An ironic statement I guess, but for me, yes the IRIX is a fun lens and I have only used it for stills so far!
In close at T5.6, you choose what you want and let the lens smear out the rest.
Just going with my body sway, I got front and back in consecutive shots, both showing nice Bokeh.
The trick with outdoor hand held, long lens, full frame macro is…….. don’t do it unless you have to. Depth of field of 1mm or less, several sources of movement, manual focus (AF just adds another variable), camera movements etc all conspire, so do it with realistic expectations.
Having said that, this was my first attempt at this with the lens at T3!
So I guess this is the bit where I confess, I did not hit the mark again on the next 10 or so images, even at T8.
Below are a series of shots, a mix of T3 and T8 images showing just how twitchy and powerful this lens can be (number 5 is actually a miss).
Longer distances are something I am curious about. Macro corrected lenses in the modern era are perfectly good normal range lenses, but the reality is, even IRIX has made a second lens in this focal range for normal use. The weather here has not been conducive to proper tests, but the images have been consistent and solid.
T5.6
T3 (a little under because I forgot to change the ISO from 4000 at T3)
As a portrait lens it will be stellar. Below is an unprocessed image, slightly processed and cropped.
More to come, but my 12mm just arrived!