Irix 15mm Blackstone f/2.4: Image Quality Breakdown | 4K

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Hi, I'm Dustin Abbott and I'm here today to give you a breakdown of the image quality from this
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Irix 15mm f2.4 Blackstone lens. Now if you watched my first episode, which if you missed it you can
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see it here, I broke down the unique kind of design qualities of this lens and also gave you a little
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with this brand that you may not have familiarity yet with. Now today, of course, we're going to jump in and to look at really what makes this lens tick
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And while, you know, I'm glad that it works fine as, you know, when it comes to its mechanical
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performance and I like the build and all of that, the look of the lens
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But what, of course, I think is probably most important is how well that it performs. And while the last episode was somewhat unique to the Blackstone version of the lens, today's
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This image quality breakdown will also be equally true of the Firefly version of the lens
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And so if you're looking at the less expensive option, fortunately, optically you're getting
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the same optical formula, the same lens, just in a different housing, slightly different features
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And so today we're going to jump in and we're going to look at a variety of photos and a
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variety of settings. Take a look at the resolution from the lens, its flare resistance, chromatic aberration
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control distortion vignette color rendition all of those things and also do a comparison to
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kind of a a one benchmark that i have on hand which is tamron's 15 to 30 millimeter f 2.8
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and so obviously it doesn't have as wide of a maximum aperture but it does have a similarly
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wide focal length on the white and and a fairly similar maximum aperture so it provides a pretty
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good comparison point and also because i've owned this zoom lens for three or four years i've been
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able to compare it to a lot of the new wide angle lenses so it's a good benchmark for me personally
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because it's been compared to a lot of other lenses already so let's jump in and let's take a
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look at these images together okay so in this comparison i have just to give you a quick look
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at what i have done to these images because this was a strongly backlit situation um i purposefully
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underexposed and so just to give you a look at how the image would look just natively out of the
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camera and so what I've done is I've brought the shadows back up a little bit highlights down a
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little bit and a bit more exposure back just to allow us to have as balanced a look as possible
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I've applied equal settings across the board to all these images and so that we can have as apples
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of apples as possible now in this particular comparison first comparison we're comparing
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wide open. So it's F 2.5 to F 2.8. Now, as you can tell, the Tamron has a little bit brighter
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end result, but of course also shutter speed is significantly different. We will find that at
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equal shutter speeds, however, the Tamron does let a little bit more light through
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But taking a look at this, we're more looking at our overall sharpness here. And so as we look
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out towards infinity here. One thing you can see is that both lenses, even at f2.8, 15 millimeters
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are quite sharp. And so you can see not a problem when it comes to that. However, at wide open
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you will see there's a little bit more contrast and sharpness on the Tamron lens than there is
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on the IREX. Again, remember though, this is f2.5, actually f2.4. And let me just pause on that
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the actual physical aperture opens up to f2.4. However, the standard third stop is at f2.5
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which is, that's what the camera ends up reporting. Now you can see that pretty close out to the edge
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we still have some nice resolution from both lenses, from the Irix as well, even at f2.4 here
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And the same is true over on this side of the frame. And so definitely some positives there in
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that you do have pretty good sharpness right off to the edge of the frame. Tamron being a little
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bit better but not by a wide margin. I think mostly it's the wide open contrast that prefers
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the Tamron. Also it vignettes a little bit less as we're going to see more here in a second
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Now here we have an apples to apples comparison at f2.8 identical shutter speeds, identical
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processing steps. And so as you can see, the Tamron does give you a brighter end result than
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does the Irix. Now with the Irix stopped down a little bit, let's see if there's much of a
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difference in terms of our both. Again, once again, subject looks good on both of them. I would say
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that colors are looking a little bit more vibrant on the Tamron, which is certainly a strength for
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it. And, you know, micro contrast maybe slightly favors the Tamron. However, off here at the edge
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of the frame I would say right off at the edge at F2 here we getting a little bit better result out of the IRIX than we are out of the Tamron If we look over at this side I would say that the Tamron
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looks every bit as good looking down at this pile here. I think resolution is fairly similar other
