New Irix lenses for SLRs: Has anyone real experiences with them?

Angarian

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During the last 15 years we've seen "a flood" of new lenses and also new lens manufacturers (mainly from China serving the lower end market, and mainly focussed on lenses for Electronic-Viewfinder-Exchangeable-Lens [EVIL] cameras [mirrorless]).

For the film SLR market (and DSLR) we've seen mainly new lenses by Canon, Nikon, Pentax and from Sigma (especially the excellent 'Art' series), from Zeiss (the outstanding Otus and Milvus series), from Voigtländer/Cosina (SLII series for F mount), recently from Meyer-Optik-Görlitz (Germany), and also some lenses e.g. by Venus Optics / Laowa.

And there has been a total newcomer on the market some years ago from Switzerland: Irix https://irixlens.com/
The lenses are most probably (due to all public available knowledge) produced in South Korea by long-established lens manufacturer Samyang (OEM manufacturing for Irix).
Interestingly Irix "is swimming against the flow" by designing new lenses for the (D)SLR market, whereas most other new lens manufacturers are focussing on the EVIL lens segment.

Of course principally very good for us film SLR users, as we get new high-quality options for manual focus lenses.
The Irix lenses are available with Canon EF, Nikon F and even Pentax K mount! Very good news for Pentax users, as most third party lens manufacturers unfortunately do not offer their lenses in K mount.

The published tests and reviews look very good to excellent so far:
- https://www.lenstip.com/486.1-Lens_review-Irix_15_mm_f_2.4_Blackstone.html
- https://www.lenstip.com/626.1-Lens_review-Irix_30_mm_f_1.4.html
- https://www.lenstip.com/556.1-Lens_review-Irix_150_mm_f_2.8_MACRO_1:1_Dragonfly.html
- - - - - -
Has anyone here tested and / or used one of the Irix lenses? Experience from real users is very appreciated, thanks in advance!
 

MFstooges

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Although there are Chinese lenses with OK quality (mostly manual focus) I think today's Chinese lens manufacturers make Japanese manufacturers run for their money.
 

MFstooges

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It's probably made by Chinese manufacturer. Just like vehicle, Chinese manufacturers are buying up European brands for marketing purpose. It seems to confuse the cold war propaganda consumers enough that it actually works.
Like I said the quality is rising while the Japanese made is increasing more in price.
 

beemermark

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Old school here, Nikon lenses went from very good to really excellent. Most sell on the market, at least what I consider, cheaply. Why would I buy cheap Chinese lenses that usually cost more and lack the same excellent construction.
 
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Angarian

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MFstooges said:
It's probably made by Chinese manufacturer.
Click to expand...

No, it is not.
As I have written in my post, the lenses are made in South Korea. That is fact.
And all available information indicates that Samyang is the OEM manufacturer for Irix.
 
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Angarian

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dokko said:
For all I know, Irix has nothing to do with Swiss lens production other than a mailbox in the district Zug.
Click to expand...

As I have written, the company Irix is based in Switzerland. The lenses are produced in South Korea.

dokko said:
A friend tested their 150mm macro in detail, which showed very poor performance. I have no info about the rest of their lineup though.
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Thanks. At least one single member who is replying to my question.
 

dokko

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Angarian said:
As I have written, the company Irix is based in Switzerland. The lenses are produced in South Korea.
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Depends what you consider „based in“. To me it looks very much like they have a mailbox there to be able to mention „swiss“ something (if you read carefully it nowhere states anything concrete about what the swiss part is, because the laws in Switzerland are quite strict about using the term as a quality label).

My friend did some investigation, here his conclusion:


PS: I should mention that the 150mm macro does perform quite ok at infinity, it‘s the macro range where is has problems.
 
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Angarian

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dokko said:
Depends what you consider „based in“.
Click to expand...

I referred to that the company registration is there (at least I have understood it that way). I am neither a lawyer nor a tax expert, and many companies today have different addresses for certain parts of the company, daughter companies and so on......


Thanks. Whether their main part of their administration is in Switzerland or Poland, is not important for me.
It has always been clear, also by Irix own statements, that the production is not in Switzerland. Therefore I never had the picture of buying a "swiss made optic".
For me lens performance, build quality and customer service are important. And the customer service seems to be very good, at least there have been several reports about it by customers.

dokko said:
PS: I should mention that the 150mm macro does perform quite ok at infinity, it‘s the macro range where is has problems.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the additional info. The online reviews of the 150mm macro have been very positive so far. Therefore I have asked here for more information by users. Generally: Before I buy something which I intend to use many many years, I try to get as much information as possible.
 

ic-racer

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As mentioned above, it is hard to imagine a 'newcomer' on the market doing better than Nikkors in the F mount.
 

Christiaan Phleger

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Pure speculation, I do think the concept is a very modern one, perhaps the Swiss connection is the design processing, using a combination of high quality but off-the shelf Japanese glass, assembled in a regular production high quality facility by skilled workers, likely with some amount of higher precision automation. I still think the 15mm is an amazing lens. I'd like to try one on film.
 

