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Well done video? Not really, because the explanations and conclusions are not justified. They simply ignore the real physical limitations! At f/1.0, the opening angle of the cone of light rays that converge behind the lens towards the focal point on the sensor is 30°. The numerical aperture is sin(30°) = 0.5. The largest opening angle of a light cone that can possibly be imagined (in a lens that projects on a flat sensor through air) is 90°. Under these conditions, the entire 2pi-space is used for the projection. The geometrical aperture would then amount f/0.5, which is the limit for projection in air. If you have an immersed projection through water (refractive index = 1.331), the highest possible numerical aperture would now be 1.331, corresponding to a limiting f stop of f/0.376. In immersion oil or in N-BK7 glass glued to the sensor, the limit is NA 1.5168 or f/0.33. In diamond-bonding, NA cannot exceed 2.4, giving rise to a limit of the f stop at f/0.208. In other words: there are (!) physical limitations.
+Elieser Cedano (aPrinceOfBaSs) The educational video is entitled: "What is the Fastest Lens POSSIBLE?" Thus, the answer should at least be correct. Being less scientific (by not knowing or ignoring the science behind it) is not a good starting point to draw reliable conclusions.
+Elieser Cedano (aPrinceOfBaSs) As already mentioned, f/0.5 is the physical limit for a corrected interchangeable photographic lens, which couples to the sensor by projecting through air. Further reading: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical_aperture#Numerical_aperture_versus_f-number
Kom Mentar (Kommentar?), perhaps you are right in this, and I have not as much knowledge about optics as you do, but Matt repeatedly says in this video that 'theoretically' a lens of this or that aperture... I know the title says this and that, but nevertheless Matt's comment is about what-if, not?
Well, in theory that neglects important aspects (e.g. the Abbe sine condition in infinity) is an incomplete theory. In non-relativistic (incomplete) theory, a rocket that is accelerated by a constant force should - at least after some time - exceed the speed of light.
It's actually the entrance pupil size, not the actual size of the blades in a lens. The blades in a lens give an effective/equivalent f/stop due to their placement, as there are additional elements that adjust the back focus/flange distance of the combined lens elements. Take one of your 200mm lenses at 2.8, that's a entrance pupil of 71.42mm, however, the aperture blades can be moved further back close to the ray crossing point (focal point) and be reduced in size at the effective position, this is why most blades are placed near this point. Note: true entrance pupil can be in front or back of the objective lens. Thus taking a 1800mm telescope has an entrance of 225mm, and is known as an f/8 lens - sadly I was forced to learn this when I got involved in compound lens design.
What is the fastest Lens possible: Well for pure glass that has an index of refraction of 1.5, the maximum aperture would be f/0.5 or thereabouts, for anything faster to need something else but glass like diamonds for instance, with an index of refraction of 2.417 a diamond lens can give you an aperture of f/0.235
I hoped that you will talk about something seriously nerdy stuff about lensmaker's equation, refraction of glass and other materials. If we could use any materials and lens have to be surrounded by air we can get ~0.235 by using diamond as element material. With glass we can only get ~0.5 :(
Stanley Kubrick had a couple of lenses manufactured for filming "Barry Lyndon". They were f/0.7 and were used for filming the interior candlelit scenes... such dimly lit scenes had never been recorded on actual movie film until then. I believe those same old lenses are now available to hire by the general public for videography (probably Panavision mount). Don't expect cheap hire rates though.
Sorry, but you didn't really answer the question in your title -- What is the fastest possible lens? Using glass, it'd be around f/0.5. Can't get any faster than that, because at that point you're running up against the limits of glass's refractivity. There are some exotic materials with higher indices of refractivity that in turn could offer faster f/stops, including flint glass, diamond, or germanium for infrared. But these have their own limits, and it's incorrect to say that an f/0.1 lens is theoretically possible. Any "theory" in which that is possible fundamentally misapprehends optical physics. To answer your question for viewers, many of us Micro Four Thirds users are shooting or have shot at f/0.95, with the lovely Voigtlander lenses. They are a little soft at that aperture, but in a way that is still quite pleasing to the eye. Throw an f/1.2 on a BMPCC Speedbooster, and you've got a lens with light transmission equivalent to f/0.7. But why push it, and why equivalate f/stop with lens quality? Some of the nicest lenses I've ever seen were f/2 through f/3.5. Macro lenses in particular can deliver stunning results at higher f/stops. I don't think it's fair to say that Zeiss could have made the Otus better by spending more money on making it faster. Optical engineering is a matter of navigating trade-offs, making small compromises in one area to give greater benefits elsewhere. I doubt that an Otus f/1.2 would be "better" than an Otus f/1.4, if our criteria are bokeh quality, sharpness, micro-contrast, or the elusive "three dimensional" look.
Sangye Ince-Johannsen maybe it should be "You can get faster, if you don't care about quality" But at that point, you might as well have invented a laser pointer.
Yeah, well, limit of the glass refractivity is not really a limit. It just means that the light cone needs additional compression that we can't acquire with simple design. Nothing prevents us from making f0.1 lens with complex design along with multiple steps to compress the image circle. You are right though that it does not make any sense.
Matt, you gotta think out of the box here... Where would people use such lenses? Astrophotography and night photography. Focused to infinity the DOF should improve, don't you think?
Tecnovlog Well, yeah, because they don't have a lens that allows them to do it on one shot (without selling the family to slavery). Imagine you'd have to shoot 10 pictures with a DSLR in broad daylight because you only get access to an Iphone camera lens. And stacking multiple pictures does create problems.
Colin Richardson Have you tried using PTGUI? Its panorama software but you can stack and HDR render images from the same source with sub-pixel accuracy and then export them as a layeres PSD file if you like.
E-bay does - the sellers either cannot or will not. I suspect some of them are deliberately mislabelling their f/2.0 lenses for clickbait and hoping people won't look too closely at the product photos. I called one of them on it once, and he stated he made an honest mistake & didn't know how to change it without pulling the whole thing down and starting over, but one does wonder. Other times, I think people just get blinded by f/1.2 lust and don't read properly before they start posting, bidding or buying.
I did two searches one for: camera lens "f1.2" . And one search for: camera lens "f1:2" . I got very different results each group matching the search terms. If you do not use the quotes then the search engine like any search engine will probably ignore the period and colon. Your problem is not with ebay but in how you use search engines.
0ooTheMAXXoo0 No. Quotes or not, it still lists results like this: "Nikon Nikkor 135mm Manual Focus QC Auto F1:2.8 Lens 402700" I have no idea what your problem is, sorry.
Way back in 1968 I worked for a camera dealership that sold the Canon f0.95 - the fastest commercially available at that time. It had a relatively short overall length combined with a huge entry pupil. You can see where Canon got the expertise from to make the current range of pancake lenses - they have similar proportions. This original f0.95 was very unsharp at the edges though. Centre of the image was usable though - even at f0.95. 46 years on since then, photography is still my big hobby. In relative terms, photography was as expensive then as it is now. I think that manufacturers of digital gear using sensors use their monopoly nowadays to overcharge the users though.
I think photography got way cheaper - I as a hobbyist am still using my trusty Canon 350D with 18-55mm kit lense - worth nowaday used not much. I prefer using my 60D, but... how often to I rely use the higher resolution? The big advance of the 60D is the better quality on higher ISO and the counter weight for heavier lenses. But for playing around on a sunny day when I don´t plan on printing on something bigger then letter/DIN A4 size, the 350D is good enough.We just adapted our exceptions to what is technically and financially possible. If we would use "whats good enough" for the job, it would be cheaper. The local photo studios here for e.g. still use Canon 40D and 50D bodies or even below - they are good enough for passport photos or to be used in the annual fair for souvenir photos for costumers. Of course, they use good lenses and they have higher end bodies for studio usage, but the "work horses" are older bodies.
It got WAY cheaper for me... no more buying rolls of film, no more paying for developing, cheaper/faster post processing, cheap/easy storage for digital images.
ImprovisedSurvival Ya, when you add up the cost of developing a few rolls of film per week, I'm happy to pay the price up front for a digital sensor and take countless photos for free.
Eric Stearley BUT!! When I started digital (recently) the learning curve was tough. I only dealt with ISO 100, 200, 400, and sometimes 800, and I never TRULY understood the math or function other than - hey it's bright out, use ISO 100 film. Never dealt with noise in dark areas, never saw chromatic aberration (shot APO lenses) and my saturation/contrast was always nice.
ImprovisedSurvival The maths involved in everyday snapping isn't all that advanced - but as you progress in your photographic ambitions, the maths can become a bit more hairy. The level of physics and maths that the camera engineers and designers need to understand is a whole different ball game though. As an end user you don't need that. The more knowledge you have, the better though. You'll see noise clearly with small-sensor cameras, where you need to lighten the shadow details in post-processing on the computer - especially if you magnify to 100%, say. My Canon 700D has in-camera auto correction for chromatic aberration (for the supplied kit lens), so if you have something equivalent to this, it's probably the case that you have never come across this artifact. It takes the form of colour fringing on contrasting edges. Use the P mode on your camera (if it has one), to allow the camera to set the exposure level. If you need to find an equivalent exposure-value setting to the one that the camera has suggested - say because you need a faster shutter speed, it's usually just a matter of turning a wheel on the camera body so that the correct aperture is chosen as well. No maths involved.
