Brightin Star’s 50mm f/1.4 Has Cinema Features and a Tiny Price Tag
Brightin Star’s new 50mm f/1.4 III APS-C lens promises sharp optics, creamy bokeh, and cine-style controls at an affordable price. It is available for a surprisingly wide variety of mounts.
Designed for APS-C mirrorless systems, the Brightin Star 50mm f/1.4 III lens is available for Micro Four Thirds, Canon EF-M, Fujifilm X, Sony E, and Canon RF mounts. Priced at $120 during its launch period, it aims to provide photographers with an affordable option for portraits, still life, and low-light shooting.
Its compact design and moderate weight promise to make it easy to handle for extended shooting sessions, whether on a handheld camera or mounted on a small gimbal. The lens’s wide f/1.4 aperture allows for creative control over depth of field, letting photographers isolate subjects while maintaining sharp detail. With cine-style aperture markings and precise manual focus, it also offers functionality that appeals to hybrid shooters working in both photography and video.
A Focus on Wide Aperture Performance
The hallmark of the 50mm f/1.4 III is its large maximum aperture. The lens enables photographers to achieve a shallow depth of field and creamy bokeh, which effectively separates subjects from their backgrounds. This makes it well-suited for portraits and still-life photography, where subject isolation is a key creative tool. The wide f/1.4 aperture also allows more light into the camera, improving performance in low-light situations and nighttime shooting.
Optical Construction and Cine-Friendly Features
The Brightin Star 50mm f/1.4 III employs a simple six-element design that includes one extra-low dispersion (ED) element and one high-definition (HD) element. This combination is designed to deliver sharp, high-contrast images while minimizing common optical issues such as flare, ghosting, and chromatic aberrations. Brightin Star also applies advanced optical coatings to enhance light transmission and maintain color fidelity across the frame, helping to preserve detail even in challenging lighting conditions.
With a minimum focusing distance of 16.5 inches (42 centimeters), the lens allows photographers to work closely with their subjects, making it suitable not only for portraits but also for detailed still-life shots, food photography, and other scenarios where capturing fine texture and depth is essential.
In addition to its optical design, the lens features a clicked aperture ring with cine-style markings. This allows photographers and videographers to make precise, tactile adjustments to aperture settings, ensuring smooth, controlled transitions when changing exposure. The click stops provide both visual and tactile feedback, making it easier to reliably repeat specific aperture settings. For videographers, this means smoother exposure pulls without abrupt jumps, while photographers can maintain consistent depth-of-field control across a series of shots.
The combination of high-quality optics, close-focus capability, and user-focused aperture control promises to make the Brightin Star 50mm f/1.4 III an affordable and versatile tool for creative storytelling in both photo and video applications.
Manual Focus Handling and Build
The Brightin Star 50mm f/1.4 III is designed exclusively as a manual focus lens, emphasizing deliberate, precise control over composition and focus, potentially at the expense of versatility for certain types of photography. Brightin Star promises that the focus ring is smooth and well-damped, offering consistent resistance that allows photographers to fine-tune focus accurately, whether capturing a portrait or a close-up still-life subject. This tactile precision is particularly valuable for videographers using the lens on gimbals or follow-focus systems, as it enables smooth, controlled focus pulls without the abrupt shifts sometimes experienced with autofocus lenses.
Weighing approximately 13.9 ounces (395 grams), the lens strikes a balance between solid build quality and portability. It is compact enough to remain comfortable for handheld shooting over extended periods, while its robust construction provides a sense of durability and reliability on location. The lens barrel is thoughtfully designed to accommodate the clicked aperture ring, featuring cine-style markings, making it easier to manage exposure settings during video production without disrupting the workflow. Overall, the combination of manual focus precision, manageable weight, and tactile controls ensures that the Brightin Star 50mm f/1.4 III can perform well both as a standalone photographic tool and as part of a larger video kit.
Pricing and Availability
The Brightin Star 50mm f/1.4 III is available now. The introductory price of $120 will remain in effect until September 11, after which standard pricing of $130 will apply.
Image credits: Brightin Star