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than in this extreme corner, which looks a little more smeared here. But our biggest difference here
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is really more about vignette and so you've got a brighter result off towards the edge. The actual
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resolution results are not terribly different. Now one thing worth noting is that with both lenses
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at 15 millimeters the framing from the Tamron is pretty close to identical to that of the Irix and
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so not a major difference between the two lenses when it comes to that. Certainly not enough to be
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appreciated in any kind of real world setting from what I can tell at infinity here. A couple
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of other things to note when it comes to the flare, obviously we've got the sun is right here
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in this frame. And so the sun is actually really bright in this scene. It's a strongly backlit
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scene. So this also allows us to look at some flare resistance. And so you do have this single
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ghosting artifact here on the IRIX that we have seen already at other aperture values that will
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continue to be there. In terms of the epicenter here of the sun, not a whole lot of veiling. We
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can see that the Tamron actually veils a little bit heavier, and the Tamron also has a little bit
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more of a kind of a pattern of, you know, refractions that is taking place moving down
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into the image. Now, what the Irix does have, and we'll see this more in a few minutes, is that there
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is a very large circular ring that fortunately a lot of times is outside the frame. You know
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the Tamron we've got some veiling a little bit of ghosting in there so I would say that in some
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ways the flare resistance from the IRIX is better than that of the Tamron with one exception that
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I'll note in just a moment. Now as far as the resolution now that we're down to f4 once again
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I would say that our center observations are true. It's really the Tamron does a better job
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with the light transmission and the micro contrast, which allows it to have a little bit more kind of pop there
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in the center difference between light and shadowed areas. The resolution, I would say, from both, though, is really strong and right out to the edge of the frame here
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And so great news for this IREX lens is that, I mean, it really is sharp at landscape apertures
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It is sharp from corner to corner. and I would say that now we're seeing an uptick in the contrast here at f4 and so I would say it's
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more competitive right out here to the edge of the frame only in the very extreme corners is there a
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little bit of a difference for the Tamron lens. Now at f5.6 our general observations remain similar
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a little bit brighter image from the Tamron once again we've got this you know same kind of ghosting
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artifact that is not you know too terribly destructive here and similar kind of pattern
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coming from the Tamron. Now in terms again of sharpness and contrast the lenses are looking
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fairly similar the overall contrast this does still favor the Tamron a little bit
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and so you know just darker areas look a little bit darker bright areas look a little bit brighter
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In terms of raw resolution both of these are delivering I would say pretty close to perfect
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levels at f5.6. Now, one of the things that I will note that you maybe can't see as strongly as you
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can in some of the comparisons that I've used, but the Tamron does have some issues with some
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lateral chromatic aberrations. And so you can see a little bit of both green and purple fringing
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showing up here. The Irix is better for that. And as you can see, because the lens is stopped down
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lateral CA doesn't really clear up from stopping a lens down and so it's it's there on the Tamron
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and you can see again some of that green and purple fringing you know kind of top and bottom
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of things that's not there on the IREX so IREX is a little bit better when it comes to
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chromatic aberration control and now we can see I mean both of them just look brilliantly sharp
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at f5.6. So just a very quick peek here at f8. And, you know, most of the things we've been
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observing continue to be true here. I just wanted to give you a look again, right out to the edge
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of the frame. Sharpness is very, very good on the IREX lens. It is performing just fabulously here
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at these, you know, kind of landscape aperture values. And once again, you can definitely see
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more of the general flare resistance when it comes to veiling. And so contrast is holding up
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better on the IRIX lens here. So here's a look more just at veiling in general. We're going from
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F2.8 to F11. And so here you can see that once again, as we've already been seeing, even when the
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lens is stopped all the way down to F11 you will start to see aperture blade shape but you never really have an issue with a loss of contrast or that veiling And you know overall it not bad but what you will see depending on how you framing
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is this kind of strongly pronounced red circular frame, depending on where the sun is. And as you
