Irix 15mm f/2.4 Blackstone & Firefly Ultrawide-angle Lens Photos, Use, & Tips | Round Glass Review
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- Опубліковано 4 лип 2024
- This lens really demands that it be used on a full-frame camera. APS-C makes it perform about like a 24mm lens and MFT feels like about a 30mm lens. And, honestly, this is not what this lens was designed for. This is a gonzo-wide rectilinear lens designed to find the straight lines in the image and keep them darn-near perfect from the center to the corners. So probably the best tip that I have for you is to use this lens on a full-frame camera. You could use a speedbooster on your mirrorless, but I strongly recommend against that because this lens has no physical aperture control and can only be used wide-open with a speedbooster. And let’s face it, wide-open, this lens ain’t great.
The Irix 15mm handles nicely. It feels solid and well made. There’s no play in the moving parts. It wears well and it looks great. Also, the infinity focus calibration being as easy as it is provides a great usability boost for photographers vice more-budget lenses that have more difficult calibration. Do be careful with the tiny screws that you remove to calibrate this lens, however. Dropping the calibration ring screw down the slats in your patio does mean you have to find a new screw and, unless you have a tackle box filled with camera parts, it may not be easy to find an appropriately small screw.
This is not, as you may recognize now, the most versatile lens. It’s a specialist, not a generalist. The Irix 15mm f/2.4 will do a limited cast of tasks exceedingly well but it’s not great for many others. Street photography is not a great use because the lens captures too much of the scene. Portraits distort your subjects too much. Action and many sports require that you be too close for safety. This is a lens designed for a thoughtful, intentional, and slower photographic process that, almost always, involves a tripod.
The Irix is a chef who can sear a steak and make mashed potatoes, but who burns the French Toast and can’t poach an egg. This lens should not be asked to step out of its comfort zone and should instead be used to maximum advantage within its comfort zone. Doing that, shooting wide, going for deep depths of field, keeping the field of view level, and just generally working with the camera’s capabilities, will set you and this camera up for success.
Video Index:
0:00 - Intro
0:15 - Irix 15mm f/2.4 Blackstone & Firefly Data
3:04 - Irix 15mm f/2.4 Blackstone & Firefly Specifications
5:34 - Irix 15mm f/2.4 Blackstone & Firefly Diagram
7:53 - Irix 15mm f/2.4 Blackstone & Firefly Strengths and Weaknesses
15:12 - Irix 15mm f/2.4 Blackstone & Firefly Use for Video
18:21 - Irix 15mm f/2.4 Blackstone & Firefly Tips and Tricks for Best Results
23:56 - Irix 15mm f/2.4 Blackstone & Firefly Review
References:
irixlens.com/new/wp-content/u...
irixlens.com/photo-lenses/15mm/
www.the-digital-picture.com/R...
www.dpreview.com/news/7070948...
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Extremely helpful review! Thanks so much for putting it out there in a thoughtful, detailed, real world use way.
Thank you!
Very good review and helpful. David is always substantial in his reviews! Have a listen.
Thank you very much, Jack!
Well done. I'd say this was an excellent overall appraisal of this lens for potential users. I had the Blackstone version of this lens, which I purchased specifically for close quarters indoor work shooting museum exhibitions, also with the K1(mkII). It had no issues whatsoever for these exacting situations. It's true that distortion control is great, but that doesn't mean you won't get the usual UWA stretching distortions as you move from the center of the lens---an unavoidable issue. For the price it just can't be beat. I did sell mine after purchasing 2 other lenses which were originally out of my price range: the DA 25 for my 645Z, and the 15-30 for my K1(mkII). I found that the 25 on my Z was really as far wide as I could go practically in my main pro use case, and that the 15-30 on the K1 gave me more flexibility if I needed to go a little wider, and that lens is unusually good for a zoom. But for folks wondering about the Irix 15, wonder no more, it's great.
Thank you! I do really like this lens and what it does well it does spectacularly.
That;'s a nice review, thanks! Another K-1 and Irix - sorry, [IRIX] owner. First I noticed you were at Pike's Peak, then in Golden, all familiar places. Then I saw your (?) car in that astro photo and thought, "He's got my car, too!" But the dark notch below the back window tells me it's probably a Honda Fit, not my Ford C-Max. I'm also a real estate photographer. We should get together and talk.
Dave, your review of the Irix WA is excellent. Throughout the video, you included many landscape samples showing sharp focus but I did notice these images to contain some lost hightlights in clouds. What is the workaround using this lens? Meter on the brightest part of the field of view and correct in post? I truly get the same issue when shooting with a Tokina 10-17mm f3.5-4.5 fisheye. That lens does not accept filters unless one uses a home made set up. Overall, the images you included truly represent the features and performance of what the IRIX WA can. I am looking to pick one up in the used market. Lastly, I have some questions about using CPL and a 10 stop ND filter. Would you recommend sticking with the proprietary Irix Edge filters for this lens or are there other filters that can be substituted without degrading photographs?
I think the highlight loss comes from two sources, the wide angle of view for sure and also my camera being something like six years old now. Honestly, bracketing and image stacking is going to be the way to go to obtain the best overall range. But if your camera and editing software have great shadow recovery then you can meter on the brighter portions, yes.
Also this lens performs way better than this video really conveys since my shots were all 36mp downsampled to 4k for the video and then compressed by UA-cam and your Internet carrier for playback. So there may well be images in here where the source file has fine highlight detail but the video version does not.
20:11 I’m very curious, what were the lower-end lenses that they wanted you to buy? I’m interested in getting into real estate photography and found that portion of your video very helpful. Thanks in advance for your reply!
Oh gosh, there was a whole list of them from the photography companies, some Samyang/Rokinon zooms and some consumer Nikon and Canon wide angles zooms.
