Talking about the world of photography today, it can be said that two characteristics of lens rule over others, sharpness and bokeh. The Mitakon 35mm lens gives you the depth of field and bokeh at a versatile focal length and is easy to work with. It is a small but fast lens for a mirrorless camera known for its durability and de-click aperture.

Let us review the Mitakon Speedmaster lens and take a closer look at its features, performance and offerings to help you understand what you should expect from it.

Mitakon 35mm F 0.95

Mitakon 35mm F 0.95 Review – UPDATED 2020

The Mitakon 35mm F 0.95 is a versatile lens for photos and videos with a sharp focus in the center that gets sharper as you stop it down. It is specially built to deliver incredible performance at fast apertures and performs well at it. This lens is a great choice for mirrorless shooters interested in taking their portraits, weddings and artistic photography to the next level.

Specs

Focal length – 35mm

Max aperture – F 0.95

Minimum aperture – F 1.6

Minimum focus – 0.35mm

Length – 60mm

Diameter – 63mm

Weight – 460g

Ergonomics

The Mitakon 35mm F 0.95 lens fits great in hands and the focusing ring can be easily turned without any feeling of overextending on fingers. Though a 0.95 lens, it is much lighter in weight and smaller.

Build Quality

The build quality of this lens is excellent. It has a metal construction with great precision. It doesn’t use a rubber focus ring like other lenses and sticks to a traditional teethed metal ring construction. Focus and aperture are quite smooth with the right amount of resistance. It also comes in a box.

In terms of durability, it performs well throughout the year. It operates properly in hot and cold temperatures without any issue of sticky aperture or focus.

Ease of Use

As a manually focused lens, the Mitakon 35mm F 0.95 is extremely easy to use. It focuses smoothly but there is one problem. The aperture ring is clickless so it is easy to move it accidentally and change the aperture while shooting. This can be dealt with using a rubber band that holds the focus ring in place.

Focusing

The Mitakon offers a focus throw of about 135 degrees, making it easy to focus precisely at close distances. You need much less rotation to move the focus beyond 1.5m. when shooting at f/0.95, the DOF is very shallow. There is a focus shift when the aperture changes so you should keep that in mind while adjusting the aperture. Moreover, be careful not to turn the aperture ring accidentally when trying to focus.

MitakonSpeedmaster Review

Talking about the performance of the MitakonSpeedmaster, you can say that it is way better than what its price and production suggests. The sharpness is great if you can get the focus right. The bokeh is pretty good. There are never any issues and it doesn’t feel nervous or busy. It is always pleasant even when stopped down.

Color Rendering

This lens produces a balanced look, neither too cool nor too warm. Colors are quite rich even when wide open and bokeh. The way images hold together in terms of color and contrast at wide apertures is impressive.

Sharpness

The lens is quite sharp and is not hard to focus at f/0.94. When you shoot wide open, sharpness covers the central part of the image and it quickly falls off towards the corners. When you stop down to f/1.4, central sharpness and contrast improve but corners stay soft. At f/2.8, corners sharpen up to a great extent while it extends beyond the frame by f/4.

Pros

  • Ultrafast aperture
  • Adds a nice weight to Fujifilm cameras
  • Accurate, smooth focusing ring
  • Great sharpness
  • Pleasing bokeh
  • Sturdy build quality
  • Excellent manual focus

Cons

  • No autofocus
  • Electronic communication not available with cameras
  • Clickless aperture ring can be accidentally moved
  • Lens hood not included

Mitakon 35mm F 0.95 Sample Images

Here are some samples from the Mitakon 35mm F 0.95, a mixture of low-light and daylight images. The lens produces pleasant black and white images as well. It has a nice contrast and tonality even when you shoot wide open.

Tarion Vs Mitakon

Both Tarion and Mitakon are great companies popular for their own range of products. Mitakon is a Chinese company while Tarion is based in London. Tarion specializes in durable, sturdy photography accessories whereas Mitakon focuses more on camera lenses and related stuff.

Both Tarion and Mitakon offer ZhongyiSpeedmaster 35mm F 0.95 lens designed for APS-C mirrorless camera. Both these lenses have similar specifications, build and quality. The manual focus lenses can deliver outstanding image quality with any type of shoot mode and the lightweight design makes them convenient to use.

The lens from Tarion is a standard one while Mitakon 35mm is a wide-angle lens. The maximum aperture of the Tarion 35mm lens is f/16.0 while it is 0.95mm for the Mitakon lens. The two lenses are similar in terms of minimum aperture, maximum focal length, minimum focal length and photo filter thread size.

Conclusion

What makes the Mitakon 35mm F 0.95 lens a great buy is its ability to soak up light and separate subjects. It is one of the lenses that perform well and are so fast at this price. It is a great choice for floral, wedding, art and portrait photography and does an outstanding job in low-light conditions. It is a must-have for photographers who want to add some creative touch to their portfolio.