This is a
Syoptic 50mm f1.1, also known as the v1 Mr Ding 50mm f1.1 (somewhere described as ‘the no topic killer’) They’re generally fine and available on AliE for around £150 now - they were a bit more but it’s been replaced by the
v2 Mr Ding Noxlux, which is still at a more normal price for a Chinese lens.
In an accidental set of occurrences, I’ve got a couple of the v1s. They both have a bit of front focus wide open that is eliminated by focus shift by f2.8. Stick or twist? (My C-Sonnar is calibrated wide open so I tweak the focus slightly closer if shooting stopped down.)
If I ever have time I’ll properly compare, but reality means I’ll form impressions over time by shooting them and absorbing what the prints look like.
I think these lenses fulfill a few functions - most of which can be summed up as costing less than a Leica/Zeiss/Voigtlander:
- they’re fun
- they’re fast and cheap if you want something for occasional low light
- they’re perfectly good enough to make nice pictures (because content and vision are more important than the lens!) and are affordable for many photographers who might stretch to an M4 but can’t then add a Summilux or Summicron and actually want to shoot
- anything else that you can think of!
