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12-14-2023, 11:16 AM
(This post was last modified: 12-14-2023, 11:16 AM by Rover.)
I've been browsing NikonRumors site lately and noticed that there's an actual avalanche of new autofocus primes from various Chinese manufacturers coming. Even Laowa has seemingly jumped on the AF bandwagon at last - and the 10mm f/2.8 lens sure does look interesting! (and in Z mount, too... shaddap and take my money!)
https://nikonrumors.com/2023/12/13/the-l...ount.aspx/
It looks like the industry is moving in leaps and bounds, and it would be interesting to see as much of this fare in the testing lab as possible. I'm curious, is it fair to say that in a couple years' time nobody will even remember / care that these brands were once manual-focus only, just like it happened with Samyang - I'm not sure anybody gives a toss about their MF lenses anymore, even though they were big in that space for a while.
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I think you're right, with exceptions. For instance: my first Samyang was the manual focus 12mm ƒ/2. I still have it and I've been thinking of replacing with the latest version, that has got autofocus, some optical improvements and it's lighter (and not very expensive). But the manual lens is still useful for certain applications, such landscape astrophotograpy, as you can pre-focus for landscape hours before taking the shot, when there's still light. Of course this is a very small niche of use cases.
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Sony a6300, Sony a6000, Sony NEX-6, Sony E 10-18mm F4 OSS, Sony Zeiss Vario-Tessar T* E 16-70mm F4 ZA OSS, Sony FE 70-200mm F4 G OSS, Sigma 150-600mm Æ’/5-6.3 DG OS HSM Contemporary, Samyang 12mm Æ’/2, Sigma 30mm F2.8 DN | A, Meyer Gorlitz Trioplan 100mm Æ’/2.8, Samyang 8mm Æ’/3.5 fish-eye II | Zenit Helios 44-2 58mm Æ’/2
Plus some legacy Nikkor lenses.
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12-15-2023, 02:50 PM
(This post was last modified: 12-15-2023, 02:50 PM by Rover.)
Well, obviously pre-owned units aren't going to turn into pumpkins.  I mean, as far as the new products go.
But while I was already considering (theoretically for the time being) a Laowa 9mm f/5.6 or a similar lens - despite my desire to avoid MF lenses at any coast - news of the 10mm f/2.8 in Z-mount have made me completely abandon that idea. If that 10mm unit is good, I'll go for it, someday (I'm close to repaying the debt over the purchase of Z9 so it's like I'll be free to indulge in GAS again... lol)
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(12-15-2023, 02:50 PM)Rover Wrote: Well, obviously pre-owned units aren't going to turn into pumpkins. I mean, as far as the new products go.
But while I was already considering (theoretically for the time being) a Laowa 9mm f/5.6 or a similar lens - despite my desire to avoid MF lenses at any coast - news of the 10mm f/2.8 in Z-mount have made me completely abandon that idea. If that 10mm unit is good, I'll go for it, someday (I'm close to repaying the debt over the purchase of Z9 so it's like I'll be free to indulge in GAS again... lol)
Frankly on a 9mmf5.6 lens, focusing itself is not needed, let alone autofocus:
the depth of field is so big that if you set the lens to focus at 1 to 2 meters distance everything from 40cm to infinity will be in focus....
On my 8mmf3.5 I just use scale distance on lens barrel to focus and all my shots are in focus...
Having autofocus on a 9mm f5.6 lens is for me irrelevant...
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Not a 9mm f/5.6 but a 10mm f/3.5 fisheye, and my experience was not like that at all... it can still cheerfully get misfocused and the photo would be unusable.
Let's see how good this crop of new lenses is; by now there's a couple dozen already and I don't envy Klaus when he has to get through all of them...
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Stoked that the 10mm only costs 5000 yuan, which is quite a bit less than reported at first. I'll be keeping an eye open for it.
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(12-30-2023, 06:16 PM)Rover Wrote: Stoked that the 10mm only costs 5000 yuan, which is quite a bit less than reported at first. I'll be keeping an eye open for it.
5000 Yuan that's 2566 rial, not really cheap
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Sure, not cheap in absolute terms, but noticeably cheaper than originally reported.
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