Summary

Hello everyone, and speaking as a wide-angle lens enthusiast, today I have something really exciting for you all. I'll be testing out one of the first copies of the brand new Irix 11mm f4 lens for full frame cameras, and as you can see, it comes in lots of nice packaging for a start. And you did hear me right, an 11mm lens for full frame digital SLR cameras. Not fisheye, but rectilinear. I'd like to thank Irix for lending me a review copy of this lens, although as usual for my videos, it's not sponsored by them in any way.

If you own a full frame Nikon or Pentax camera, then I believe this is the widest angle non-fisheye lens you can get. If you own a Canon full frame camera, then your only other option is the Canon 11-24mm L lens, which costs an eye-watering £2500. But the Firefly version of this newer Irix lens comes in at only a little over £500, one fifth of the price. That's 640 euro, or about 700 US dollars. A pretty fantastic deal, potentially, although do bear in mind that this is a manual focus lens.

The 11mm on a full frame camera is a huge, crazy wide angle, giving you fantastic images that take in huge backgrounds and fields of view. It's fantastic for shooting indoors, giving a huge sense of space, which is particularly useful for real estate and architecture photography. And it can be happily used for landscape photography too, if you have a suitably wide vista to shoot, and angle the lens up or down a little bit. You have to compose your pictures carefully at such wide angles, but the payoff is that they'll often look very dramatic.

11mm is so wide that it's also an ultra wide angle on APS-C cameras, so this could be a nice option for photographers who use both kinds of camera, full frame and APS-C. This is Irix's second lens, and they're continuing in their marketing philosophy of launching two versions of the same optic, a lighter, less expensive version with a plastic body called the Firefly version, and a version with a hardy metal body called the Blackstone.

So then, image quality. I'll be testing this firstly on my full frame camera, a 20 megapixel Canon 6D. Straight from f4, the lens is razor sharp in the middle of its images with very good contrast. Let's take a look into those corners. Three things are jumping out here to me. Firstly, they're not too dark, even at f4, so vignetting is fairly under control. Secondly, resolution is quite good. The image is decently sharp here, which is important. Finally, there's some notable pink and green chromatic aberration, which will make its way into your pictures.

The Irix 11mm f4 is certainly an exciting full frame camera lens, delivered at a great price, but are its optics up to the task? Well, considering what this lens is, we can say that its image quality is actually very pleasing. It's nice and sharp, especially when stopped down a bit, which is vital for a wide angle lens. It has good contrast, and its distortion and vignetting are controlled pretty well. There were a couple of slip ups in chromatic aberration and work against bright lights, but actually that's exactly what you'd expect for a lens of this extreme type, and there are certainly issues also to be found in the incredibly expensive Canon 11-24mm L lens, a review of which I'm putting together at the moment. Really though, Irix could be onto a winner with this piece of kit. Wide angle enthusiasts always demand more and more wideness, and this lens could certainly add a lot of drama to your kit bag. And with its very reasonable price, it must come recommended.

Irix 11mm f4 Lens Review: Widest for Full Frame under £500

Hello everyone, and speaking as a wide-angle lens enthusiast, today I have something really exciting for you all. I'll be testing out one of the first copies of the brand new Irix 11mm f4 lens for full frame cameras, and as you can see, it comes in lots of nice packaging for a start. And you did hear me right, an 11mm lens for full frame digital SLR cameras. Not fisheye, but rectilinear. I'd like to thank Irix for lending me a review copy of this lens, although as usual for my videos, it's not sponsored by them in any way.

If you own a full frame Nikon or Pentax camera, then I believe this is the widest angle non-fisheye lens you can get. If you own a Canon full frame camera, then your only other option is the Canon 11-24mm L lens, which costs an eye-watering £2500. But the Firefly version of this newer Irix lens comes in at only a little over £500, one fifth of the price. That's 640 euro, or about 700 US dollars. A pretty fantastic deal, potentially, although do bear in mind that this is a manual focus lens.

The 11mm on a full frame camera is a huge, crazy wide angle, giving you fantastic images that take in huge backgrounds and fields of view. It's fantastic for shooting indoors, giving a huge sense of space, which is particularly useful for real estate and architecture photography. And it can be happily used for landscape photography too, if you have a suitably wide vista to shoot, and angle the lens up or down a little bit. You have to compose your pictures carefully at such wide angles, but the payoff is that they'll often look very dramatic. 11mm is so wide that it's also an ultra wide angle on APS-C cameras, so this could be a nice option for photographers who use both kinds of camera, full frame and APS-C.

