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If you have a mirrorless camera with a crop sensor and want an inexpensive, fast lens, the Kamlan 28 f/1.4 could be an option. At present, it is available on a Kickstarter campaign for $149 + $10 delivery, although that deal only runs for another 6 days. DPReview has an extensive range of sample images and the lens appears to be reasonably sharp. Build quality also promises to be solid. For the money, it does not look like a bad deal.

https://www.dpreview.com/samples/786294 ... fic_source

If anyone is interested, no mention is made on the Kickstarter page about customs charges. The manufacturer is based in China and 20% VAT will be due on import. The courier will pay that on your behalf and charge an administration fee of around £10 for the service. Taking credit card currency exchange fees into account, anyone interested should budget around £160 in total. That does not have to be paid in one go. It will be around £120 now and the remainder on delivery.

There is also an option to bundle the 28 mm lens with a 50 f/1.1. As well as VAT, lenses attract import duty at 6.7% and that is levied on purchases in excess of £135. (For some reason which I cannot fathom, camera bodies are exempt from duty.) Import duty is levied first, then 20% VAT is added to the combined amount. (Yes, tax is paid on tax. That is the way the government has decided it works. The same thing happens every time you fill up your car with fuel, buy alcohol or anything else which is dutiable.) Taking the additional import charges into account, it represents an outlay of around £275 for two fast lenses which still looks like good value.

Incidentally, the days when low value goods entering the country could slip through without the customs men paying too much attention have long gone. The only way in which financial liability can be avoided is if the exporter places an artificially low value below the £15 threshold on the consignment and that is an offence. HMRC has no jurisdiction over the exporter but they can come after the importer if they so choose. It is an example of one person doing the crime, another doing the time. And it is legitimate.

Just in case it is not obvious to anyone, I should have mentioned that the Kamlan lenses are manual focus. Anything else at this price point would have been a remarkable achievement. The benefit which mirrorless cameras confer is that features such as focus peaking and magnified view make focussing manually less of an issue.* Clearly, getting a sharp short of a subject which is moving quickly requires practice, but fast lenses are useful for rendering out of focus effects (aka bokeh) and in low light situations. In my experience, it is best to focus wide open to minimise depth of field which can prove to be misleading when trying to determine the exact point where the subject is truly sharp.** Only then should the lens be closed down to the required aperture. It is a slower way of working but it does encourage an approach which takes everything into consideration before pressing the shutter.

Time was when old manual focus lenses could be bought for a song. Nowadays they are getting a second lease of life as people, myself included, mount them on cameras*** with which they were never intended to be used by means of an inexpensive adapter. Their increased popularity has seen prices rise as a result. The Kamlan lenses have an advantage in that they are supplied with a choice of mirrorless lens mount. The disadvantage is that it means they cannot be used on other camera systems, but at their bargain basement price point that is less of a consideration.

* The same applies, to an extent, to live view on DSLRs. However, the Kamlan lenses are only available for certain Sony models. There is a list of compatible cameras in the FAQ section on the Kickstarter page.

** Some people claim that focus peaking on their cameras is inaccurate. I suspect the reason is that they are focussing with the lens stopped down.

*** Unfortunately, the specification of the Nikon DSLR F mount means that it is not possible to focus to infinity when using most adapted lenses. Manual focus Nikon lenses are OK, of course.