very soft wide open, ringed PSF | Sharpness: 7
Aberrations: 10
Bokeh: 8
Handling: 9
Value: 10
| | This is another "along for the ride" eBay purchase. In fact, it took several months for me to get around to trying this lens. It's actually pretty good.
Build is very Kiron-ish, although the aperture still works on this lens. I don't know how old this lens is, but is definitely seems newer than most M42. It is fairly small for a 24mm, but my Kiron 24mm F2 is about the same size.
Actually, the Kiron F2 is a really good one to compare with. This lens seems to have as little DOF at F2.8 as the Kiron does at F2, which is strange. The PSF (point spread function) of this Mitakon lens has a very bright ring, which may be responsible for the softness around the focus point. Oddly, it doesn't seem to generate nisen bokeh as much as the PSF would lead one to expect, although the bright ring is pretty obvious for every out-of-focus point of light. Put another way, it gives lots of smooth and pretty bokeh, punctuated by some unpleasant little bright rings. Flare seems well-controlled, but also looks like bright-ringed circles when it happens. The very soft wide-open image becomes very sharp and contrasty at the focus point around F8.
Straight lines stay fairly straight with this lens and CA seems minimal. In fact, I see no purple fringes at all. Really a great performance for an old 24mm.
So, overall, I'm fairly impressed. This seems to be another one of the relatively few old wides that isn't completely blown away by a modern APS-C kit zoom. The look wide open could make it reasonable as a short portrait or close-up lens (on 1.5X crop APS-C, that is), while stopped down it would be fine for landscapes. It's not a "must have" by any means, but clearly is above average utility for an old 24mm. Nothing to complain about for what it cost me....
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