The fastest lens I own is a Sigma 50mm 1.4 Art, I use it the most for outdoor portraits and even in the studio since it's the sharpest lens I own as well. My dream lens would be a 70-200mm f/1.8 or even f/1.4, however given the mathematics that lens would be almost impossible to handhold which is how I do most of my shooting.
Hi Matt Gabriel here from Gabriel Hernandez Photography It has been a while since I actually used my Canon FD 50mm 1.4 and 1.2. Found my 50mm 1.2 to have too much flair and so stuck with using the 1.4 which has incredible qualities. I think that the 1.4 helped me focus easier since I was shooting from a Canon A-1 FD camera. In modern days I use a Canon 35-350mm L series for the majority of my location portrait work for it's versatility. In future I will try to migrate to a Stabilized CCD with of moderate 1.4-1.8 50mm lens. Still have the fondest memories of all the wedding events shot on my FD kit. All the best. Gabriel Hernandez Photography.
Sensor size also comes into play. I can take a 50mm f/1.0 lens and put a Speedbooster on it to get an f/0.7 lens on an APS-C camera, but it's still no better than using the lens at f/1.0 on Full Frame.
Nikon: the manual focus 50/1.2, I absolutely love this lens and use it frequently. I also like to use the 85/1.4. I used to own a Leica 50/1.0. While it was a super performer, I found I was using it less as the years went by - I prefer the super sharp f/2.0 the more manageable f/1.4 versions.
In the past the widest stop or two were insufficiently sharp for critical use, but with lenses like Otus, modern Leica, Sigma Art and others they are. 1.4 with real sharpness is spot on. The wider lenses can be fun artistically but the trade offs make them once in a while choices. I actually also really appreciate some slower lenses too for their compact size and light weight.
I have an old manual focus Pentax 50mm f/1.4 lens, and mostly use it for astro photography. I would love to own a f/1 lens or faster for that low light astro pgotography application.
Much easier och cheaper in just getting a tracking mount. So much aberration and coma on fast apertures I never recommend going below f2.8 unless you really have to.
***** Some of the newer high end fast primes like the new Sigma Art series and the new Zeiss stuff have very very little aberration. They're extremely well behaving lenses. 2.8 is the sweet spot though on most like you say. I guess it depends on what you're shooting too. Some scenes show the nasty crap more than others.
TalesOfWar Tracking mounts can be found for half the price of the sigma 50/1.4 Art, and if you only use standard camera lenses they will work fine. f1.4 over f2.8 only give you a maximum of 2 stops more light, compared to a mount (if aligned correctly) can give 5 stops or more in shutterspeed. Than you can of course pick different lenses and isn't just limited to 50mm. The only downside is weight and size. Tracking mounts can be quite bulky. And there's also a small learing curve dealing with mounts. But there's quite a few tutorial videos here on youtube regarding this matter. Mounts have the advantage when maximum light is needed, but sometimes one might just want to carry a tripod and shoot some stars, but even there, I personally still shoot at f2.8 and just bump the ISO and just stack a few hundred images to reduce noise and extract finer detail. Event at f1.4 stacking would still needed to get the maximum detail out of most objects. So I personally don't see much use for a f1.4 lens, unless I'm shooting something with movment in the night, like aurora borealis. There I would say f1.4 is very usefull! But back to my original mount talk, if one is into astrophotography, a monut is never a bad investment. Lurking on astrophotography forums, watching tutorials, reading reviews and/or see if there's anyone in your area that have experience in astrophotography is a great way to learn and "expose" yourself to the astro community. Thats how I started a few years ago, and now I'm sitter here, with two mounts, two scopes, astro cameras, filters and other things, just wating for the next clear night.
***** Vixen Polarie Star Tracker is one of the compact star trackers mostly aimed for starscapes and wide angle useage. It works really well if you want longer exposures. The big and more expensive option is something like a skywatcher EQ3 with SynScan which is more aimed at deep sky usage. You should be able to google them for prices.
Thanks Great Clip (pitched right without going to the nth degree) and also the comments (mainly) - I have a Mitakon Zhongyi f0.95 50mm , Nikon 50 f1.2 and some nice 1.4 Rokkors - they are all a great source of inspiration because of their special abilities ... often in low light conditions
My fastest lens was the Canon 85mm f/1.2L II which cost me about $2000. I used it with my Canon 5D Mark II. It's excellent but I realized my old Canon 85mm f/1.8 did as well if not better most of the time. How ironic is that? Anyway thanks for another great video!
I'm packing a Nikor 50mm f/1.4 AIS as a secondary lens. I like shooting wide open with it because of how it renders the image and it is unlike anything I will shoot with. My dream spec would be a 24-105 f/2.8 VR/VC though.
Hi Matt, I was doing some lens design research a while ago as a result of some conversations on Reddit. I love this video and the clear explanations you give, but I believe some of the conclusions may be incorrect. As you mentioned, ƒ-ratio is based on focal length and lens diameter. This actually does place an upper limit on how high an F ratio can be achieved with optical glass. As we increase the ƒ-ratio of the lens, it becomes more and more spherical in shape. The largest F ratio possible is for a perfect sphere. We can show this by plugging spherical values into the lens-makers equation. For example, a lens with front/rear radius curvatures of . 10/-10cm has a diameter of 200mm, and a focal length of 109mm. This gives an upper limit of ~ƒ0.5 on any lens made of optical glass. We can increase the ƒ ratio by changing materials; a diamond lens could be made down to ƒ0.17 and a Silicon Carbide (moissanite) lens could be made down to ƒ0.15. Of course, neither of those lenses would have any correction for any form of aberration, and use of Diamond or Moissanite in a lens would make it crazy expensive. I suspect that the Super-Q-Gigantar couldn't actually focus light to achieve the ƒ-ratio described when built out of glass. Not trying to be a know-it-all. I love your videos, and they have helped me immensely with my photography. Regards, B1
I think instead of wishing for a narrower DOF, or higher ISO, I think camera manufacturers should work on dynamic range more. Contrast ratios are still narrower compared to the human eye. Not sure what they'd need to do technically to increase the range of f-stops between dark and light (increase bit depth?), but it would be so much nicer to edit photos in camera raw and not have to do HDR blend of multiple high contrast images at different stops. Since there is a decent workflow for HDR, i think the only real limitation in photography is people's imagination. Fastest lens I have is a Canon f1.8 50mm cheapo, but am going to get the sigma 50mm art f1.4 soon as I can afford it.
My fastest lenses are an FD and Auto Miranda 50mm f/1.4. I primarily shoot film, and primarily shoot automotive photography, so I use them when it starts getting dark out. As everyone knows, ultra-wides are the bee's knees for automotive photography. I've been using an FD 17mm f/4, but a lot of events I attend are cruise nights. I just picked up an FD 24mm f/2.8, but my A-1 is off for service. I just recently got into Nikon's top end later film bodies, specifically the F4S, so I'd love a fast, f-mount, rectilinear (the most important feature) ultrawide. Something like a 16mm f/1.4 or faster.
I own many F/0.95, 1.0,1.2 and F/1.4 lenses, But my personal favorite is the Voigtlander F/1.2. Granted I have been buying them since the 1980's. So I got some of these for a song.
There are F0.9 and even F0.7 lens, these were used on xray machines, google for rayxar, for example, but they have short register distance, so hard o use even on mirrorless. I have one of such lens, 80mm F0.9 and adapted it for NEX camera. Cront element diameter is about 150mm.
The fastest I've shot with was an f0.75 X-Ray lens from Canon, which took a bit of... modification. The 'best' fast lens I've used is the 50mm f0.95 'dream lens' though. The character from that beats any of the other super fast lenses I've seen or tried.
Great presentation. There are lens in production that are less than 1.0 but they are used opposite to camera lens. These special digital projection lens. Navitar sp ? Might be one. Theses are massive hunks of glass & brass. I think the semiconductor industry use these types of lens also.
Matt Granger The smallest I have is the "plastic fantastic" 50mm f1.8 I would love to try the Sigma Art series lenses but also would love the f1.0 Matt used in an earlier video. I'm still learning but someday.
My photo instructor, way back in the days when youtube and google weren’t your prime source of info (2007/8), taught me the following formula: f is equal to (how much your aperature is open) divided by (the diameter of the lens). So of course a value at or below 1 made no sense. Thanks to you, I finally know the right formula. Is the focal lenght the distance between the aperture ring and the sensor?
I have a Mitakon 85/1.2 for Nikon. Very sharp wide open, and I use it with Speed Booster for m43. Then I get a 60/0.8 lens, heavy, but very good in low light.
I own a Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 and a Nikon 50mm f1.4 used with my Nikon D7000. I use them for low light photography, specifically in urban exploration. I would love a 16-ish mm f1.4 lens paired with a Nikon D600.
For those who don't know, background blur is governed by 4 different factors only: 1. Widest aperture value of the lens 2. Focal length of the lens 3. Distance to subject 4. Sensor size of the camera (or film frame size if shooting film).
I have a Leica 35mm Summicron (latest model) f2, its fast enough for me because at f2 I know there will be minimal aberrations. I even preferred the Summicron 50mm but because I traded my M3 for an MP the 35mm seemed the best way to go.