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can see, when the lens is stopped down, it actually becomes more definite here. And so
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at the F11 case, it's actually really, really strong. And so it will be important to just kind
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to be careful in the way that you compose. I would say that in most situations you can get by with
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very very little impact from flair but you will note that there is that circular ring and so
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depending on how you are going to compose I would just recommend making sure that this is not in the
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frame unless you want an artificial rainbow there. So we're going to take a quick look here at you
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know how a vignette and distortion impacts the image and so note that this is from a very close
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focused distance. And by the way, it's not even properly focused. This is about vignette and
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distortion. So we're not here to examine sharpness. And so at a very close distance, when distortion
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is going to be most exaggerated, you can see that really a barrel distortion is still fairly
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mild here. There is a mild curvature here at a distance of no more than four feet away. But even
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towards the bottom part of the image it's less obvious there and so really a quite a good
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distortion performance here for a wide angle lens at such an extreme kind of closeness where that
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would be most exaggerated for a lot of situations this is not going to be a problem for you at f2.4
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you can see there is definitely some fairly strong vignette that comes into the frame
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at f2.8 it is lifted considerably at f4 you can see we're getting a much more even brightness
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across the frame f5.6 there is a mild lift there that you can see but now our illumination is
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getting you know quite equal across the frame and moving to f8 it is only at the very extreme edges
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that you saw a very very minor difference and so toggling back to f 5.6 and now back to f8 you can
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see it's a very minor difference between those two now here I wanted to just go back to flare for a
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moment and show you that we do have a nice sunburst effect and so kind of in less extreme conditions
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and using the flare and I often like to do this I like to put the sun somewhere through trees or
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something similar and allow a you know a nice kind of sunburst effect just to add you know one
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more visual piece to an image. So what you can see here is nice color rendition, you know, very nice
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sharpness across this image. And, you know, this is just less for testing. This is more just, you
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know, to shoot. And so when you're actually shooting with the lens, I mean, that's a beautiful result
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Once again, this is a Canon 5D Mark IV, just a really nice end result there. Here's another image
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that I share mostly about color. And so, I mean, this is heading towards twilight, you know, a nice
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kind of color time of day but you can see that the image itself this was a handheld image that
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we have really nice looking color throughout the frame and so Irix has done a good job with this
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we can also see looking up at these wires they're nice and defined not really any kind of longitudinal
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chromatic aberrations that are messing those up and so I look at that and I see a very nice wide
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angle result something that a few years ago very few lenses could accomplish
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Here's another handheld landscape image and so you can see once again very
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beautiful color rendition on display and you know and then also great detail and
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definition both in our foreground rocks and then as we look off towards the far
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shoreline while it's obviously very distant the details have not gone mushy
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there and so you know good it's a good end result now how about coma performance so here we have at
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wide open f 2.4 obviously one thing that i will really praise here is that that i talked about in
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my first episode about that detent for infinity makes it really really simple to go out and shoot
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star based images i mean literally you click to that intent and it is perfectly calibrated for
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shooting stars. The only way that you would vary from that is if you were in really, really extreme
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conditions. And that's why it has a little extra play beyond that if you want to move towards there
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So, I mean, end result is it's easy to get nice crisp star points. And so looking at the image
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globally, it's fine. Everything looks nice and crisp. If we look off to the edges of the frame
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there is some coma that is present there. You can see kind of some wings that are developing
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on some of these star points. These are not in fact winged stars, but that is some coma taking
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place and these are not flying saucers. That is coma that you are seeing there. And so it does
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suffer some from coma but at the same time I wouldn hesitate to use this for shooting the night sky either now of course most lenses are requiring you to start at f2 and so we do see
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an advantage here in that in both cases I did a 15 second exposure but in one I was able to use a