Film-Niko

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beemermark said:
Old school here, Nikon lenses went from very good to really excellent.
Click to expand...

But:
1) Nikon has stopped production of their manual focus lenses many years ago. The Irix lenses are current production manual focus lenses, which can be bought new with a guarantee.
2) The Nikon manual focus lenses (non-Ai, AI, AI-S) are all old lens designs (40-70 years old), on a lower technology level compared to current modern lens designs.
3) The Irix lenses offer better build quality (result from my own test).


beemermark said:
Most sell on the market, at least what I consider, cheaply. Why would I buy cheap Chinese lenses that usually cost more and lack the same excellent construction.
Click to expand...

We are not talking about cheap Chinese lenses, as the Irix lenses are medium priced, higher quality lenses made in South Korea. And they offer better construction / build quality compared to the old Nikkors.
 

Film-Niko

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ic-racer said:
As mentioned above, it is hard to imagine a 'newcomer' on the market doing better than Nikkors in the F mount.
Click to expand...

Depends on which Nikkors we are looking at.
As the Irix lenses are manual focus lenses, a fair comparison would be to the former non-AI, AI and AI-S manual focus Nikkors.
And in that area the situation is as I have described it on my post above.

Nowadays a competent optical engineer will have no problems to design a significantly better lens compared to the lens designs of the 60ies, 70ies, 80ies.
Only requirement: A not to tight budget restriction. If the lens is intended to be sold at very low prices, significant compromises in optical and mechanical quality have to be made.
But that is not the case here with the Irix lenses.

Reply to the OP:
I had the chance to test the Irix 1.4/45. And I compared it to the Nikkor AI-S 1.4/50 and AF-D 1.4/50, and the Zeiss Milvus 1.4/50
Test results:
- the Irix has a significantly better optical performance compared to the Nikkors
- the Irix has a much better build quality than the Nikkors
- and the Zeiss Milvus 1.4/50 surpasses the Irix both in optical performance, and also in construction / build quality (but is also more expensive, you get what you pay for).
 

Film-Niko

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Just as an addition, unfortunately I had forgotten it in my posting above:
Here is the very detailed review of the Irix 1.4/45 from Dustin Abbott:

Irix 45mm F1.4 Dragonfly Review - DustinAbbott.net

Photographer Dustin Abbott shares a thorough review of the Irix 45mm F1.4 Dragonfly prime lens for Canon, Nikon, Pentax, and Fuji
dustinabbott.net

His test results are almost 100% concordant with what I have found testing this lens.
 

Arthurwg

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dokko said:
For all I know, Irix has nothing to do with Swiss lens production other than a mailbox in the district Zug.
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I note that "ZUG" is a district that offers some degree of tax relief.
 

MFstooges

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Is printing the focal length to be readable from 20 yards a thing now?
 
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Angarian

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Thank you very much!
Also for the link to the test done by Dustin Abbott ( I overlooked that one by my initial search; Dustin Abbott is a very good and reliable source).
 

JPD

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They seem to be cine lenses adapted for still cameras.

The "About us" page contains mostly buzzwords and doesn't say anything about who they are, and "Our Story" leads to a page for white cine lenses.
 
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Angarian

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JPD said:
They seem to be cine lenses adapted for still cameras.
Click to expand...

If I remember right, they entered the market some years ago with their both super wide angles lenses, the 11mm and 15mm. Later, the 150mm macro followed.
But these three were not available as cine lenses at that time. Only as photo lenses.
That they offered their lenses also in a cine version followed later.
 

JParker

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For more information you may have a look also here:

1) As Irix is the only third party (D)SLR lens manufacturer who offers all of their lenses also in Pentax K mount, you find several tests made by Pentax users:
- https://www.pentaxforums.com/reviews/lens-reviews.html
- https://www.pentaxforums.com/userreviews/irix-pentax-prime-lenses-c127.html

2) https://photographylife.com/reviews/irix-11mm-f4

3) And then there are also the many user reviews from B&H customers:
 

tom43

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Just to be clear: These are manual focus lenses without aperture control ring. So you can only use such lenses with more modern film SLRs, not with a F3, FM3A etc.

A significant difference compared to some other manual focus lenses from Voigtländer, Zeiss etc.

Unfortunately the focusing screens of such newer SLRs don’t really harmonize with a manual lens. They are build for autofocus.
 

JParker

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Yes, that is of course important to know.
On the other side: Of course no problem at all for Canon EF mount users. And for Nikon users: There are so many AF Nikons on which these lenses can be used (and with the exception of the F6 they are all so damn cheap on the used market) that adding a camera to the lens for 30-50 bucks shouldn't be a problem.

tom43 said:
Unfortunately the focusing screens of such newer SLRs don’t really harmonize with a manual lens. They are build for autofocus.
Click to expand...

I would not generalize that. For example the F6 has a screen which works very well for manual focus (and the focus indicator is very precise as well). And if you want, there is also a split-image screen available for the F6.
 
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