I just completed my review of the KamLan 50mm f1.1 Mark II. While it is designed for APS-C, the image circle covers a wider area and would work cropped on full frame, somewhere around 1.3x I would guess. For $250 USD, it's actually remarkably well-built for a manual lens. I know recommending such a cheap lens here is like bragging about a Taco Bell burrito to people who eat at 3-Star Michelin restaurants, but you might be quite surprised how much fun it is to use and dip the toes into fast lenses if it's not something you have tried before. Compared to a top-of-the-line camera kit, this lens is practically disposable in terms of price. If anything, you could mount a wood handle and make it into a sledgehammer It's burly.
My goal is to create reviews that cover aspects not often mentioned by others. Not many reviewers report on things like sun stars or focus breathing. I also try to keep everything tested in real-world scenarios with no data charts from machines or even test charts in general. Definitely not for anyone looking to geek out on benchmark numbers.
I created two versions of the review. One is longer and meant for people not as familiar with camera reviews, and a concise version for people looking for the bare info.
Let me know what you think. I'm still refining the layout and overall platform, so any feedback would be helpful for my first lens review. I also optimized the site to work on tablets and smartphones.
A couple of lackluster, test bokehrama scenes. Would usually go straight into my delete bin, but they work as examples. The first one is about the equivalent of a 14mm f0.3 FF shot. I think using a full frame camera and lens might be preferable to ASP-C for these types of stitched panoramas, not because the depth of field would be different , which it wouldn't, but that the overlap is wider between shots and makes it go quicker and is easier for aligning the images in post.
