Infrared Gear Cheap Chinese lenses and infrared?

Greetings, everybody . . .

I shoot a lot of infrared with my Kolari-converted X-E2 (720nm native, but I use an 850nm filter much of the time). And most of my Fuji lenses have from annoying to unbearable hotspots. Even the 18-135, which I got specifically for IR because it was said to be hotspot-free, does fairly horrible color vignetting. So I'm toying with the notion of trying out one or two of the cheap manual-focus lenses from China. But before I fork over money to give it a try, I thought I'd see if anyone here had shot any infrared with any of them and, if so, which one(s) and how it worked out. There's some variation -- for instance, among my slightly-more-expensive Rokinons the 8mm fisheye works perfectly, while the 12mm f2 had a bad hotspot at every aperture.

So -- anybody shot infrared with Meike or 7artisans or suchlike?
 
Okay, in that there seems to be a dearth of information on the subject, I just ordered the 25mm f1.8 Meike (allegedly better QC than 7artisans) in Fuji mount with a UV filter and hood for $94 from Amazon (which unlike China takes returns if it's not up to expectations). I'll report back one way or the other, in case there's burning interest.<g>
 
You've got my interest. :) Infrared is one of those areas that's pretty interesting but the budget doesn't allow me to get more gear to play with it.

I know recently @bilzmale has been doing some IR work but I don't recall what kind of gear he's using.

Thanks Kevin, I'm using Oly lenses with my GF1 and have not had a 'hot spot' problem. My Sigma 40mm is OK too.
 
Okay, everybody, we have some preliminary answers, which are neither as bad nor as good as could be imagined. I'll put up a series of test images in the Showcase. Gotta say that I love the 25mm f1.8 Meike, which is just right for an X-E. (Of course I put a good UV filter on it and a hood; I always use hoods as protectors, but with flare-prone lenses such as the Meikes they're essential for hood reasons, too. Though the cheap one I got was made by someone who does not seem to know what hoods are for, so next task is to give it a good coat of flat black on the inside.) Anyway, the X-E2 looks kinda cool with the 25.
d0p_2309-awb-scaled.jpg
Join to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
 
Last edited:
I've played with IR on multiple cameras with a wide range of filters & lenses over the last 10 years. This has shown me lists of hotspots often need a large shovel of salt.
I've had a lens/filter give severe hot spots on one camera but none at all on another.
I've had hotspots appear when focusing very close on systems that don't have an obvious hotspot for landscapes.
Then of course the position of the sun relative to the shot & post processing done etc can have a massive effect on hotspots.

Most of the lenses & filters I've tried have been quite usable over a wide range of situations including the cheap Chinese ones - Most of my long pass filters are budget Chinese ones & I've used a few with Chinese c-mount lenses.

If anything I find IR results are worse from more expensive lenses, where modern coatings can block much of the IR. IR transmission has proved particularly low on my Panasonic MFT lenses, where the spectrometer at work indicates little above 900nm is transmitted at all, (<1% transmission while most lenses manage over 90%).
 
Back
Top