HandeVision Ibelux 40mm f/0.85

Is the world’s fastest prime lens all it’s made out to be? Michael Topham reveals if this specialist optic is worth looking at by those who shoot mirrorless

- Michael Topham

There are lenses with fast apertures and there are lenses with incredibly fast apertures. The HandeVision Ibelux 40mm f/0.85 falls into the latter category and holds the title of being the world’s fastest lens in production. Faster than Leica’s 50mm Noctilux-M ASPH f/0.95 and the series of f/0.95 optics Voigtländer produces for Micro Four Thirds, this Ibelux 40mm f/0.85 is an ultra-bright manual focus lens that’s available in four lens mounts. Catering for Micro Four Thirds, Sony E-mount, Fujifilm X mount and Canon EOS M mount, it provides a 35mm-equivalent focal length of 80mm when it’s attached to Micro Four Thirds cameras and is equivalent to a 60mm lens when it’s paired up with APS-C cameras (it doesn’t cover full frame). Being half a stop faster than an f/1 lens and one third of a stop faster than lenses with an f/0.95 maximum aperture, it’ll appeal to those who’d like the option of shooting as fast as possible in low light, as well as photographers who’d like to explore its incredibly shallow depth-of-field capabilities.

Features

Take a glance at the underside of the barrel and you’ll come across engraved lettering that tells us more about the design of the lens and where it’s made. Jointly developed by camera adapter specialist Kipon and IB/E optics GmbH in Germany, it’s manufactured in China by Shanghai Transvision. By merging German engineering standards with Chinese cost effective production, the companies decided to create a new brand name for the partnership, which is HandeVision. The first three letters ‘Han’ stand for China in Mandarin, while the following two letters ‘De’ represent the first two letters of the German name for Germany – Deutschland.