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IMPERFECT LOVE: THE MITAKON 35MM F/0.95

A review of a lovable prime for the Fuji system

By Aurimas Adomavicius

February 23^rd, 2020

This article is about the Mitakon Speedmaster 35mm F/0.95 lens for the Fuji mount. It’s also a treatise on the 50mm prime and its focal (hah, I make pun) importance in any photographer's journey. I love the compact, travel friendly size of the X-T2, and also own the Fujifilm 35mm F1.4 lens. Its size, weight, and optical performance are all mighty, but I miss the rendering of Canon’s 50mm F1.2L on a full frame. After seeing sample images of the Mitakon I made a risky purchase of this no-name, Chinese made, manual focus lens. It is now one of my favorite lenses on the Fuji system.

At the infancy of your photographic pilgrimage you are surely to receive wise advice to purchase a nifty fifty - an inexpensive 50mm starter prime lens. The fifty is advised in contrast to the cheap kit lens that, in addition to doing all optical things poorly, also arrives with the body of an entry level SLR camera. Possessing infinite wisdom in my early twenties, I regrettably did not follow this advice as I acquired the Canon Rebel 2000 with the included zoom lens. Coincidentally, the legendary Honda S2000 was released around the same time in 1999. The name of the car implies the displacement of the engine, while the Rebel was simply trying to be cute.

As I was saying, my kit lens had the optical performance of a woolen sock. Frustrated with the output from the Rebel I educated myself on photo.net that a fixed focal length lens, a 50mm in particular, was the panacea for photographic mediocrity and poor optical performance (well, that and practice). It had a fast aperture that allowed much more light to get to the camera, unlike the warm, but hardly translucent sock. The 50mm was recommended for its accessibility in terms of price as well as the field of view that is closest to what a human eye can see. Canon’s most inexpensive 50mm at the time and to this day is the EF 50mm F1.8 - a rickety, creaky plastic toy of a lens that can be had for a meager hundred bucks new, fifty dollars used.

Since I’m traversing the memory lane, the founder of Photo.net, Philip Greenspun, was a computer scientist and a photographer, amongst other things. I, similarly, was studying computer science and enjoyed taking pictures of my then girlfriend, now wife. Photo.net was the largest photographic community on the internet in the early 2000’s and served as my stomping grounds where I meticulously analyzed every picture taken by Phillip, read and memorized his rules of photography, as well as posted my own scanned pictures for critique in the forums. Photo.net has gone through a few iterations and acquisitions, but Phillip’s original articles can still be found on his personal site.

Yet another guilty pleasure that all amateurs (and pro’s, who am I kidding) indulge in is a shallow depth of field. Even the cheapest 50mm prime can produce creamy bokeh on a full frame, and I recall that being a significant draw to always shoot open, always slice reality with planes of focus as thin as a piece of salami. In a way a shallow DOF set apart the “serious” amateurs from the pedestrians armed with point and shoot cameras, amongst other, more practical benefits such as the ability to shoot handheld in low light, better optical quality, and so on. Eventually my armory was upgraded with the Canon 50mm F1.4, and finally the holy grail of all 50mm’s - the F1.2L. Heavy as a bowling ball, the fast prime had an unwavering presence across all future camera bodies I owned.

The Mitakon is an imperfect lens that is hard to focus right and one that produces imperfect images, often flavored with a tinge of documentary style. Something about the vignetting, the imperfections of image quality make it more genuine and more alike the Canon’s F1.2L beast than any other lens that I’ve tried.

It’s an oddball lens. It’s heavy compared to the FujiFilm version, has varying optical quality depending on the light and aperture used, and the aperture ring is de-clicked, which results in accidental f-stop drift. I’ve heard jokes that some photographers use a piece of black tape to just glue the aperture to F/0.95. It does have a meaty tactile response on the focusing ring, which makes focusing, while not easy, at least enjoyable. Manual focus makes the lens entertaining to use as a creative tool… Focus peaking on the Fuji system is rather effective and it’s great fun to play with at F/0.95.

Would I recommend it for a pro? Not as the main workhorse. With the advances of eye autofocus, anyone who’s actually making money photographing moving subjects at once-in-a-lifetime events should consider beefier, smarter, faster full frame alternatives. But as an inexpensive travel companion that gets accidentally splashed with some water, dropped on sand, and overall banged up during travel adventures? It’s perfect with its imperfections.