Review on Zhongyi Mitakon Speedmaster Thirds Cameras by Robbie Guinn

First, the glass is impressive, very sharp when closed, but when buying I want to know about F0.95 and F1.4. I will compare vs Nokton 25mm and 17.5mm equivalent to F0.95. Forget the Nokton 25/0.95, the Mitacon lens is much sharper and has a lot of contrast in comparison - the colors are great, albeit warmer. Nokton 25mm is only optically inferior. Nokton 17.5mm is also worse in width (not only in width, somewhere up to 1.7), in width in the middle of the Mitacon it's just much sharper and much more contrast. What the Mitacon could improve optically is the barrel distortion and the focus line - it's not straight, meaning the focus boundary isn't flat but oval - some say the lenses are very blurry in the corners, it's not ; The lens is just out of focus. The corners are not as sharp as in the middle, but still good wide open! Optically it's a great lens and I use it more than my Nokton 17.5mm now! And now the worst part is the build quality. It's just bad, but it's good that at least it's not plastic. All mechanics are misaligned! I had to recalibrate and mount in a brand new lens with epoxy rings! - this is very bad. Problem number one is that they use pure aluminum and not alloy. Because of this, this lens won't last long if you don't take care of your gear. Keep in mind that the mount is also plain aluminum - which means it's not as strong as you might expect, the insides are all aluminum too and the tightening and accuracy in general needs improvement (I've had the opportunity , look at the internals), the main optical groups are really wobbling on a micro scale! Try it yourself, you can actually bend the lens a bit! If you're using near-infinity focusing and there's an "unexpected" blur after the shot, it means you accidentally dragged the lens group by bending the lens or pressing/pulling the focus ring (it's a fraction of a millimeter and that is enough to change focus). I could write more about the build quality, but making the parts out of "any metal" just doesn't cut it for a HQ build, this lens needs to be zinc-copper alloy, especially for its size. My advice if you shoot with this lens. - Be careful not to defocus while pulling the trigger. Conclusion It's still a cheap lens, it has the same contrast as my Leica lens and is a lot of fun to shoot, even encouraging me to think and experiment while shooting. The macro ability is also quite good, about 20cm focus took the attached photo of my Summicron. If Mitacon made lenses with even thinner bodies and internals from the right zinc-copper alloys, I'd pay twice as much. $400 for this jar is still a steal. Someone says 0.95 isn't really 0.95, well I've measured speeds on my Nokton in the same lighting and it seems to me that these are the same - so it's actually less than F0.95. If this lens was made from the best alloy with precision internals, you could only have one lens (if you're a 50mm fan).