I bought this at a garage sale. I didn't know what it was but f/0.95 certainly was intriguing. It turns out to be a true gem with an amazing history. At the time of its introduction it was the fastest lens ever created. It was made for movie cameras (C mount). It flew on the Ranger 7 space probe in July of 1964, and, on July 31st, took the very first pictures of the moon at "ground zero." (Thanks, Google.) I've ordered a Panasonic GF1 and adapter to mount this lens <edited here to remove technical misstatement concerning field of view and depth of field>. It'll vignette but who cares. I'd love to see any pictures that any of you have taken with a copy of this lens.
I was thinking in terms of the combination of angle of view and speed, not depth of field. Even then, however, the issue of angle of view is somewhat unusual in this case, because cropping of the image circle will be incomplete. So, yes, I agree, they're really not equivalent. I stand corrected on the strict technical soundness of my original statement. As for etiquette ... ah, forget it . Regards, --Kevin
I've seen some great examples from this lens on Flickr - a lot of character. Yes it vignettes quite a bit on MFT. If you decide it's too funky for you, please let me know and I'll buy it off you!
Nice! I've seen some examples of these shot on m43, etc. INteresting lens, no doubt. Not the last word in sharpness wide open but hell, it's 0.95! That's a $1k+ garage sale score, btw - quite a coup!
That's a $1k+ garage sale score, btw - quite a coup!
I figured that out pretty quickly once I got home. I hadn't been up for spending much $ but I felt so bad about having paid only $30 for that lens I went back and paid several hundred dollars for the rest of the box of old lenses. They probably would have taken $30 for the lot. One ended up being worth $200+ -- all old c-mount 16mm movie camera lenses, from a gentleman who passed away in his 90s, who had good taste in glass back in the 50s & 60s. So now I've got an interesting assortment to try on the GF1: the 25/.95, a 75/2.7, and a 135/3.5, all quite compact, and good fits, I hope, to the Pany cam.
