The Kipon 35mm F2.4 is a lens that I have had an interest in trying for some time now, however up until recently the price tag was too high to justify a purchase purely to satisfy my curiosity.
Kipon has currently got the lens on sale for an advertised 51% off bringing the current price to 288usd or around 227GBP (before taxes) for the fujifilm x mount version. Other versions such as the L mount cost significantly more.
The only ways to acquire this lens in the UK currently are direct from the manufacturers website or from their store on amazon, both options are shipped direct from china and incur import fees. I did however notice that buying from amazon there is no additional postage charge which makes this option cheaper than buying from their website.
This lens and infact I believe all of the lenses that Kipon offer are full frame lenses that were originally designed for the Leica L mount before been later modified and offered on a range of full frame and APSC mounts.
The optical design is German and the manufacturing is carried out in china, they have chosen to engrave these facts on the lens as a mark of pride.
The copy that I purchased is the most recent 2022 revision, Kipon talks about how this revision was a redesign to improve the manufacturing tolerances and optical performance of the lens.
I cannot speak for any of the previous revisions however I can say quite honestly that the build quality of this lens is far beyond any of the other 3rd part manual focus lenses that I have previously used from other manufacturers such as Meike, 7artisans, TTartisan and Kamlan etc.
The body is an all metal construction that is slightly smaller yet heavier than the Fujifilm XF 35mm F1.4 and the metal used feels to be of a higher quality than many of the lenses from the aforementioned chinese brands. It is also clear the machining of the materials and tolerances in the construction are precise and tight, all of visible components fit together perfectly leaving no unintended gaps or movement. Mating the lens to the camera body provides a tight fit with no wiggle or movement whatsover.
Moving the focus ring reveals a smooth and consistant resistance with sturdy stop points at each end of the throw.
The aperture ring also provides a good level of resistance that is light enough to move with ease yet firm enough that it should never be moved acidentally when focusing or handling the camera however rather than feeling smooth like the focus ring it feels and sounds slightly “dry”, I wouldnt say that this is an issue though and i believe that it is down to the mechanism used to make the aperture ring clicked.
As can be seen in the images of the lens the aperture and focus rings are designed to sit very close together at the end the lens. The focus ring is built into the main body while the aperture ring is built into the lens barrel that moves in and out when focusing, this means that while at close focus distances there is a good sized gap between the two grips but at infinity focus the two are very close. The issue i have found from this design is that while at infinity focus I consistently knocked the focus slightly off while attempting to change aperture, It is a shame as this issue could easlly have been avoided if the grip treads built into the focus ring were simply put on the bottom of the ring further away from the aperture ring.
Construction quality aside I was dissapointed to see than when applying the enamel paint to the engraved markings care was not taken to fully clean off the excess and there are some light smear marks across the body and residue within the focus rings teeth.
Movng on to the optical performance of the lens, it is certainly an interesting lens. As this is a full frame lens using it on APSC provides some benefits due to the larger image circle. When wide open at f2.4 there is no aparent vignetting to worry about and extreme corner sharpness is higher than will be seen if this lens was used on a Full Frame camera as we are essentially closer to the centre of the frame.
Stopped down at f8 it is very sharp from edge to edge making it more than capable of shooting landscape images however as it opens up towards f2.4 it softens significantly, as can been seen in the two images below comparing f2.4 to f8.
I would say that f2.4 upto f4 is just not useable for landscapes and any other images with busy backgrounds, while the performance does improve a lot by f4 the images created are low contrast and can look awful with a lot of chromatic aberation and smeary glowy looking bokeh, this can be seen in the below images that were shot at f2.4 and f4.
However when used in the right conditions such as portraits this softer look can be flattering and provide very pleasing images. It is very much a case of using the right aperture for the right situation to get the best results.
The lens is provided with a high quality metal lens hood and im glad for it as using it is pretty much a requirement, any off axis light source will significantly lower contrast and create flaring even when stopping the lens down.
While i have listed off a lot of downsides to this lens it is worth noting that these downsides are present in pretty much all third party manual focus lenses made in china right now and in most retro lenses aswell from decades past. If you want to own one of these types of lenses then they are something you have to accept and learn to work around or use to creative effect.
What seperates this lens out and elevates it above a lot of the others is its abillity to provide true edge to edge sharpness with minimal distortion when stopped down, which works great for landscapes. While it is also able to be opened up for soft pleasing portraits with no vignetting.
Overall for me this is a well built lens that performs well when stopped down, the issue is the asking price which at full price is competing with the XF35mm F1.4 and even with the current sale price costs significantly more than the Xc 35mm F2 and 3 times the price of lenses such as the 7artisans 35mm f1.4.
The only reason that I can see to purchase this lens over those options at its price point is if you really want the manual focus experience and retro look with a very high build quality.
Attempting Art 
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