On Wednesdays, we wear pink — and shoot with the pink Kipon 40mm f0.85 lens for some bokehlicious snaps.
With gorgeously bubbly and creamy bokeh still pretty much in vogue in the photography world today, lenses promising to provide it have been popping up here and there. Among the latest of these is the Ibelux 40mm with a whopping f0.85 aperture, made by Shanghai-based lens adapter innovator Kipon. The best part? It comes in screaming pink! If you didn’t catch this lens, Kai Wong spotted this bokeh machine at the Kipon booth during this year’s Photokina and recently made a video review about it.
In the video below, Kai tells us about how he came across Kipon’s latest offering, his initial thoughts about the Ibelux 40mm f0.85, and whether his tests confirm that it’s indeed the bokeh machine it promises to be.
“I’d love the pink one, yeah,” Kai said when a Kipon representative offered to lend him a unit to review, and honestly, his choice isn’t surprising. Interestingly, the rep also told him that the lens, which is for Fujifilm X-mount and Sony E-mount APSC-mirrorless cameras, performs better when used with the former for some reason.
He describes the Ibelux 40mm f0.85, designed in Germany and made in China, as having a hefty metal build and a concave front element like a Leica lens. It’s also a manual focus lens with a minimum focusing distance of 0.75 m. It’s not exactly cheap at $2,000 but what are you getting for that price? Kai gave it a go using a Fujifilm X-T3 to find out — with both videos and photos.
So, what’s his verdict? The bokeh at f0.85 is pretty nice but overall, the image may look too soft for some photographers’ liking. There’s also some color fringing when shooting wide open, which is why he doesn’t recommend it for color photography. It does get nice and crisp images at f2 and you’re more likely to want to shoot at that.
For videos, however, it lends a nice old film look with some really nice bokeh. The Ibelux 40mm f0.85 is not going to be your everyday lens, and it’s definitely not a lens for everyone. But if you do decide to burn some $2,000 on a pink lens, well, he gives you props and credit for that!
Check out Kai Wong’s YouTube channel for more of his photography videos.
Screenshot image from the video by Kai Wong