I have a 8x10 inch large format with a 300mm f4,5 lens. It has a equivalent depth of field (d.o.f.) of a 40mm f0,4. You have to get used to this, but it is perfectly workable at 3 meter distance. At 1,5m it offers a few cm d.o.f., which become a real challenge with portrait photography, but very interesting and still workable.
Everything you say is correct, you are getting the DOF of a f0.4 lens for 35mm film/full frame format. But the video seems to suggest that an arbitrarily fast lens is possible given sufficient resources, and the comments section works with that assumption. That's not true; f0.5 is the theoretical optimum if there is to be an air gap between lens and sensor/film plane. See e.g. th-cam.com/video/-4uzyhbDFas/w-d-xo.html .
If you apply a normal layer of black hole dust coating around the internal barrel of the lens and use a dark matter oscillator (which could be powered by an external 9V battery pack or USB wire cord) you can suck much more light into T stop and have it electronically switch off simultaneously as the shutter opens, so you get an over exposure of sucked light as the picture shoots. I'd estimate somewhere around an f/-11 to and an f/-22.
I´ve got a nikon 35mm dx f1.8 on my nikon and atm and I use it everywhere. Planning to switch the dx lens to nikkor 35mm or 50mm fx f1.8 and get also a metabones 0,71x speedbooster -> f1.3. Next lens after that will be i.e. a 70-200 zoom to be used also with the speedbooster, and not with it. This way I´ll have 2 different lenses for every one fx lens I buy, which is great for such a beginner I am.
Heck, I just use a metabones speed booster with my PenF micro 4/3rds with an f0.95 Leitz noctolux and I get a small, manageable f 0.7 lens - a nice gain of a full stop.
F stop is actualy determined by the size of the optical projection of the aperture onto the front element. So the front element must have a certain minimal size which is actualy bigger than Focal/f becauce of vignetting with off-axis light rays...
Hi Matt, I mainly shoot functions, ie weddings, parties, etc.. I have shot the Nikon D7000.. yes DX.. :) but with good glass, Nikon 14-24 2.8. 24-70 2.8, 70-200 2.8.... but prefer the D610 which gives me better everything.. Dream lens 10-100 F1.8 (N) (ED) (VR) and 100-200 F1.8 (N) (ED) (VR) both FX and DX ( wink for D500).. Yes expensive, yes heavy monopods always works for me.. for a live events shooter this is it. two lenses on two bodies, job done. You will be invincible. Not to mention every other photographer stepping aside to give you space lol.... great channel Matt, content, excellent tips, ideas. Thanks
Considering an f/0.95 for my BMPCC, or a Metabones bmpcc-EF speedbooster. I've seen vintage f/0.8 and f/0.75 c-mount glass but when digging up reviews it doesn't seem those glass had great image quality, and the price is pretty high. But well f/1.4 - f/2 at ISO-1600 360-shutter performs decently on bmpcc if you crush the blacks in the grade, so I'm not in a spending frenzy. For video f/1.4 is very workable with Super16 sensor (quite forgiving), so going to faster glass might make capturing the video harder.
Matt Granger The fastest lens I have is the Canon 85mm F1.8, for portraits ( it does a great job, especialy with film ) , and it's plenty fast enough for me. I do lust after the Sigma art series 50mm 1.4.
I love my 50mm FD F/1.4 SSC, it's sharp and a very good lens. I think F/1.4 it's a perfect aperture for a 50mm lens, but I'm thinking to buy an 85mm FD f/1.2L, I love the bokeh at maximum aperture of an 85mm with F/1.2
The idea of a superfast lens is not to produce a super shallow DOF at minimum focus distance (e.g. portrait with only half an eye lash in focus), but to achieve a shallow DOF for subjects further away (e.g. full person shot).
Since Mirrorless cameras eliminate some of the need for complex arrangements in wide angle lenses, I'd like to see some incredibly wide wide angles, like f1. Not only would it be amazing for low light but you would still have a useable depth of field since it's so wide.
Using a Noctilux 0.95. The lens is designed to shoot wide open. You still get very good image tho. One thing is that the focusing is hard when wide open.
Hi Matt, I currently use a Nikon 35mm f/1.8G. What I would like to see in the future is an 18-85 f/1.8 with AF and VR, with Otus quality. Actually, I wouldn't even mind if this kind of lens would be offered attached/fixed to a FF body. Imagine what a great combo this would make....like a souped-up Sony RX1r.
When I started out I was being asked to shoot a lot of theatre rehearsals indoors, lots of movement and not much light, flash a big no-no. The Sony A200 I was using at the time turned everything above ISO 800 to mush. I invested in a cheap 35mm f1.8 which gave me fast enough glass to freeze most movement wide open, and a wide enough field of view to get large groups of people indoors. I've since got a much better camera (A77ii), so I can bump the ISO much higher and work at f4 or so. Much as I love the effect of blurring out backgrounds, there does come a point where the additional price of the glass just doesn't add up - for that kind of money, I could probably send every shot off to a retoucher and get them to blur the b/g in photoshop or something (or do it myself, in about four or five minutes) so I can't see myself ever needing anything beyond an f1.4 or so. Of course the real advantage of an f1.4 lens isn't that you can use it at f1.4, it's that (theoretically, at least) it will be sharper at f1.8 or f2 than a lens where that is the maximum aperture. An f0.1 is going to be sharp at f0.4 or so, but again, the practical use of that is still very limited.
Hi Matt I have the Canon 85 1.2 ll lens mounted on the 1DX and I have to say that Im happy most of the times. The problem only is that sometimes its really difficult to get my subjects in perfect focus as the depth of field is very tiny at 1.2
You don't have to shoot wide-open:D Matt did a good video about that a couple of months ago. But it's always nice to have the option. And those lenses get really really good stopped down to f2-2.8
I have the same lens on the same camera and do everything with it - around 1,000 - 1200 photos per shoot (fashion photography) and I rarely miss more than one or two from a focus perspective. It's called practice, practice and more practice. Hang on; you'll get there.
,, I have the same lens on the same camera and do everything with it - around 1,000 - 1200 photos per shoot (fashion photography) and I rarely miss more than one or two from a focus perspective'' - Even at F1.2 ?!
michal bla I think you are right, looks almost impossible to have subjects totally in focus with a full frame and 85mm f/1.2 . As you can imagine and surely did you need probably to stop down a little bit!
Guglielmo luraschi sicca Well I don't have this problem when I shoot outdoor with a good light. I can even track flying birds at F1.2 !!! The problem only appear in low light situations where at lower light all objects have lower contrast. Even amazing AF system in the 1DX camera has problem when I use Canon 85 at F1.2 in darker light conditions.
Zeiss Planar 85mm ,f/1.4 for Contax mount. Super lens, for portrait and low light. Zeiss Planar 50mm,f/1.4. Nikon Nikkor 50mm ,f/1.4. Nikon Nikkor AF D 80-200mm ,f/2.8. feels like chunk of granite !!!
I have an f/0.95 lens which isn't big at all... because the focal length and the aperture are about 6 mm. It's on a 16 mm thread mount (an S mount is an M12 thread and this one has an M16 thread). Focusing it isn't hard (although it's manual) but I thought it was an S mount while ordering it and now I can't mount it. The brightness is amazing though - brighter than I can see with my eyes.
I shoot M4/3 (Lumix GH2) and use Canon and Minolta lenses at f1.4 on speed boosters that make them f1.0. Note: I rarely ever use these for 'Bokeh', I do low light and night photography. For me, its about photons pre square cm (or whatever region scale you want) on the sensor. If a 35mm film is twice the size of a M4/3 sensor and you manage theoretically to have a speed booster that focuses all that light into half the space then thats a high light gathering potential. This is why C-mount CCTV lenses are amazingly fast as the lens is massive in relation to the tiny 1.8" sensor. Lets not forget also f-stops; An f8 on a f1.0 lens is going to be a lot faster than f8 on a f3.5 lens as the f stop itself is relative to the amount of light coming through the lens barrel. So DoF can take a hike, fast lenses are ace for clarity.
Great clip. I would love it if manufactures came out with a set of f1.44 (or faster) primes for the Micro Four thirds system with auto focus. That's a full frame equivalent of f2.88 so it would make that "full frame look" accessible in a small package suitable for casual travel. They could easily price the lenses at $1,000 - $1,500 per lens. That would make DSLRs a niche product for me. Only needed for pro sports, wildlife, adventure travel or studio type photography.
There is technical limitation in how much a glass could bend light rays. 35mm F/0.1 lens needs very far from the centre rays to be bent at extreme angles to hit the sensor. No known glass type could do that.
You could use a Metabones Speedbooster which technically increases the aperture by one stop, or at least making the image appear as that. So using the Zeiss f/0.7 with a speedbooster (if that's even possible), you would technically have an effective aperture of f/-0.7. Of course, that wouldn't work well on full frame cameras but you could use a crop mode like on the Sony alpha series cameras. Just a thought.
