My new Irix 11/4 arrived today. I haven’t had a chance to do any serious photography with it, but my one word review would be “fun”.
A bit more detailed would be: The build quality is impressive. I did get the higher end (metal rather than plastic) version. The focus ring is nice and smooth. Unlike my old Rokinon 8/3.5 this came with a hyperfocal guide. I had to calculate and make my own for the Rokinon and that was critical for making the lens usable. Note that this lens is manual focus. Wide open, hyperfocal gives you something like 6 feet to infinity, I expect that most of the time I’ll just set a focus range and not worry about focusing for specific shots. This lens has a lot of nice little features: It is weather sealed. There is a detent at infinity focus. If you’re out photographing anything beyond about 10 feet away, you could just leave it here not worry about it. The focus guide is adjustable, If it’s not perfectly calibrated, you can remove a cover, loosen a screw and set it properly. It has a focus lock. As I said, most of the time I’ll probably use the hyperfocal guide and set it for the distance range I’ll be shooting, depending on amount of light, and size of room, i.e. will I be photographing dancers, or out in the big blue room. It will tell the camera, electronically, what the focal length is. It being manual focus I was a bit startled when I powered on the camera and didn’t get the screen to set the focal length. The good news is that it does have a filter holder. The less wonderful news is that it is for a gel filter on the back of the lens. It does not have a manual aperture control ring. It has an integral lens hood. The lens cap seems to be pretty nice and it clicks into place. Spending the money on it just because it was on sale may not have been the wisest move fiscally, but I think it will prove to be one of the best mistakes I’ve made in the past few weeks or months. A few quick snaps to play with the angle of view: My washing machine, my miata and my office. I’m a few feet in, so the section of the office in view is probably about 8x8 feet. https://www.flickr.com/photos/ellarsee/albums/72177720301223643 -- Larry Colen [email protected] -- %(real_name)s Pentax-Discuss Mail List To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
