SainSonic Kamlan 50 mm f/1.1 review - Summary

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SainSonic Kamlan 50 mm f/1.1

15 October 2018

Arkadiusz Olech

11. Summary

Pros:

sensible build quality of the barrel,
good image quality in the frame centre,
moderate lateral chromatic aberration,
slight distortion,
nice appearance of out-of-focus areas,
affordable price.

Cons:

very weak image quality on the edge of the frame,
some spherical aberration problems,
huge coma,
distinct vignetting,
weak performance against bright light,
some casualness when it comes to aperture markings.

Ok., own up: who was taken in enough to believe that a lens with just 5 elements, an aperture as fast as f/1.1, and costing just $180 will produce excellent images? Realists, who don’t believe in miracles, cannot be surprised by results presented in previous chapters and they won’t be disappointed. I count myself among them so the summary is going to be positive.

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Do you remember our tests of the Mitakon Speedmaster 50 mm f/0.95 and the Nikkor AF-S 58 mm f/1.4G? Their results proved that you dealt with two expensive devices producing photos of low resolution. Many commentators emphasized the fact that these lenses were simply designed that way but personally I feel it is a poor excuse for the incompetence of designers. You don’t have to spend a lot of money in order to get blurry areas in your photos along with other optics flaws (like ghosting or flares) and use them in a creative way. The tested Kamlan showed that much. It doesn’t pretend or dress up as something it is not. It is a simple, cheap device for people who want to play with photography and get results impossible to achieve with slower lenses. It is a lens for people who don’t want to ruin themselves for instruments with similar parameters but more optically complex and better corrected in many aspects. Full stop!