No I am not putting my hand down Matt. I dont want, nor need, a super shallow depth of field. I believe that are beautiful photos that can be taken at F4. I am not going to limit myself to razor thin fields of focus when I can blur the background just fine at F3.5 and "above". For the record, my comment is good natured. I was just responding to what you said in the beginning of the video :)
I love my EF 50mm f/1.2L! When all else fails and the light disappears at reception halls, it saves me my bacon. That's the desperate situation. I use it as my go to travel and walk around lens. May not the sharpest lens wide open, but I LOVE it!
thanks matt! still not quite sure if i really understood :) because one question immediately came up to me: there are countless fast&cheap 50mm lenses. regarding your formular FStop= length (50mm in that case) / diameter of the aperture you need quite a large aperture to acchieve a 1.4 lens, to be exact 35.7mm. for a 14mm 1.4 it would only be 10mm diameter then - yet the fastet 14mm is 2.8. why is that? why are there so many relatively cheap, fast 50mm+ lenses, but no wide angles???
Matt - there's only one fundamental point that I think you had in error. Those of us wishing for low f-numbers for shallow DOF never focus at the minimum focusing distance. A full frame, 50mm with, say, f/0.5 would have a very practical use for shooting a full-height person from 10-15 feet away because there's DOF at that distance so the person would be sharp, but a close background would be blurred. That is the fundamental need. Perfect example would be the recent use of the Ektar f/2.8 lens with a speedgraphic. It's approximately the same view as a 50mm f/1.2 on 35mm, but though it is f/2.8, the fact that it is imaging to a 4x5 frame gives it substantially less dof than the f/1.2 lens . . . and thus much better separation for full height, "wide angle" portraits.
i got a 50mm f1 and a 24mm f1.2 but it's for crop sensor, even tho i put it on my a7rii its pretty interesting. i get amazing looks. When filming in 4K super 35, it provide me some really soft looks that are really focus on the subject, the colors are also warmer than a normal lens and it help me to film in extremely low light condition, it's really interesting to own some lens like that. I dont especially like making advertising, but since it's easier to see the pictures directly, can have a look on my instagram (douradou) . There's quite a few pictures made from those lenses
+Y-A d'Ouradou 为爱度 because one of the most important parameter of the lens is the size of the picture projecting. You get an amazing lens that should work with 35 full frame and use just a half of the picture it produces
its vintage, not very sharp, especially f/1... its also a fix aperture. Fully manual and i like to use it for video. I dont see much of the interest in using it for photography, or maybe for fine art. While im filming, i prefer the super 35 mode. I do it professionally, for clients, like last monday, i used it for the magazine cosmopolitan, we were in a very dark place and i needed a fast lens. You have no idea how the lens is, but you call me crazy because you see its a F/1. I think that i know better my equipment than you, if it was a great lens for full frame, i would use it, the vignetting is also far too important, as well as the distortion. So no im not crazy, i use what im suppose to use in the right conditions, thats all
I have a 64mm JML Optical F/0.85 lens. It's ridiculously heavy. Effectively it's a novelty lens that creates a dreamy mostly out of focus macro shot using my Sony A7III. It's fun to use. I just ordered a Rodenstock Germany XR-Heligon 50mm F/0.75 X-Ray / Macro lens that I'll be adapting to my Sony A7III. So right now my fastest lens is F/0.85 but I'll have a F/0.75 in about two weeks. That'll be fun. I have considered obtaining a copy of the Cannon F0.95 Dream lens based on some videos or I've seen, but at the lowest it's about $2,000 U .S. dollars so a bit expensive.
i have an ZY 85mm with f/2 and a Canon 50mm 1.4. I use it wide open mostly for my portraits and sometimes street photography or sports when I can't allow my shutter speed to get slower and bumping up the ISO some more will ruin the image
Actually, it was the rear-projection Mitchell BNC camera that Kubrick had gotten modified to accept the Zeiss f0.7 ; He literally mutilated one (or two, I think) of the most priceless video cameras ever built.
I have a vintage Nikkor 50mm f1.4 which is VERY sharp wide open on my Sony A7. I've used a canon f1.0 lens a couple of times, which belonged to a colleague of mine who was sponsored by canon, and, like you, found it VERY difficult to focus correctly, as well as having such a limited depth of field as to be useless in practical terms for most applications.
Thanks Matt. I feel comfortable with my Nikon 50mm 1.8G. When we buy new lens we need to ask do we really need the extra 1 or 2 stops, do we really need it? I went to the shop i asked the guy to give me the 50mm 1.8 and 50mm 1.4, i took some shoots then i asked the guy to give me the 1.8
I've got a Pentax k mount 135mm f2.5 and it's amazing. Super duper sharp, amazing bokeh. Sony if your listening could you do one in e mount with autofocus and OSS plz? 👍👍👍👍
Cool video. I have some industrial type lenses (x-ray, some sort of projector, etc). Some of them are f/1.0 and below. The large xray lenses weigh probably 5 - 10 pounds and the depth of field is so thin everything's in soft focus (not to mention all the other aberrations and distortions). It would be interesting to see some sort of prototype lens that's sharp (or at least sharp-ish) with a huge aperture sub 0.5
+tukinu the light needs to hit your sensor (or film) to become an image. The bigger your diaphragm is, so an 1.4 for example, the more light that gets in. So if you compare a f/22 and a f/1.4 the 1.4 is allowing a lot more light to pass through the lens. So if you let more light pass through your lens you get your image 'faster'. Just think of it as your shutter speed the wider you open your diaphragm the faster your shutter speed will become.
+tukinu Nah it's not stupid I also wondered why. It's called "fast" because the wider your aperture (or the lower the f-number), the faster your shutter speed can go for the same exposure hence why an f/1.8 is a fast lens and an f/5.6 is a slow lens.
the f0.95 is great for wide shot. F1.4, even 1.2 still has some depth when you are away from the subject, but my f0.95 rig separates everything from the background eveb when you are far away. Distance is a MASSIVE element of depth of field, and compensating for distance when you want shallow depth of field is still kinda hard even at f1.2.
A standard little Canon EF 50mm f1,4 is the fastest for me, but I do own an M39 mount Helios 85mm f1,5 as well. The other ones that could be considered rather fast are a Zeiss Jena Pancolar 50mm f1,8 and a Mir-1B 37mm f2,8, both M42 mount.
Conical fiber optic face plates in te design could make the optical system a lot lighter and smaller? That would be an almost mechanical way to sqeeze a larger image into a much smaller format.
Great video, but what would be the fastest lens? That is still somewhat functionally. I know that focal length affects the DOF, so a 2-3 mm lens should be able to handle a large aperture. Would a 2-3 mm fish-eye work with something like f/0.5 work? Mount that lens on say micro 4/3 and you double the DOF as well. Then you are bound too get something in focus and this could be a fun "low light lens" =)
My dream lens? Since it's a dream, I want a 10-1000mm f/1.0, zero distortion, incredibly sharp, flat as a pancake, and light as a feather.
Your wish is granted. It doesn't have a nodal point though.
Your wish is granted. But it's manual focus only.
Your dream is granted . But it only focus at 10miles away
Your wish is granted. But it's a PL mount.
Your wish is granted but it won't be out till around the year 2135... give or take a few.
i only want to blur my background
use photoshop. whats the difference ?
malayneum in video:\
cq33xx use dual camera
use photoshop to blur out the background? you're not that much into photography are you?
even the latest iphone use its own rendering to blur the background. bokeh is overrated.
Well done video? Not really, because the explanations and conclusions are not justified. They simply ignore the real physical limitations! At f/1.0, the opening angle of the cone of light rays that converge behind the lens towards the focal point on the sensor is 30°. The numerical aperture is sin(30°) = 0.5. The largest opening angle of a light cone that can possibly be imagined (in a lens that projects on a flat sensor through air) is 90°. Under these conditions, the entire 2pi-space is used for the projection. The geometrical aperture would then amount f/0.5, which is the limit for projection in air. If you have an immersed projection through water (refractive index = 1.331), the highest possible numerical aperture would now be 1.331, corresponding to a limiting f stop of f/0.376. In immersion oil or in N-BK7 glass glued to the sensor, the limit is NA 1.5168 or f/0.33. In diamond-bonding, NA cannot exceed 2.4, giving rise to a limit of the f stop at f/0.208. In other words: there are (!) physical limitations.
+Kom Mentar I´ll have to make a little research in order to make a proper contribution to your comment. (coming soon...)
+Elieser Cedano (aPrinceOfBaSs) The educational video is entitled: "What is the Fastest Lens POSSIBLE?" Thus, the answer should at least be correct. Being less scientific (by not knowing or ignoring the science behind it) is not a good starting point to draw reliable conclusions.
+Elieser Cedano (aPrinceOfBaSs) As already mentioned, f/0.5 is the physical limit for a corrected interchangeable photographic lens, which couples to the sensor by projecting through air. Further reading: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical_aperture#Numerical_aperture_versus_f-number
Kom Mentar (Kommentar?), perhaps you are right in this, and I have not as much knowledge about optics as you do, but Matt repeatedly says in this video that 'theoretically' a lens of this or that aperture... I know the title says this and that, but nevertheless Matt's comment is about what-if, not?
Well, in theory that neglects important aspects (e.g. the Abbe sine condition in infinity) is an incomplete theory. In non-relativistic (incomplete) theory, a rocket that is accelerated by a constant force should - at least after some time - exceed the speed of light.
It's actually the entrance pupil size, not the actual size of the blades in a lens. The blades in a lens give an effective/equivalent f/stop due to their placement, as there are additional elements that adjust the back focus/flange distance of the combined lens elements. Take one of your 200mm lenses at 2.8, that's a entrance pupil of 71.42mm, however, the aperture blades can be moved further back close to the ray crossing point (focal point) and be reduced in size at the effective position, this is why most blades are placed near this point. Note: true entrance pupil can be in front or back of the objective lens. Thus taking a 1800mm telescope has an entrance of 225mm, and is known as an f/8 lens - sadly I was forced to learn this when I got involved in compound lens design.
