Mitakon MC 85mm F2 Made in China

calvin83 · Joined: 12 Apr 2009 Posts: 7571 Location: Hong Kong

Lens and the box

Lovely coating reflections

Lens spec.:
* Focal length: 85mm
* Angle of view: 28.5 °
* Lens Construction: six elements six groups, Double Gaussian
* Minimum Aperture: F22
* Minimum Focus Distance: 0.85m
* Filter Diameter: 52mm
* Size: 64 (diameter) × 58 (length) mm
* Weight: 270 grams
* Price: approximate $80 USD
(This lens is available in Canon EF and Pentax PK. The Nikon AI version will be available in the future.)

The Mitakon brand belongs to a Japanese company. In the 1980’s, they setup a joint venture company with a Chinese company in Shenyang City. The company was changed to a private company nameed SHENYANG MITACON OPTICAL ELECTRONIC CO., LTD. in 2004.

The Mitakon Multicoated 85mm F2 is the first 85mm made in China lens. For the Canon EF version, it comes with an AF confirm chip (exif: 85mm F2 fixed). The lens is made of metal with rubber focus ring. Construction of the lens looks solid but the finishing of the metal parts could be better. There is little plastic dust in the copy I have. No accessory or manual is include but the spec of the lens and company information in the both side of the box.

Here are the samples of the lens from F2 to F8 for testing the sharpness and CA of this lens. All of them are crop from the centre part of the image from a fine JPEG filetaken by a handheld Canon 350D/Rebel XT(i forgot to set the camera to raw.)

At minimum focus distance 0.85m

I ever used any 85mm primes but it is unbeatable with such low price tag. More information will come later once the lens goes to the real owner.

The lens seems optimised for portrait so the best focus distance should be a few meters. The follwoing link shows its best.
http://photo.zol.com.cn/photo_fdjnd_335483_1.html

Please forgive me if the above sample make you feel this is not a good lens. It has its own strength, though it have its own weakness.

Thanks for reading my first lens preview thread. Smile

indianadinos · Expire: 2011-12-05

Well, it looks interesting, especially for that price ...

Attila · Expire: 2025-11-18

Thank you for sharing! Worst 85mm prime what I ever seen, please don't take it personally Rolling Eyes

aoleg · Joined: 22 Feb 2008 Posts: 1387 Location: Berlin, DE

Bruce · Expire: 2014-11-22

no CA [purple fringing] whatsoever! Laughing

dimitrygo · Joined: 01 Apr 2009 Posts: 561

Attila · Expire: 2025-11-18

calvin83 · Joined: 12 Apr 2009 Posts: 7571 Location: Hong Kong

Pancolart · Expire: 2013-11-18

vulko · Posted: Fri Jul 09, 2010 1:20 pm Post subject:

my_photography · Expire: 2016-12-25

Yes, do give us some portrait photos. The photos from the link look interesting.

calvin83 · Joined: 12 Apr 2009 Posts: 7571 Location: Hong Kong

aoleg · Joined: 22 Feb 2008 Posts: 1387 Location: Berlin, DE

Pancolart · Expire: 2013-11-18

You're right. Samples elsewhere are pretty nice. I would try importing this lens to Slovenia. Does anyone have a contact email perhaps?

aoleg · Joined: 22 Feb 2008 Posts: 1387 Location: Berlin, DE

Pancolart · Expire: 2013-11-18

Splendid idea - group inquiry. I might be taking few samples for resale here.

calvin83 · Joined: 12 Apr 2009 Posts: 7571 Location: Hong Kong

aoleg · Joined: 22 Feb 2008 Posts: 1387 Location: Berlin, DE

Thanks to calvin83, the lens is in my hands now. I did not give it a proper test yet (which would be going out and shooting portraits), but here are a few initial impressions. (I will have to make a full review with sample pics later).

The build quality of this lens is adequate. It resembles some late Russian designs with machined metal tubes and resin-smelling rubber grip. There is a slight wobbling in focusing helicoid. If you handled a Kaleinar-5N, the build quality is about the same. Even the aperture ring feels similar.

The diaphragm has 6 blades forming a "ninja star" at f/2.8 and a hexagon at f/4 and smaller. The blades are matted and not shiny as found in many Russian lenses of late. Aperture detents are full stops throughout the range.

Coatings are nice; they cope well with the sun in the frame. Cudos to the manufacturer. I say it handles contra light better than the Kaleinar.

The lens is soft wide open. It's not just spherical aberration, it's lack of resolution. Corners are softer still. Sharpens a bit stopped down, but only reaches "excellent" levels by f/5.6. There seems to be high field curvature, making it hard or impossible to get sharp pictures of brick walls (portraits should be nice though). Overall, subject isolation should work well witht this lens, giving apparent depth of field similar to some 85/1.4 designs.

Contrast is moderate wide open, high stopped down, no doubt due to good coatings. Can't judge the colors yet. Very little purple fringing wide open; none stopped down.

Bokeh is very smooth; not as smooth as the Samyang 85/1.4, but still good. Compared to Sonnar-based Jupiter-9, the character of this lens is prominently different; it's obviously Planar in rendering. Will need more testing, but it seems the designers deliberately allowed for some undercorrected spherical aberration to favor out of focus rendition. (I know that lenses overcorrected for spherical aberration, like Super/SMC Takumar 135/3.5, tend to have harsher bokeh with green accents.)

quibble · Joined: 19 Jul 2010 Posts: 2

I have one. I want to post the sample pictures but failed, I don't know why.

Pancolart · Expire: 2013-11-18

Please share as many samples shot wide-open.

BRunner · Joined: 29 Jul 2009 Posts: 705 Location: Czech Republic

Romil · Joined: 19 Jul 2010 Posts: 10

HI, guys, I'm the one who post the thread on fengniao.com.

aoleg · Joined: 22 Feb 2008 Posts: 1387 Location: Berlin, DE

quibble · Joined: 19 Jul 2010 Posts: 2

Romil · Joined: 19 Jul 2010 Posts: 10

The lens is designed by computer softwares. The Optical part looks the same with Carl Zeiss Sonnar T* 85/2. I use the lens about 4 months, it's very sharp, even at F2.8.
I'm going to prepare some pictures for you guys, and post them here.