[Music] Howdy again everyone and Chinese company Astra hori also known as Rockstar are Continuing to make a bit of a name for Themselves by releasing interesting and Unusual manual focus lenses today an 18 Millimeter f8 Ultra wide angle pancake Lens for Sony amount cameras full frame Or aps-c This lens also has a special shift Feature for adjusting your perspective Which is always fun although when you do Shift the lens it doesn't cover a full Frame image Circle anymore as you can See here there's huge physical Vignetting right in the corners so this Is more of a feature for aps-c camera Shooters although for full frame Shooters just getting such an enjoyable Ultra wide field of view on a pancake Lens does make this very handy and kind Of enjoyable to use its price is 120 US Dollars or about 120 pounds here in the UK and I'd like to thank Astra hori for Sending me a copy of the lens for Testing although as usual this is a Totally independent review let's start By taking a look at the lens itself as I Mentioned it's very small and totally Manual manual focus manual aperture and Made of metal with no weather sealing or Electronic contacts the mid section of The lens rotates 360 degrees with clicks Every 45 degrees this is to allow you to
Shift the lens in exactly the position You want and in order to shift the lens You need to push it quite hard in the Direction you want basically there are No controls for the shift mechanism here And it works quite stiffly then comes a Narrow manual focus ring which turns Quite precisely and a little heavily I Can't imagine many people seeking to use This lens for video work but I'll Mention for you anyway that the lens Does exhibit some focused breathing The lens has a 58 millimeter filter Thread size and there's no aperture Control here you can only shoot at f8 Well that's about it really it's a Pretty simply designed little thing So let's check out its image quality Firstly on a full frame camera my 42 Megapixel Sony a7r III there are no In-camera Corrections available with This lens in the middle of the image we See excellent sharpness contrast is just Good the lens also has a slightly purple Color cast to it that you'll want to Correct in editing let's look over in The corners an image is still visible Here but we are catching softness Darkness and chromatic aberration so the Lens is sharp in the middle but Struggling in those corners on a Full-frame sensor let's take a look at How it performs on aps-c now by mounting It onto my little 24 megapixel Sony
A5100 again in the middle we see really Excellent sharpness this time the Corners look much better although we're Getting some astigmatism here with the Vertical resolution looking clearly a Bit softer than the horizontal so the Lens Works far better on aps-c turning In a fairly decent performance let's see About vignetting and Distortion now on a Full frame camera as you can see here The lens projects are very wavy Distortion pattern looking a little like A circus mirror gone wrong and of course As we saw before those Corners are very Dark if you're shooting on an aps-c Camera instead then you simply get some Lowish Barrel Distortion as you can see Here and no vignetting the lands can Focus down to about 34 centimeters not Very close really but the good news is That close-up image quality is just as Sharp as at normal distances Let's see how the lens performs against Bright Lights now when bright lights are Directly in your image the lens holds Onto its contrast very nicely when They're light on the edge of the image We get sudden flaring at certain points Which you might be able to avoid if you Shoot carefully enough while we're Working in the dark let's take a look at Coma smearing and sunstars surprisingly Coma is well corrected here making it Easier to shoot at night time although
With an aperture of any f8 this lens Won't be our first choice for that Unfortunately no sunstars are visible Here though and finally Boca Frankie This is the most out of focus your Backgrounds can get with this lens Although the quality of that rather Minimal bokeh looks perfectly fine Overall the Astra only 18 millimeter f8 Is a somewhat interesting lens and Enjoyable to use but if you go ahead With it there are many things you should Bear in mind you'll want to correct it Slightly purple color cast in editing as Well as adding a bit more contrast to Your images not hard to do admittedly But still a slightly destructive process Full-frame Shooters will have fun with Its awesome Ultra wide angle field of View but they'll also have to suffer With vignetting weird Distortion and With having to heavily crop any images Shot with a shift feature aps-c Shooters Will have less interesting field of view To play with but quite a sharp lens on Their hands nonetheless especially with That shift feature which makes it a lot More fun so if that's the kind of thing That interests you then for 120 it could Be worth a try Foreign [Music] Thanks for watching everyone who doesn't Like to play around with shift lenses
Right especially on a pancake lens I Think that's a first for me thanks for Watching and I do hope you find these Reviews helpful if you do and you'd like To support this channel then support us Over on patreon get all kinds of Exclusive bonus content so check it out In the description below and ciao for Now