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lower ISO setting and so yes it's it's not a full stop of difference and so this would probably
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benefited from being a little bit higher in ISO, but they're not terribly different. And so what
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you can see there is there is an advantage to having the wider F2.4 maximum aperture to draw
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upon in that there is a slightly cleaner result here than the ISO 3200. Now in terms of the center
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of the frame, a very minor uptick in terms of the sharpness of the star points. What I'm more
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concerned with here is, is there any kind of significant improvement if you stop down to F2.8
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kind of where most of the competitors are playing at? And the answer is no. I mean
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the Koma performance is basically identical. I wanted to share one other Koma kind of result
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test. And this is more about highlighting the F2.4 maximum aperture versus F2.8. So if you use
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identical settings, we've got a 15 second exposure at ISO 3200 here. I would say that I prefer the F2.4
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on a global level. I mean, obviously you're gathering in a fair bit more light. So the star
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points are brighter. There's more kind of definition in the cosmic dust of the Milky Way that you can
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see. If we look at the images kind of at a pixel level, there is a very, very minor uptick in the
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sharpness of the star points, but that's not really going to be seen much unless you're at a
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kind of a global, or I should say a pixel level, because looking at them globally, I don't know
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that one looks any sharper than the other, or if you're looking at them at, you know, blown up even
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more so. And so at the same time, I think that there certainly is an advantage of having a lens
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with a wider maximum aperture. And so if you can tolerate a little bit of a coma in the edges of
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the frame, I would say that all told, you're getting a fairly nice astro lens besides that
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Now I wanted to share one final image. I mean, obviously, bokeh quality is less of a deal with a wide aperture lens
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but this does give you an idea. You can see some of the flare kind of things that we saw there
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but you can also see the bokeh circles here at f2.4. And so looking at some of these here at detail
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you can see there's a little bit of busyness in the bokeh circles
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but at the same time as we go out towards defocus, I would say that I'm not seeing a lot of really hard or ugly edges
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And so this is relatively soft through the zone. And looking at the image globally, I think that looks pretty decent
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I find a lot of positives in the takeaway of the performance from the IREX lens
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particularly when you consider its price point, which is much more reasonable than competing lenses
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and in a lot of ways it's not far behind some of the very best performers that cost significantly
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more than what it does. And certainly if you're going to be shooting at traditional landscape
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apertures you're going to find that it's a very sharp lens. It's going to produce very highly
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detailed images really all the way across the frame. So nothing to complain about there. And
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while it does exhibit a little bit of coma it's actually a fairly nice lens to use for Astro
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because in the dark it's very easy because of that very smart detent at, you know, kind of the hyperfocal infinity
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It really enables you to very quickly and easily make sure that you're focused correctly for the stars
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which I think in a lot of cases is going to end up giving you a better end result for Astro
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than what you might get even with the lens that has a little bit less coma
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The nice thing, too, about such a wide focal length is that while there is some coma there
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it occupies such a small portion of the frame that in many cases it's not going to be visible
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outside of a pixel level of examination. And so I think it's certainly a valid option and the fact
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that it has a wider maximum aperture also helps it in that level as well. So yeah, a lot of positive
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things and if you'll stay tuned in my next episode, I'm going to pull all of this together
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and give you my final verdict on the lens and detail a few more things about the handling and
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the performance, show you a lot more photos as a part of that. So stay tuned for that. In the
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meantime, take a look in the description down below because there you can check out the image
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gallery where I've got lots of photos that I'm continuing to add to as I shoot with the lens
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And so you'll want to see those. And then of course, beyond that, you also can find some buying
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links there if you'd like to purchase one for yourself and all the linkage there to follow me
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on social media, become a patron, become a subscriber to my newsletter. And of course
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you haven't already, please click that subscribe button right here on YouTube
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Have a great day

Irix 15mm Blackstone f/2.4: Image Quality Breakdown | 4K

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Irix 15mm Blackstone f/2.4: Image Quality Breakdown | 4K

Dustin Abbott