The NiSi 15mm f/4 lens was announced in early January and photographer Ted Forbes bought his arms on one to see how the firm’s first lens carried out. Briefly, it’s a promising begin for the firm that is new to lens design, but it surely has a few niggling points to bear in mind even at its low value.
Forbes says that the construct high quality of the lens appears like a good stability. Regardless of the variety of optics inside the barrel — 12 components in 10 teams — it is a light-weight lens.
“Now it’s not too light-weight, it doesn’t really feel plasticky or low-cost,” Forbes says. “I believe they did a very nice job with the ergonomics.”
The lens is totally guide, however that’s not in itself a dealbreaker for Forbes. What was a drawback is that it doesn’t have any digital connection to the digicam, which suggests it doesn’t transmit EXIF knowledge.
“That’s a draw back for me,” Forbes says.
Given the value of the lens — it’s solely $580 — Forbes says he wasn’t anticipating this lens to be significantly spectacular optically, particularly on the subject of vignetting and distortion management. Surprisingly, it wasn’t as dangerous as he thought it is likely to be.
“There is a little bit of distortion,” he says “You possibly can clear most of it up in functions like Lightroom but it surely truly is pretty nicely dealt with contemplating its value. I figured it might begin to sort of ‘fish eye’ a little bit and never be pretty much as good.”
This wasn’t the case, in keeping with Forbes.
Forbes experiences that vignetting, like distortion, actually exists but it surely’s not horrible. The vignetting is going to be much less noticeable on the Fujifilm X-Mount model due to the crop sensor however for those who’re utilizing the full-frame model you’ll discover vignetting. Usually, lenses present vignetting the most at their wide-open apertures and you’ll count on to see this clear up as the lens is stopped down. That isn’t actually the case on this lens, making that one in all the downsides: even stopped down, you’re going to see some on the full-frame model of the lens. Forbes famous this was taking place even stopped down so far as f/eight and f/11.
“It’s not horrible, you possibly can work with it, and it’s not outstanding in the picture but it surely is one factor to level out as a result of it is there,” he says.
The lens does have a significantly noteworthy shut focusing potential, and the distinctive design of the aperture makes it capable of produce solar stars even at extra open apertures (therefore the title of the lens).
Whereas it does include some caveats, it’s not dangerous for the value and is a respectable advice for photographers wanting for an inexpensive wide-angle who don’t thoughts a few tradeoffs for that cheaper price. In the finish, Forbes tells PetaPixel that he believes the 15mm f/4 Sunstar is a “promising begin” for the firm.
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Picture credit: Images by Ted Forbes and used with permission.