What is the fastest Lens possible:
Well for pure glass that has an index of refraction of 1.5, the maximum aperture would be f/0.5 or thereabouts, for anything faster to need something else but glass like diamonds for instance, with an index of refraction of 2.417 a diamond lens can give you an aperture of f/0.235
+Milan Olsen I think you're talking Transmission values - t stops rather than f stops
+Matt Granger Ah sorry, yes I did.
Beyond a certain f fraction you might want to use mirrors instead of glass. I heard reflex lenses have bad bokeh though.
mirrorlenses have funny dougnut bokeh and arent too sharp, usually are f8 but more like t 11 or more. doesnt seem like a good idea
and with a fresnel lens???
I hoped that you will talk about something seriously nerdy stuff about lensmaker's equation, refraction of glass and other materials. If we could use any materials and lens have to be surrounded by air we can get ~0.235 by using diamond as element material. With glass we can only get ~0.5 :(
Stanley Kubrick had a couple of lenses manufactured for filming "Barry Lyndon". They were f/0.7 and were used for filming the interior candlelit scenes... such dimly lit scenes had never been recorded on actual movie film until then. I believe those same old lenses are now available to hire by the general public for videography (probably Panavision mount). Don't expect cheap hire rates though.
My fastest is the Mitakon Zhongyi f0.95 50mm - love it
Sorry, but you didn't really answer the question in your title -- What is the fastest possible lens? Using glass, it'd be around f/0.5. Can't get any faster than that, because at that point you're running up against the limits of glass's refractivity. There are some exotic materials with higher indices of refractivity that in turn could offer faster f/stops, including flint glass, diamond, or germanium for infrared. But these have their own limits, and it's incorrect to say that an f/0.1 lens is theoretically possible. Any "theory" in which that is possible fundamentally misapprehends optical physics.
To answer your question for viewers, many of us Micro Four Thirds users are shooting or have shot at f/0.95, with the lovely Voigtlander lenses. They are a little soft at that aperture, but in a way that is still quite pleasing to the eye. Throw an f/1.2 on a BMPCC Speedbooster, and you've got a lens with light transmission equivalent to f/0.7. But why push it, and why equivalate f/stop with lens quality? Some of the nicest lenses I've ever seen were f/2 through f/3.5. Macro lenses in particular can deliver stunning results at higher f/stops. I don't think it's fair to say that Zeiss could have made the Otus better by spending more money on making it faster. Optical engineering is a matter of navigating trade-offs, making small compromises in one area to give greater benefits elsewhere. I doubt that an Otus f/1.2 would be "better" than an Otus f/1.4, if our criteria are bokeh quality, sharpness, micro-contrast, or the elusive "three dimensional" look.
Well said.
Sangye Ince-Johannsen maybe it should be "You can get faster, if you don't care about quality" But at that point, you might as well have invented a laser pointer.
Yeah, well, limit of the glass refractivity is not really a limit. It just means that the light cone needs additional compression that we can't acquire with simple design. Nothing prevents us from making f0.1 lens with complex design along with multiple steps to compress the image circle.
You are right though that it does not make any sense.
Talks about light transmission in f-stops.
You've just credibility.
That f/0.7 from Zeiss was used in Kubrick's 'Bary Lyndon', wasn't it?
www.dpreview.com/articles/9811242514/kubrick-s-f-0-7-lenses-now-available-for-rent-but-start-saving-up
Yeah and the moon footage lol
@@shopliftfilms the direct sun light on the moon won't let you use an aperture of 0.7, they used a lens with 5.6 aperture
Madman Kubrick wanted to film in candle light so f/0.7 was the solution to that.
@@Gonshaaa Wasn't it for the dark side?
thumbs up for genelecs. greetings from finland
Matt, you gotta think out of the box here... Where would people use such lenses? Astrophotography and night photography. Focused to infinity the DOF should improve, don't you think?
Mp57navy astrophotographers usually stack up multiple pictures in photoshop to get a clearer image
Tecnovlog replace the word "usually" with "have to"..
Tecnovlog Well, yeah, because they don't have a lens that allows them to do it on one shot (without selling the family to slavery). Imagine you'd have to shoot 10 pictures with a DSLR in broad daylight because you only get access to an Iphone camera lens.
And stacking multiple pictures does create problems.
Having to stacking is better than tracking blur though. Because I know, I for one have never been able to set up a mount with perfect precision. :-)
Colin Richardson Have you tried using PTGUI? Its panorama software but you can stack and HDR render images from the same source with sub-pixel accuracy and then export them as a layeres PSD file if you like.
Also, it's annoying how eBay doesn't distinguish between f1.2 and f1:2
E-bay does - the sellers either cannot or will not. I suspect some of them are deliberately mislabelling their f/2.0 lenses for clickbait and hoping people won't look too closely at the product photos. I called one of them on it once, and he stated he made an honest mistake & didn't know how to change it without pulling the whole thing down and starting over, but one does wonder. Other times, I think people just get blinded by f/1.2 lust and don't read properly before they start posting, bidding or buying.
Hooray for Pentax!
Er, no it doesn't. Try a search and see what comes up.
I did two searches one for: camera lens "f1.2" . And one search for: camera lens "f1:2" . I got very different results each group matching the search terms. If you do not use the quotes then the search engine like any search engine will probably ignore the period and colon. Your problem is not with ebay but in how you use search engines.
0ooTheMAXXoo0 No. Quotes or not, it still lists results like this:
"Nikon Nikkor 135mm Manual Focus QC Auto F1:2.8 Lens 402700"
I have no idea what your problem is, sorry.
Cheers Matt... I found this video 3 years too late... but I found it quite interesting. 👍
Way back in 1968 I worked for a camera dealership that sold the Canon f0.95 - the fastest commercially available at that time. It had a relatively short overall length combined with a huge entry pupil. You can see where Canon got the expertise from to make the current range of pancake lenses - they have similar proportions. This original f0.95 was very unsharp at the edges though. Centre of the image was usable though - even at f0.95. 46 years on since then, photography is still my big hobby. In relative terms, photography was as expensive then as it is now. I think that manufacturers of digital gear using sensors use their monopoly nowadays to overcharge the users though.
I think photography got way cheaper - I as a hobbyist am still using my trusty Canon 350D with 18-55mm kit lense - worth nowaday used not much. I prefer using my 60D, but... how often to I rely use the higher resolution? The big advance of the 60D is the better quality on higher ISO and the counter weight for heavier lenses. But for playing around on a sunny day when I don´t plan on printing on something bigger then letter/DIN A4 size, the 350D is good enough.We just adapted our exceptions to what is technically and financially possible. If we would use "whats good enough" for the job, it would be cheaper. The local photo studios here for e.g. still use Canon 40D and 50D bodies or even below - they are good enough for passport photos or to be used in the annual fair for souvenir photos for costumers. Of course, they use good lenses and they have higher end bodies for studio usage, but the "work horses" are older bodies.
It got WAY cheaper for me... no more buying rolls of film, no more paying for developing, cheaper/faster post processing, cheap/easy storage for digital images.
ImprovisedSurvival Ya, when you add up the cost of developing a few rolls of film per week, I'm happy to pay the price up front for a digital sensor and take countless photos for free.
Eric Stearley
BUT!! When I started digital (recently) the learning curve was tough. I only dealt with ISO 100, 200, 400, and sometimes 800, and I never TRULY understood the math or function other than - hey it's bright out, use ISO 100 film. Never dealt with noise in dark areas, never saw chromatic aberration (shot APO lenses) and my saturation/contrast was always nice.
ImprovisedSurvival The maths involved in everyday snapping isn't all that advanced - but as you progress in your photographic ambitions, the maths can become a bit more hairy. The level of physics and maths that the camera engineers and designers need to understand is a whole different ball game though. As an end user you don't need that. The more knowledge you have, the better though.
You'll see noise clearly with small-sensor cameras, where you need to lighten the shadow details in post-processing on the computer - especially if you magnify to 100%, say. My Canon 700D has in-camera auto correction for chromatic aberration (for the supplied kit lens), so if you have something equivalent to this, it's probably the case that you have never come across this artifact. It takes the form of colour fringing on contrasting edges.
Use the P mode on your camera (if it has one), to allow the camera to set the exposure level. If you need to find an equivalent exposure-value setting to the one that the camera has suggested - say because you need a faster shutter speed, it's usually just a matter of turning a wheel on the camera body so that the correct aperture is chosen as well. No maths involved.
I am currently studying photography and was curious about this.. This video has very concisely given me the info I was looking for. Well done. Thanks
The fastest lens I own is a Sigma 50mm 1.4 Art, I use it the most for outdoor portraits and even in the studio since it's the sharpest lens I own as well. My dream lens would be a 70-200mm f/1.8 or even f/1.4, however given the mathematics that lens would be almost impossible to handhold which is how I do most of my shooting.
Great video! It would seem Kamlan were listening as their F1.1 50mm mk2 lens is here and absolutely fantastic!!
