Camera Geekery: MS Optics ISM 50mm f/1.0 M mount

Camera Geekery: MS Optics ISM 1.0/50 M mount

Miyazaki san perpetuates the trend of ultra fast lenses and goes supersonic with his latest release, the MS Optics ISM 50mm f/1.0 M mount. With the second release in Reiwa, Miyazaki wanted to challenge himself to make an ultra fast lens in the same range as the greats such as the Noct, Xenon and Angénieux. You want super fast but super small and light? Keep on reading.

F1 Class Lenses

Per the man Miyazaki san himself:

F1 class lenses including Canon, Angenieux, Xenon, and Noctilux lenses are famous. I came into contact with such lenses through my M-mount conversion work, and because of their size and weight exceeding 600 grams, they were specialty lenses that didn’t hold much attraction to me.
However, after receiving many comments that MS Optics should make such a lens, I tried designing one using my favored Sonnar formula but failed.
I then tried designing it as a much larger Gauss formula. The challenge was to make a very small and light f1 lens that nobody had yet attempted. I turned my back on common sense and limitations and continued to come up with new ideas.
The next difficult problem was for this lens to be a Leica mount lens that covers the full frame image area, and fit under the rangefinder roller mechanism.
To make a large aperture lens requires thick, heavy high refractive index glass, but I deliberately used thin and light high power optical glass, and reduced the size of the rear group to meet the size requirements, thus successfully designing an ultra small and light full frame Leica M lens with a length of 40mm, diameter of 50mm, and weight of 178g.
With the arrival of this lens, you could say it is a world’s first for regular use large aperture lenses.

Lens Specifications

• Lens formula is 7 elements in 5 groups Gauss type
• f1.05, 51.5mm with 10 full multi-coat surfaces
• Leica M mount
• 55mm filter size, and a reversible hood that slips on reversed for storage with an O ring to prevent shock
• 16 rounded aperture blades
• Length 40mm, Diameter 50mm
• Weight 178g

[Chart, far left under f1.4] Contrast greatly increases

[Chart, second from left, f2] High contrast across the frame

[Chart, third from left, f4] Perfect

Orders yours here

Side by side with Canon 0.95

Lens Performance

At full aperture there is a drop in contrast due to flare, but resolution is high. At f1.25 flare in the center goes away, and at f1.4 contrast out to mid frame increases dramatically. At f2-f2.8 coma flare quickly decreases, and apart from the corners you can expect high imaging performance with sufficient contrast. While spherical aberration of 0.15 is a bit high, the S-M astigmatic planes line up perfectly resulting in very good image quality. From f4 onward both contrast and sharpness need no excuses.

Test Images (Leica M10)

f1, 1/4000

f1.4, 1/4000

f2, 1/3000

f2.8, 1/2000

f4, 1/1000

f5.6, 1/750

f8, 1/350

f16, 1/125

Sample Images (Sony Alpha 7R)

f1.0, 1/250, iso1000

f1.0, 1/320, iso1000

f1.0, 1/8000, iso200

f1.4, 1/4000, iso400

f1.4, 1/3200, iso400

f2, 1/1250, iso400

f1.0, 1/1250, iso400

f1.5, 1/1250, iso400

f1.0, 1/1600, iso400

f1.0, 1/3200, iso400

f1.0, 1/3200, iso400

f1.0, 1/1250, iso400

f2.0, 1/1250, iso400

f5.6, 1/250, iso400

f4, 1/1000, iso400

f2.8, 1/2500, iso400

f5.6, 1/2000, iso400

Sample Images (Leica M6, Cinestill 800T)

These lenses are available on pre-order. The lenses are in production at the moment and we hope to ship in the coming weeks. We make sure to double check all of our lenses so as to ensure there are no issues. As a consequence of this our lenses take a bit longer than others. We will keep all customers informed as to the status of their order as soon as we have information. Current estimated time to receive orders is 4-6 weeks.

Orders yours here

MN

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