BOKEH GONE WILD! Adventures with the donut lens - Xenon 17mm F0.95

[Andrew Reid]

Ich bin ein Berliner!

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[mercer]

Wow... what a lens! Great color too. Are you shooting a modified muted profile? Your walking shots look pretty damn good too... Olympus’ IBIS is so damn close to gimbal smooth... almost. Were you doing some kind of ministry of silly walks or ninja steps?

 

[JBraddock]

I am not impressed, Andrew. I was unable to see all the blemishes on people's faces. It is not sharp enough. ? 

[no_connection]

I have a Cosmicar 25mm f1.4 c-mount television lens that have developed some sort of speck in the middle on two elements inside, makes an interesting "hole" in the bokeh. I don't have anything to use it on at the moment tho =/

[OliKMIA]

Interesting. How much did you pay for it?

PS: I hope you have a release for each people in this video, gonna DMCA you! ?

[Andrew Reid]

200 euros.

DMCA that.

[BasiliskFilm]

Not sure how a single mirror would work in a lens - a reflex lens needs two? It might be the extreme curvature of the glass, or the high refractive index of an element creates a total internal reflection. As you might surmise, if the light doesn't pass through, but bounces back in the middle, this somehow creates the hole in the bokeh. 

Technically a fault I guess, and a computer designed lens would no doubt pick up on it before it got off the drawing board. Which is why modern lenses are all so boring!

[Shield3]

No idea what 200 Euros = USD (too lazy to look) but sounds like for about $800 you can have a pretty dope 35mm F/1.8 equiv 4k beast with good in body IS.  Why am I shooting Sony again?

[Ichidomo]

Hi Andrew, the black dot is called a spot meter. Some C-mounts had this for motorized mounts.

From Schneider:
 

Quote

13. What's a Spot Filter?

Motorized iris versions of Schneider lenses are supplied with a Spot Filter.

If you look through a lens with a Spot Filter, the Spot Filter appears as a small, dark "spot" at the center of the lens.

The Spot Filter is a reflective type (wavelength independent), Neutral Density, radial, gradient filter. It is deposited on a glass surface that is located coplanar to the optical stop surface (at the iris blade location). The Spot Filter allows rapid light-sensitivity adjustment. Light passes thru the spot filter from the center which is fairly dark to the edges where is phases out to 100% clear. So, if the iris blades move just a little bit, you greatly impact the overall light level that passes thru the lens.

Motorized lenses can be purchased without the spot filter, but there is no price difference. Almost all of our customers want the spot filter once they understand what it does. The only times we have seen customers not want the spot filter on a motorized-iris lens is when the application is light-starved to begin with.

I don't know if you can remove it but I like the non clinical vibe of the lens non the less, I have the 25mm f0.95 Xenon and currently eyeballing a 50mm f0.95 Xenon.

[noone]

Well you CAN use it on  Sony and in a variety of ways.

With a FF camera, FF with vignetting, FF without (using clear zoom), APSC with vignetting and APSC without.      Probably not going to be very nice with a LOT of vignetting FF without clear zoom I would think.

[Andrew Reid]

12 hours ago, Ichidomo said:

Hi Andrew, the black dot is called a spot meter. Some C-mounts had this for motorized mounts.

From Schneider:
 

I don't know if you can remove it but I like the non clinical vibe of the lens non the less, I have the 25mm f0.95 Xenon and currently eyeballing a 50mm f0.95 Xenon.

Wow nice info. Didn't know that.

I have the 25mm F0.95 Xenon as well, It's a beast. A lot smaller and lighter than a Voigltander 25mm F0.95. Not quite as characterful as the older Schneider 25mm cine lenses but still very dreamy.

[Mattias Burling]

Im currently reviewing the new and sharper Mark 2 version of the Kipon 40mm f0.85. Have been using it sporadically for a week or so but this weekend I will hopefully get to use it for a full day. So far its been dreamy.