Hi Matt Gabriel here from Gabriel Hernandez Photography It has been a while since I actually used my Canon FD 50mm 1.4 and 1.2. Found my 50mm 1.2 to have too much flair and so stuck with using the 1.4 which has incredible qualities. I think that the 1.4 helped me focus easier since I was shooting from a Canon A-1 FD camera. In modern days I use a Canon 35-350mm L series for the majority of my location portrait work for it's versatility. In future I will try to migrate to a Stabilized CCD with of moderate 1.4-1.8 50mm lens. Still have the fondest memories of all the wedding events shot on my FD kit. All the best. Gabriel Hernandez Photography.
Sensor size also comes into play. I can take a 50mm f/1.0 lens and put a Speedbooster on it to get an f/0.7 lens on an APS-C camera, but it's still no better than using the lens at f/1.0 on Full Frame.
This is where the Brenizer Method is fun to use, I simulated something like a 28mm f0.4 lens
Nikon: the manual focus 50/1.2, I absolutely love this lens and use it frequently. I also like to use the 85/1.4.
I used to own a Leica 50/1.0. While it was a super performer, I found I was using it less as the years went by - I prefer the super sharp f/2.0 the more manageable f/1.4 versions.
In the past the widest stop or two were insufficiently sharp for critical use, but with lenses like Otus, modern Leica, Sigma Art and others they are. 1.4 with real sharpness is spot on. The wider lenses can be fun artistically but the trade offs make them once in a while choices. I actually also really appreciate some slower lenses too for their compact size and light weight.
I have an old manual focus Pentax 50mm f/1.4 lens, and mostly use it for astro photography. I would love to own a f/1 lens or faster for that low light astro pgotography application.
Much easier och cheaper in just getting a tracking mount. So much aberration and coma on fast apertures I never recommend going below f2.8 unless you really have to.
***** Some of the newer high end fast primes like the new Sigma Art series and the new Zeiss stuff have very very little aberration. They're extremely well behaving lenses. 2.8 is the sweet spot though on most like you say. I guess it depends on what you're shooting too. Some scenes show the nasty crap more than others.
TalesOfWar Tracking mounts can be found for half the price of the sigma 50/1.4 Art, and if you only use standard camera lenses they will work fine. f1.4 over f2.8 only give you a maximum of 2 stops more light, compared to a mount (if aligned correctly) can give 5 stops or more in shutterspeed. Than you can of course pick different lenses and isn't just limited to 50mm.
The only downside is weight and size. Tracking mounts can be quite bulky. And there's also a small learing curve dealing with mounts. But there's quite a few tutorial videos here on youtube regarding this matter.
Mounts have the advantage when maximum light is needed, but sometimes one might just want to carry a tripod and shoot some stars, but even there, I personally still shoot at f2.8 and just bump the ISO and just stack a few hundred images to reduce noise and extract finer detail. Event at f1.4 stacking would still needed to get the maximum detail out of most objects. So I personally don't see much use for a f1.4 lens, unless I'm shooting something with movment in the night, like aurora borealis. There I would say f1.4 is very usefull!
But back to my original mount talk, if one is into astrophotography, a monut is never a bad investment.
Lurking on astrophotography forums, watching tutorials, reading reviews and/or see if there's anyone in your area that have experience in astrophotography is a great way to learn and "expose" yourself to the astro community. Thats how I started a few years ago, and now I'm sitter here, with two mounts, two scopes, astro cameras, filters and other things, just wating for the next clear night.
Not really. You can always take another exposure with the same settings with tracking off and merge foreground image and star image without a problem.
***** Vixen Polarie Star Tracker is one of the compact star trackers mostly aimed for starscapes and wide angle useage. It works really well if you want longer exposures.
The big and more expensive option is something like a skywatcher EQ3 with SynScan which is more aimed at deep sky usage.
You should be able to google them for prices.
Thanks Great Clip (pitched right without going to the nth degree) and also the comments (mainly) - I have a Mitakon Zhongyi f0.95 50mm , Nikon 50 f1.2 and some nice 1.4 Rokkors - they are all a great source of inspiration because of their special abilities ... often in low light conditions
My fastest lens was the Canon 85mm f/1.2L II which cost me about $2000. I used it with my Canon 5D Mark II. It's excellent but I realized my old Canon 85mm f/1.8 did as well if not better most of the time. How ironic is that? Anyway thanks for another great video!
wide aperature lenses can be used to get blurred backgrounds even when your subjects are far away and you still want a wide angle.
I'm packing a Nikor 50mm f/1.4 AIS as a secondary lens. I like shooting wide open with it because of how it renders the image and it is unlike anything I will shoot with. My dream spec would be a 24-105 f/2.8 VR/VC though.
Hi Matt,
I was doing some lens design research a while ago as a result of some conversations on Reddit. I love this video and the clear explanations you give, but I believe some of the conclusions may be incorrect. As you mentioned, ƒ-ratio is based on focal length and lens diameter. This actually does place an upper limit on how high an F ratio can be achieved with optical glass. As we increase the ƒ-ratio of the lens, it becomes more and more spherical in shape. The largest F ratio possible is for a perfect sphere.
We can show this by plugging spherical values into the lens-makers equation. For example, a lens with front/rear radius curvatures of . 10/-10cm has a diameter of 200mm, and a focal length of 109mm.
This gives an upper limit of ~ƒ0.5 on any lens made of optical glass. We can increase the ƒ ratio by changing materials; a diamond lens could be made down to ƒ0.17 and a Silicon Carbide (moissanite) lens could be made down to ƒ0.15. Of course, neither of those lenses would have any correction for any form of aberration, and use of Diamond or Moissanite in a lens would make it crazy expensive.
I suspect that the Super-Q-Gigantar couldn't actually focus light to achieve the ƒ-ratio described when built out of glass.
Not trying to be a know-it-all. I love your videos, and they have helped me immensely with my photography.
Regards,
B1
I think instead of wishing for a narrower DOF, or higher ISO, I think camera manufacturers should work on dynamic range more. Contrast ratios are still narrower compared to the human eye. Not sure what they'd need to do technically to increase the range of f-stops between dark and light (increase bit depth?), but it would be so much nicer to edit photos in camera raw and not have to do HDR blend of multiple high contrast images at different stops. Since there is a decent workflow for HDR, i think the only real limitation in photography is people's imagination. Fastest lens I have is a Canon f1.8 50mm cheapo, but am going to get the sigma 50mm art f1.4 soon as I can afford it.
My fastest lenses are an FD and Auto Miranda 50mm f/1.4. I primarily shoot film, and primarily shoot automotive photography, so I use them when it starts getting dark out.
As everyone knows, ultra-wides are the bee's knees for automotive photography. I've been using an FD 17mm f/4, but a lot of events I attend are cruise nights. I just picked up an FD 24mm f/2.8, but my A-1 is off for service.
I just recently got into Nikon's top end later film bodies, specifically the F4S, so I'd love a fast, f-mount, rectilinear (the most important feature) ultrawide. Something like a 16mm f/1.4 or faster.
I own many F/0.95, 1.0,1.2 and F/1.4 lenses, But my personal favorite is the Voigtlander F/1.2. Granted I have been buying them since the 1980's. So I got some of these for a song.
There are F0.9 and even F0.7 lens, these were used on xray machines, google for rayxar, for example, but they have short register distance, so hard o use even on mirrorless. I have one of such lens, 80mm F0.9 and adapted it for NEX camera. Cront element diameter is about 150mm.
The fastest I've shot with was an f0.75 X-Ray lens from Canon, which took a bit of... modification. The 'best' fast lens I've used is the 50mm f0.95 'dream lens' though. The character from that beats any of the other super fast lenses I've seen or tried.
Great talk, +Matt Granger - very informative and answered several questions I've always had about apertures!.
Nikon 50mm f/1.2 works like a dream with my D600 and my A7r :)
Great presentation. There are lens in production that are less than 1.0 but they are used opposite to camera lens. These special digital projection lens. Navitar sp ? Might be one. Theses are massive hunks of glass & brass. I think the semiconductor industry use these types of lens also.
Matt Granger The smallest I have is the "plastic fantastic" 50mm f1.8
I would love to try the Sigma Art series lenses but also would love the f1.0 Matt used in an earlier video. I'm still learning but someday.
My photo instructor, way back in the days when youtube and google weren’t your prime source of info (2007/8), taught me the following formula: f is equal to (how much your aperature is open) divided by (the diameter of the lens). So of course a value at or below 1 made no sense.
Thanks to you, I finally know the right formula.
Is the focal lenght the distance between the aperture ring and the sensor?
I have a Mitakon 85/1.2 for Nikon. Very sharp wide open, and I use it with Speed Booster for m43. Then I get a 60/0.8 lens, heavy, but very good in low light.
Sigma Art 18-35 F1.8 I use as my walk around lens and Sigma Art 50-100 F1.8 I use for portraits and event photography.
I own a Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 and a Nikon 50mm f1.4 used with my Nikon D7000. I use them for low light photography, specifically in urban exploration. I would love a 16-ish mm f1.4 lens paired with a Nikon D600.
For those who don't know, background blur is governed by 4 different factors only:
1. Widest aperture value of the lens
2. Focal length of the lens
3. Distance to subject
4. Sensor size of the camera (or film frame size if shooting film).
5. Distance between subject and background
@@williamg.6283 6. Speedboosters 😂
Back in the sixties, a friend of mine had an 8mm movie camera with an f 0.9 lens.
