Brightin Star 35mm f9.95 M43 manual focus lens

I have been an Olympus/OM System micro four thirds user for many years. I love the format, cameras and lenses for many reasons, including the small size, light weight and quick automatic focus.

But I also enjoy photographing some subjects with third-party, manual-focus primes on my Olympus E-M5 and E-M1, taking me back to the days of shooting film with less-sophisticated cameras. But the manual-focus primes are best for portraits and still-life shots, not for anything involving action.

My first venture into the manual-focus lens world was an adapted used and cheap lens from an old Olympus film camera. Not satisfied with the speed, I stepped up to a new and expensive Voigtlander Nokton f0.95 17.5mm lens. 

Voigtlander Lens

The robust lens produced images with a unique character, which I loved. The well-built he lens was big and heavy, which I did not like. It was like a having military tank mounted on the front of the camera. 

Here's a shot from the lens, stylized to give it a black and white film look.

Voigtlander a f0.95

Despite getting good images, I eventually sold the Voigtlander Nokton.

A recent acquisition of a manual-focus prime has been a longer focal length and much smaller 35mm f0.95 lens made by Brightin Star, one of several Chinese firms now manufacturing affordable, manual-focus prime lenses that can be used on m43 and several other camera formats. 

Because these lenses are designed for APS-C cameras, there's a 2x crop factor on m43, eliminating flaws found in the outside edges of the frame.

Up close at f0.95, the Brightin Star has an extremely shallow depth of field. The out-of-focus area is soft and pleasing. The bokeh balls appear to be uniform.

Here's a shot of the top of a wine bottle from the Brightin Star, stylized to give it the look of black and white film.

Brightin Star at f0.95

In this image, the focus was on the wine-bottle cork. Comparing the cork shot with the image of the wine bottle at the top gives you a sense of the depth of field of the two lenses up close at f0.95.

The keys to good hand-held focus with these manual-focus lenses are using the peaking and magnify options on m43 cameras and registering the focal length of the lens for the IBIS to work correctly. I set each of these on a camera button for quick access.

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