This is Irix's second lens, and they're continuing in their marketing philosophy of launching two versions of the same optic, a lighter, less expensive version with a plastic body called the Firefly version, and a version with a hardy metal body called the Blackstone. Last time I tested the metallic Blackstone 15mm lens, this time I'm looking at the plastic bodied Firefly. It has identical optics to the Blackstone version, and while it costs less, I was still pretty impressed with the build quality of this Firefly lens. It weighs about 750g, so it's substantial, but not too heavy to realistically carry around with you, and it will balance nicely on pretty much any full frame camera. It's based on a metal lens mount with a slight gasket for weather sealing, and full electronic contacts. As you can see, the lens's aperture can be controlled by the camera, and you get focus confirmation through the viewfinder, and EXIF information. There's also space there for a gel filter, if required.

Now this is a manual focus lens. However, manually focusing such a wide angle lens is pretty easy, the depth of field is huge, even at f4. There are distance scales marked on the focus ring to help you, and there's a very slight click when you reach the infinity point, helpful for shooting in the dark. The focus ring on this Firefly version of the lens is rubberised, and turns fairly smoothly, and a little heavily. And above the focus ring, there's a locking mechanism, where you can tighten the focus ring to keep it fixed in the same spot, potentially useful for street photography to avoid you accidentally changing focus. Irix do advise that, if you've tightened the focus ring, don't try to force it around, as you could damage the mechanism.

The lens's hood is made of plastic, and clips onto the front fairly securely. There's a little bit of wobble there. All in all though, despite this being the less expensive lens body, the build quality remains really nice and solid. The metal, blackstone version of the lens will be tougher with better weather sealing, but I like having a more lightweight lens to carry around with me.

So then, image quality. I'll be testing this firstly on my full frame camera, a 20 megapixel Canon 6D. Straight from f4, the lens is razor sharp in the middle of its images with very good contrast. Let's take a look into those corners. Three things are jumping out here to me. Firstly, they're not too dark, even at f4, so vignetting is fairly under control. Secondly, resolution is quite good. The image is decently sharp here, which is important. Finally, there's some notable pink and green chromatic aberration, which will make its way into your pictures. In fairness though, this is not surprising, considering the lens's extreme wide angle.

On an APS-C camera, the lens remains pretty sharp in the middle, straight from f4. The corners of the image have some issues, though, with softness and chromatic aberration. Stop down to f5.6 for an improvement, and f8 for decent image quality up there, although you'll still want to fix that chromatic aberration with editing software. If you stop down the lens any more than this, then diffraction will start to take its toll. So on an APS-C camera, you'll want to stop the lens's aperture down a bit for best results.

The good news here is that there is little vignetting. It's a bit noticeable at f4, but just stop down to f5.6 and the corners are as bright as you'll need. There is some barrel distortion visible here, although that is accentuated by my camera having to be so close to the test chart at this wide angle. If we pull the camera back a bit, then we see still a little barrel distortion, but it's not too bad. In practice, I generally found lines in my photos to be kept quite straight by the lens.

The lens can focus down to 27cm, that's not especially close really, but the good news is that picture quality remains fantastically sharp close up, even at f4. How does this lens perform against bright lights? The good news is that contrast remains good. The bad news is that there are quite a number of flaring artefacts, including a giant red circle when the sun is right in there. This is a common issue for extreme wide angle lenses. When I have time, I like to test wide angle lenses for coma. As you can see in this image, even at f4, the lens seems to be well corrected for coma, even in the corners of the images. Bright points of light show the chromatic aberration, but there is no coma smearing, and so this could be a good lens for astrophotography.

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Highlights:

• Comes in nice packaging
• 11mm for full frame cameras
• Not fisheye, but rectilinear
• Widest angle non-fisheye lens for Nikon or Pentax full frame cameras
• Costs only a little over £500, one fifth of the price of the Canon full frame option
• Great for shooting indoors and giving a huge sense of space
• Fantastic for real estate and architecture photography
• Happily used for landscape photography
• An ultra wide angle on APS-C cameras
• The plastic bodied Firefly still has impressive build quality
• Manual focusing is easy with such a wide angle lens
• Very sharp lens with great contrast, even in the corners
• Chromactic aberration and flaring artefacts can be fixed in post-processing
• Well corrected for coma and suitable for astrophotography
• Controlled distortion and vignetting
• Adds a lot of drama to your kit bag at a very reasonable price