I have a Leica 35mm Summicron (latest model) f2, its fast enough for me because at f2 I know there will be minimal aberrations. I even preferred the Summicron 50mm but because I traded my M3 for an MP the 35mm seemed the best way to go.
The Nikkor 50 / 35 mm 1.8G, almost always stopped to 2.2 on a cropsensor to have a somewhat decent depth of field.
I have a 8x10 inch large format with a 300mm f4,5 lens. It has a equivalent depth of field (d.o.f.) of a 40mm f0,4.
You have to get used to this, but it is perfectly workable at 3 meter distance.
At 1,5m it offers a few cm d.o.f., which become a real challenge with portrait photography, but very interesting and still workable.
Everything you say is correct, you are getting the DOF of a f0.4 lens for 35mm film/full frame format. But the video seems to suggest that an arbitrarily fast lens is possible given sufficient resources, and the comments section works with that assumption. That's not true; f0.5 is the theoretical optimum if there is to be an air gap between lens and sensor/film plane. See e.g. th-cam.com/video/-4uzyhbDFas/w-d-xo.html .
TTArtisans 90mm F1.25 for L mount is one Bokah monster. Tough to focus, but the images are exquisite. Give it a try. Mike
The Lytro Cinema Camera can create an aperture of 0.1, 0.01 even, but it plays by different rules with multiple sensors.
I have a Cyclop 85mm f/1.5 that I`ve adapted to my XE-1,love it for portraits.
If you apply a normal layer of black hole dust coating around the internal barrel of the lens and use a dark matter oscillator (which could be powered by an external 9V battery pack or USB wire cord) you can suck much more light into T stop and have it electronically switch off simultaneously as the shutter opens, so you get an over exposure of sucked light as the picture shoots. I'd estimate somewhere around an f/-11 to and an f/-22.
Technically, a f/1.2 lens with a speedbooster have a multiplication factor of 0.71, which can provide the combination lens speed of f/0.85.
I've got the mitakon 50mm F0.95 lens. Its pretty amazing!! Super fast lens with my a7s makes for some amazing night vision.
I´ve got a nikon 35mm dx f1.8 on my nikon and atm and I use it everywhere. Planning to switch the dx lens to nikkor 35mm or 50mm fx f1.8 and get also a metabones 0,71x speedbooster -> f1.3. Next lens after that will be i.e. a 70-200 zoom to be used also with the speedbooster, and not with it. This way I´ll have 2 different lenses for every one fx lens I buy, which is great for such a beginner I am.
I have the SLR Magic HyperPrime Cine 50mm T0.95 Lens with Fuji X Mount on order.
I like theoretical conversations and discussions, this was quite an interesting topic, thanks Matt!
Heck, I just use a metabones speed booster with my PenF micro 4/3rds with an f0.95 Leitz noctolux and I get a small, manageable f 0.7 lens - a nice gain of a full stop.
F stop is actualy determined by the size of the optical projection of the aperture onto the front element. So the front element must have a certain minimal size which is actualy bigger than Focal/f becauce of vignetting with off-axis light rays...
Hi Matt, I mainly shoot functions, ie weddings, parties, etc.. I have shot the Nikon D7000.. yes DX.. :) but with good glass, Nikon 14-24 2.8. 24-70 2.8, 70-200 2.8.... but prefer the D610 which gives me better everything.. Dream lens 10-100 F1.8 (N) (ED) (VR) and 100-200 F1.8 (N) (ED) (VR) both FX and DX ( wink for D500).. Yes expensive, yes heavy monopods always works for me.. for a live events shooter this is it. two lenses on two bodies, job done. You will be invincible. Not to mention every other photographer stepping aside to give you space lol.... great channel Matt, content, excellent tips, ideas. Thanks
Considering an f/0.95 for my BMPCC, or a Metabones bmpcc-EF speedbooster. I've seen vintage f/0.8 and f/0.75 c-mount glass but when digging up reviews it doesn't seem those glass had great image quality, and the price is pretty high. But well f/1.4 - f/2 at ISO-1600 360-shutter performs decently on bmpcc if you crush the blacks in the grade, so I'm not in a spending frenzy. For video f/1.4 is very workable with Super16 sensor (quite forgiving), so going to faster glass might make capturing the video harder.
Matt Granger The fastest lens I have is the Canon 85mm F1.8, for portraits ( it does a great job, especialy with film ) , and it's plenty fast enough for me. I do lust after the Sigma art series 50mm 1.4.
I once owned a canon 1.2 50mm and a canon 1.8 85mm They were both manual focus.but they were fun as hell.
I love my 50mm FD F/1.4 SSC, it's sharp and a very good lens. I think F/1.4 it's a perfect aperture for a 50mm lens, but I'm thinking to buy an 85mm FD f/1.2L, I love the bokeh at maximum aperture of an 85mm with F/1.2
The idea of a superfast lens is not to produce a super shallow DOF at minimum focus distance (e.g. portrait with only half an eye lash in focus), but to achieve a shallow DOF for subjects further away (e.g. full person shot).
Since Mirrorless cameras eliminate some of the need for complex arrangements in wide angle lenses, I'd like to see some incredibly wide wide angles, like f1. Not only would it be amazing for low light but you would still have a useable depth of field since it's so wide.
Using a Noctilux 0.95. The lens is designed to shoot wide open. You still get very good image tho. One thing is that the focusing is hard when wide open.
A Wide angle Sigma Art Lens that has lens stabilisation, with their standard f1.8 would be great
I have a 50mm 1,8 and 85mm 1,8 as my two fastest. I mainly use them for pressphotography at nighttime.
Hi Matt,
I currently use a Nikon 35mm f/1.8G.
What I would like to see in the future is an 18-85 f/1.8 with AF and VR, with Otus quality.
Actually, I wouldn't even mind if this kind of lens would be offered attached/fixed to a FF body.
Imagine what a great combo this would make....like a souped-up Sony RX1r.
When I started out I was being asked to shoot a lot of theatre rehearsals indoors, lots of movement and not much light, flash a big no-no. The Sony A200 I was using at the time turned everything above ISO 800 to mush. I invested in a cheap 35mm f1.8 which gave me fast enough glass to freeze most movement wide open, and a wide enough field of view to get large groups of people indoors.
I've since got a much better camera (A77ii), so I can bump the ISO much higher and work at f4 or so.
Much as I love the effect of blurring out backgrounds, there does come a point where the additional price of the glass just doesn't add up - for that kind of money, I could probably send every shot off to a retoucher and get them to blur the b/g in photoshop or something (or do it myself, in about four or five minutes) so I can't see myself ever needing anything beyond an f1.4 or so.
Of course the real advantage of an f1.4 lens isn't that you can use it at f1.4, it's that (theoretically, at least) it will be sharper at f1.8 or f2 than a lens where that is the maximum aperture. An f0.1 is going to be sharp at f0.4 or so, but again, the practical use of that is still very limited.
Hi Matt I have the Canon 85 1.2 ll lens mounted on the 1DX and I have to say that Im happy most of the times. The problem only is that sometimes its really difficult to get my subjects in perfect focus as the depth of field is very tiny at 1.2
You don't have to shoot wide-open:D
Matt did a good video about that a couple of months ago.
But it's always nice to have the option. And those lenses get really really good stopped down to f2-2.8
I have the same lens on the same camera and do everything with it - around 1,000 - 1200 photos per shoot (fashion photography) and I rarely miss more than one or two from a focus perspective. It's called practice, practice and more practice. Hang on; you'll get there.
,, I have the same lens on the same camera and do everything with it - around 1,000 - 1200 photos per shoot (fashion photography) and I rarely miss more than one or two from a focus perspective'' - Even at F1.2 ?!
michal bla I think you are right, looks almost impossible to have subjects totally in focus with a full frame and 85mm f/1.2 . As you can imagine and surely did you need probably to stop down a little bit!
Guglielmo luraschi sicca Well I don't have this problem when I shoot outdoor with a good light. I can even track flying birds at F1.2 !!! The problem only appear in low light situations where at lower light all objects have lower contrast. Even amazing AF system in the 1DX camera has problem when I use Canon 85 at F1.2 in darker light conditions.
Zeiss Planar 85mm ,f/1.4 for Contax mount. Super lens, for portrait and low light.
Zeiss Planar 50mm,f/1.4.
Nikon Nikkor 50mm ,f/1.4.
Nikon Nikkor AF D 80-200mm ,f/2.8. feels like chunk of granite !!!
I have an f/0.95 lens which isn't big at all... because the focal length and the aperture are about 6 mm. It's on a 16 mm thread mount (an S mount is an M12 thread and this one has an M16 thread). Focusing it isn't hard (although it's manual) but I thought it was an S mount while ordering it and now I can't mount it.
The brightness is amazing though - brighter than I can see with my eyes.
I shoot M4/3 (Lumix GH2) and use Canon and Minolta lenses at f1.4 on speed boosters that make them f1.0. Note: I rarely ever use these for 'Bokeh', I do low light and night photography.
For me, its about photons pre square cm (or whatever region scale you want) on the sensor. If a 35mm film is twice the size of a M4/3 sensor and you manage theoretically to have a speed booster that focuses all that light into half the space then thats a high light gathering potential. This is why C-mount CCTV lenses are amazingly fast as the lens is massive in relation to the tiny 1.8" sensor.