Hey David. Once again thank you for your thoroughly real world review🙏
As I will be using the lens primarily for Astrophotography🛰✨, I think sharpness wide open is important. Also, at the moment I cannot change aperture due to cannon’s firmware blockage of third party lenses on the rf-mount (something I found out after buying the lens 🤯)
Anyway, do you have any experience experience with the sharpness of two following lenses wide open compared to the IRIX or any alternative lenses for Astro photography?
Samyang XP 14mm F2.4 and Sigma 14mm F1.8 DG HSM | Art.
From what I am reading about coma, chromatic aberration as well in those lenses are controlled very well
I haven't used either of those lenses, no. They both have good reputations. I do think the 15mm is weak wide-open. Mine also is that way.
I'm kind of surprised that Canon are blocking third-party lens controls. That's unfortunate, though not shocking given that they already sued at least one third-party lens maker. They really are making the R system cameras unappealing for people who don't want to buy their lenses, and that's too bad. I was thinking of buying an R camera on the used market specifically for lens reviews.
Is the reason to use this lens vs a e.g., 14-24 2.8, mainly because of weight? Cannot tell its rendering 'coz of YT compression.
As a general rule, primes perform better than zooms, especially high-end primes. I haven't used any ultrawide zooms in a long time, but I will say that this is decidedly the best ultrawide lens I own, even though wide-open I think it underperforms significantly compared to some others.
@@DavidHancock Thx. I also curious what a lens being too good means? An image can be downgraded thru compression. Sounds like euphemism for "your rates will be too high" similar to "you are overqualified"
@@DixonLu I think it just means that they were looking for people with more affordable lenses because they're more common. Most of the photographers I've heard from who work for these firms just do it for fun or experience. I suspect that the companies that sell these fairly commoditized photo services have software or plugins to automatically adjust light drop off and barrel distortion so that all the photos are uniform. Obscure lenses, even if they're exceptional, would probably require custom software development that may only be used by one person. It's just not a good use of resources for firms that make their money on quick turn photos.
@@DavidHancock I work for VHT, a company that aims for the high end of the RE market. We are never discouraged from stepping up our equipment game. Some of my colleagues are using a full set of Canon T/S lenses every day. But I know what competitors like Virtuance are doing, too. I couldn't commit to shooting every hour on the hour, so...
@@wheatridger Virtuance is one of the forms I applied to that let me know they needed consumer-grade lenses. I suspect that the people or AI that runs their image correction scripts overnight have set scripts designed for specific lenses, which would explain the need for a restrictive gear list.
Suspect SMC Pentax 15mm offers warmer look.
Not sure. I've tried to get one of those with no success.
And this isn't the widest IRIX lens. They also make a breathtaking 11mm rectilinear ultra wide.
😀 It looks like a great lens. It's on my radar for when I finish my current crop of ultra wide lens reviews.
@@DavidHancock The downside is that it can only use rear gel filters (and IRIX do not make a gel version of their light pollution filter).
The upsides are both the insanely wide field of view and the nice predictability of the 11mm being almost exactly double a 20mm.
Dave - no offense But the images that I am viewing that they are Soft, and not Sharp, as I am using my 20" iMac full Screen OK, and I rather use my 18mm Tokina, and my 20mm 3.5 UD Nikkor lens... Sorry
It's worth noting that the original images are downsampled from 8K to 4K for this video. That and UA-cam's image compression, even at full 4K resolution, will make them look soft. Comparing my source file 4K MOV to the original 36-MP files from my K-1, the original files are much sharper than the original MOV, especially in this lens' peak range. The aforementioned compression will further affect that.
Hey David.
I just bought A second hand 15 mm 2,4 blackstone from MPB. It is Canon ef-mount and I use it on my canon R7 with the Canon EF to RF-adapter.
I find the pictures not to be very sharp. I am wondering if this is simply due to a faulty lens.
You need to take into consideration that I have only been shooting it wide open. Change of aperture is not possible in the current situation as Canon has blocked third party lenses on the new RF-mount. I have contacted Irix technical support about the issue and they have offered me software upgrade of the lens if I ship it to Poland.
Anyway, by turning the lens ever so slightly so there is no communication between lens and camera, I have to been able to take photos wide open.
Back to my concern about image quality.
The lens appears to be in mint condition. I have been shooting at 1/200 sek using a tripod, image stabilizer disabled, focusing with 10x magnification on lcd from a distance of 3 m. In Lightroom I have added global sharpening of 60% to the raw file before exporting as a JPEG without output sharpening.
I have compared with a shot with my decentered Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM (dropped it 🫣) which is a zoom and not a particularly sharp lens. Nevertheless this looks better at least in the center
www.flickr.com/gp/76274337@N05/82520T8394
Appreciate any help I can get 🤞 Regards Lars
Hey, Lars, I won't be able to check DropBox and I'll have to remove this comment, too. There are too many malware scams that target UA-cam channels for me to leave a download link live. So if you can post the images to something like an Imgur album and re-comment with that link, that I can check. Wide-open, though, my 15mm is also SHOCKINGLY soft.
@@DavidHancock totally understandable. I will have a look on Imgur to see if I can figure out to upload my pictures and post a new comment.
By looking at other reviews, I was by the impression that it is fairly sharp lens. Maybe there is a greater variability in the lens manufacturing process than with bigger companies like Canon ?
@@DavidHancock do you ascribe your lens being “shockingly soft” wide open to a matter of fluctuating manufacturing quality or a general trait of this lens ?
The reason I am asking this is that I found several reviews stating otherwise good sharpness wide open, e.g “Center-sharpness is exceptional, even when shooting wide-open at f/2.4, but more average towards the edges and corners of the image frame”. Digital camera world