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Best Fast 35mm lens for use with Kowa?


Caleb Genheimer
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Hi, all! Looking for suggestions on a good 35mm lens for use with GH2 and Kowa 8Z.

Looking for fast. f2 or faster.

Looking for hard stops, no focus by wire mumbo jumbo.

The more aperture blades, the better . . . I like my bokeh round (albeit stretched).

I was thinking maybe Nikon ai or ais? The color rendition of these I like a lot.
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EOSHD Pro Color 5 for Sony cameras EOSHD Z LOG for Nikon CamerasEOSHD C-LOG and Film Profiles for All Canon DSLRs
Andrew recommends Canon FDs in his Shooter's Guide but I have also seen great results with the old Nikkor AI lenses on Vimeo.

I have a Bell & Howell Kowa (similar) and so far the Canon FD 50mm f1.4 has done pretty well for me on my GH2vk. I am not sure how much of a difference it makes but I went for an older chrome-nose version hoping that the earlier technology might not have the same coating density as the later models. It only cost me about $100 used on eBay (and around $50 for the ciecio7 adapter). I haven't had a chance to shoot with it extensively but I have been pleased with the tests. I don't think that the bokeh is perfectly round though.
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Maybe the Mir-24m or Mir-24n would be good.
Haven't tried those yet but they appear to look good and have round bokeh because they have 10 blades.

Mir-24n (the nikon mount) is way cheaper than the Mir-24m (m42 mount) for some strange reason.

sample video to show you the way it looks and the bokeh. https://vimeo.com/11640891
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I have a 37mm MIR, but its f2.8. The more I shoot, the more I realize that I don't even want to bother with any lens slower than f1.8, or anything much longer than 50mm. I'm sure this is just the crop sensor limitations that are bothering me.

Really, a 35mm 0.95 from Voigtlander would cure all, but that's going to require some patience and a chunk of change that i don't have  :)
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