When news of the SLR Magic 12mm f1.6 Hyperprime broke, we announced it on our Facebook page. Our copy literally just came in the door yesterday, here’s a quick video preview of the lens. Note that this lens was primarily developed for videographers and in my conversations with the SLR Magic reps, the lens actually has T-stops and not F-stops. So like the Zeiss 85mm that we had hands on time with, it’s a cinema prime. What are T-stops? We explain it a bit in this article; but they’re f-stops only much more accurate.
Here are some stats right from SLR Magic:
1) 12mm Wide Angle
2) F1.6 Max Aperture (Best performance is at F4 but we were told to make this lens as wide aperture as possible)
3) ~2% distortion (optical distortion correction for natural perspective when taking photos of people)
4) 0.15m Minimum Focus Distance
5) 12 Stepless Aperture Blades for always round aperture opening like a cinema lens for better compatibility with GH2 and AF-100
6) Depth of field scale included
7) $499 MSRP due in October
Here’s an image sample I shot with the lens on my EP2 at f4 and without any editing. Indeed, this lens is significantly larger than both the Olympus 12mm f2 and SLR Magic 11mm f1.4; but to me it already seems to be giving both a run for their money: if you manually focus that is.
How does the lens feel? It’s very well built: all metal body and quite heavy for a micro four thirds lens. But it’s not overpoweringly heavy. More to come in the full review; stay tuned!
We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.
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