Lets not forget also f-stops; An f8 on a f1.0 lens is going to be a lot faster than f8 on a f3.5 lens as the f stop itself is relative to the amount of light coming through the lens barrel. So DoF can take a hike, fast lenses are ace for clarity.
Great clip. I would love it if manufactures came out with a set of f1.44 (or faster) primes for the Micro Four thirds system with auto focus. That's a full frame equivalent of f2.88 so it would make that "full frame look" accessible in a small package suitable for casual travel. They could easily price the lenses at $1,000 - $1,500 per lens.
That would make DSLRs a niche product for me. Only needed for pro sports, wildlife, adventure travel or studio type photography.
There is technical limitation in how much a glass could bend light rays. 35mm F/0.1 lens needs very far from the centre rays to be bent at extreme angles to hit the sensor. No known glass type could do that.
You could use a Metabones Speedbooster which technically increases the aperture by one stop, or at least making the image appear as that. So using the Zeiss f/0.7 with a speedbooster (if that's even possible), you would technically have an effective aperture of f/-0.7. Of course, that wouldn't work well on full frame cameras but you could use a crop mode like on the Sony alpha series cameras. Just a thought.
+Jacob Steed Isn´t that wrong math? I believe f/0.7 minus one stop would be f/0.5 .....
Yes, just like f/22 minus 1 stop is f/16 and not f/21.
Cool. Was curious how apertures could go to less than 1.0. Now I realize I had mistaken that it's based on focal length, not lens diameter.
No I am not putting my hand down Matt. I dont want, nor need, a super shallow depth of field. I believe that are beautiful photos that can be taken at F4. I am not going to limit myself to razor thin fields of focus when I can blur the background just fine at F3.5 and "above". For the record, my comment is good natured. I was just responding to what you said in the beginning of the video :)
I love my EF 50mm f/1.2L! When all else fails and the light disappears at reception halls, it saves me my bacon. That's the desperate situation.
I use it as my go to travel and walk around lens.
May not the sharpest lens wide open, but I LOVE it!
What about fringing? I got rid of mine because of that ever-present purple fringe that this lens is so renowned for.
thanks matt! still not quite sure if i really understood :) because one question immediately came up to me: there are countless fast&cheap 50mm lenses. regarding your formular FStop= length (50mm in that case) / diameter of the aperture you need quite a large aperture to acchieve a 1.4 lens, to be exact 35.7mm. for a 14mm 1.4 it would only be 10mm diameter then - yet the fastet 14mm is 2.8. why is that? why are there so many relatively cheap, fast 50mm+ lenses, but no wide angles???
This was such a fun video. Thank you!
Matt - there's only one fundamental point that I think you had in error. Those of us wishing for low f-numbers for shallow DOF never focus at the minimum focusing distance. A full frame, 50mm with, say, f/0.5 would have a very practical use for shooting a full-height person from 10-15 feet away because there's DOF at that distance so the person would be sharp, but a close background would be blurred. That is the fundamental need. Perfect example would be the recent use of the Ektar f/2.8 lens with a speedgraphic. It's approximately the same view as a 50mm f/1.2 on 35mm, but though it is f/2.8, the fact that it is imaging to a 4x5 frame gives it substantially less dof than the f/1.2 lens . . . and thus much better separation for full height, "wide angle" portraits.
i got a 50mm f1 and a 24mm f1.2 but it's for crop sensor, even tho i put it on my a7rii its pretty interesting. i get amazing looks. When filming in 4K super 35, it provide me some really soft looks that are really focus on the subject, the colors are also warmer than a normal lens and it help me to film in extremely low light condition, it's really interesting to own some lens like that.
I dont especially like making advertising, but since it's easier to see the pictures directly, can have a look on my instagram (douradou) . There's quite a few pictures made from those lenses
+Y-A d'Ouradou 为爱度 You're absolutely crazy. Using a 50/1 on an APS-C sensor?
agogobell28 why am i crazy? great images is what everybody 's looking for isnt it? it looks good, so why would it be crazy to use it?
+Y-A d'Ouradou 为爱度 because one of the most important parameter of the lens is the size of the picture projecting. You get an amazing lens that should work with 35 full frame and use just a half of the picture it produces
its vintage, not very sharp, especially f/1... its also a fix aperture. Fully manual and i like to use it for video. I dont see much of the interest in using it for photography, or maybe for fine art. While im filming, i prefer the super 35 mode. I do it professionally, for clients, like last monday, i used it for the magazine cosmopolitan, we were in a very dark place and i needed a fast lens. You have no idea how the lens is, but you call me crazy because you see its a F/1. I think that i know better my equipment than you, if it was a great lens for full frame, i would use it, the vignetting is also far too important, as well as the distortion. So no im not crazy, i use what im suppose to use in the right conditions, thats all
Here is some example using the F/1
m.facebook.com/yaweiaidu/albums/703321813143592/?ref=bookmarks
I have a 64mm JML Optical F/0.85 lens. It's ridiculously heavy. Effectively it's a novelty lens that creates a dreamy mostly out of focus macro shot using my Sony A7III. It's fun to use. I just ordered a Rodenstock Germany XR-Heligon 50mm F/0.75 X-Ray / Macro lens that I'll be adapting to my Sony A7III. So right now my fastest lens is F/0.85 but I'll have a F/0.75 in about two weeks. That'll be fun. I have considered obtaining a copy of the Cannon F0.95 Dream lens based on some videos or I've seen, but at the lowest it's about $2,000 U .S. dollars so a bit expensive.
The lens i usually use is a f/300 20mm fixed focus lens made specifically by me to be stupidly impractical.
i have an ZY 85mm with f/2 and a Canon 50mm 1.4. I use it wide open mostly for my portraits and sometimes street photography or sports when I can't allow my shutter speed to get slower and bumping up the ISO some more will ruin the image
Actually, it was the rear-projection Mitchell BNC camera that Kubrick had gotten modified to accept the Zeiss f0.7
; He literally mutilated one (or two, I think) of the most priceless video cameras ever built.
2:17, as a newb, I really appreciate the F equation. Thank you/
I have a vintage Nikkor 50mm f1.4 which is VERY sharp wide open on my Sony A7. I've used a canon f1.0 lens a couple of times, which belonged to a colleague of mine who was sponsored by canon, and, like you, found it VERY difficult to focus correctly, as well as having such a limited depth of field as to be useless in practical terms for most applications.
Thanks Matt.
I feel comfortable with my Nikon 50mm 1.8G.
When we buy new lens we need to ask do we really need the extra 1 or 2 stops, do we really need it?
I went to the shop i asked the guy to give me the 50mm 1.8 and 50mm 1.4, i took some shoots then i asked the guy to give me the 1.8
I've got a Pentax k mount 135mm f2.5 and it's amazing. Super duper sharp, amazing bokeh. Sony if your listening could you do one in e mount with autofocus and OSS plz? 👍👍👍👍
Cool video. I have some industrial type lenses (x-ray, some sort of projector, etc). Some of them are f/1.0 and below. The large xray lenses weigh probably 5 - 10 pounds and the depth of field is so thin everything's in soft focus (not to mention all the other aberrations and distortions).
It would be interesting to see some sort of prototype lens that's sharp (or at least sharp-ish) with a huge aperture sub 0.5
maybe a stupid question but why is a low F number like 1.4 "fast"?
+tukinu the light needs to hit your sensor (or film) to become an image. The bigger your diaphragm is, so an 1.4 for example, the more light that gets in. So if you compare a f/22 and a f/1.4 the 1.4 is allowing a lot more light to pass through the lens. So if you let more light pass through your lens you get your image 'faster'. Just think of it as your shutter speed the wider you open your diaphragm the faster your shutter speed will become.
+tukinu Nah it's not stupid I also wondered why. It's called "fast" because the wider your aperture (or the lower the f-number), the faster your shutter speed can go for the same exposure hence why an f/1.8 is a fast lens and an f/5.6 is a slow lens.
Didn't thought it's connected with the shutter speed but it makes perfectly sense. Cheers guys.
the f0.95 is great for wide shot. F1.4, even 1.2 still has some depth when you are away from the subject, but my f0.95 rig separates everything from the background eveb when you are far away. Distance is a MASSIVE element of depth of field, and compensating for distance when you want shallow depth of field is still kinda hard even at f1.2.
A standard little Canon EF 50mm f1,4 is the fastest for me, but I do own an M39 mount Helios 85mm f1,5 as well.
The other ones that could be considered rather fast are a Zeiss Jena Pancolar 50mm f1,8 and a Mir-1B 37mm f2,8, both M42 mount.
Conical fiber optic face plates in te design could make the optical system a lot lighter and smaller? That would be an almost mechanical way to sqeeze a larger image into a much smaller format.
In my younger years I heard of a lens f
Something like a 10mm or 20mm f/0.5 would be interesting for wide angle street photography at night. It would be a realistic lens size at least.
Great video, but what would be the fastest lens? That is still somewhat functionally. I know that focal length affects the DOF, so a 2-3 mm lens should be able to handle a large aperture. Would a 2-3 mm fish-eye work with something like f/0.5 work? Mount that lens on say micro 4/3 and you double the DOF as well. Then you are bound too get something in focus and this could be a fun "low light lens" =)