Miyazaki san has been busy beavering away in his magical workshop and has come up with a really remarkable lens. Finally the MS-Optics 17mm f4.5 Perar Ultra-Wide is here. And it is tiny. Really tiny.
PERAR 17mm F4.5 Full MC – retro focus super wide ultra-thin design only 10.2mm long
This is a slow lens, but it tosses the standard practice for retro focus lens designs in the trash, as it is as small as a body cap, weighs only 70 grams, and is just 10.2mm long, making it easy to use outdoors.
Performance is very high from maximum aperture. Due to the four element four group optical design and full multi-coating, the characteristics of this lens are excellent color rendition and high contrast. When the distance scale is set to 1.4m, everything from 0.8m to infinity is in focus. To take good snaps, hold the camera upright against your chest without looking through the viewfinder, approach the subject, and press the shutter while looking at the subject directly, and you can capture dynamic expressions.
A weakness of the lens is the peripheral light fall off, especially at maximum aperture, but this lens is improved compared to the 21mm and 24mm Perars. Distortion is kept to +/-2%, which is about the average for a 28mm lens, but it may stand out in some circumstances.
Compared to the Zeiss Distagon 18mm F4, this is neither superior nor inferior, but taking into consideration the fact that the Zeiss lens is a 10 element optical design, 70mm in diameter, 51.5mm long, and weighs 350g, I think the good points of my lens are pretty clear. For a filter, the glass removed from a 34mm filter can be attached inside the hood.
Specifications
ULTRA MINI retro focus 17mm f4.5 (ultra-wide 100 degree coverage)
4 elements in 4 groups, all multi-coated
Leica mount with focus coupling from 0.85m to infinity
Focuses down to 0.3m on mirrorless cameras
Size: 50mm diameter x 10.2mm length
Weight: 60g for lens, 100g for set
(Images taken on a Sony A-7r with a Metabones adapter, so not peak performance for the M mount)
@ f4.5 – there is some coma
@ f5.6 – lens has less coma
@ f8 – lens is pretty much at peak performance
@ f11 – corners improve a bit more
These lenses are available now, there are limited quantities of these remarkable lenses, so best be quick.
Click here to go to the shop.
Cheers
JCH
An awful lot of vignetting.
One wonders how this tiny optic sizes up against the Voigtlander 4,5/15.
Wonderful and creative. The only mismatch is to put this tiny jewels on full size M-cameras. If I remember well MS optics are in m-mount., so solution would be to make LTM version to match them with smallest body possible, in this case Leica Ic with a miniscule finder like VC or Ricoh GV2 28mm. Well, I`ve even seen a Leica IIIg converted to M-mount, a beauty. Leica Ic based on IIIc with long speeds, electronic flash synchro and M-mount with rapid winder SCNOO would be just perfect.
How many lenses has he made at this point? I can think of a few, and they all seem so neat, but I’m curious what the total number he has offered.
I can’t agree more. Why is it that those tiny lenses come solely in M-mount? I would so definitely buy this one if it was an LTM. This seems counter-intuitive as LTM lenses can be easily adapted to M-mount but the contrary is not possible. And this is not the first time this works me up…
Miyazaki-san, you may not care, but you would have at least 300’000 JPY of mine in your pocket if these were LTM.
Very simple retrofocus design, down to the basics – a meniscus concave lens in front of a Triplet (that’s why it’s still called a Perar!)
An interesting lens with unique result, hard to see these days.
What is the price in Europe? If I buy one from Japan it carries customs charges when landed in UK!
I just got one. It’s seriously awesome! I just need to find out how to adjust the aperture when I have the mini hood on. Any tips? Should I use plumbers tape to help keep the hood in place?
I’m interested in understanding how you went about attaching the 34mm filter lens to the hood?
Was it just a tight fit and stays in place?