Ms-optics HIPOLION 19mm

Hypergon Homage lens

A review and Photo example of the HIPOLION 19mm / F8 (F4 – F8 is soft focus).

This page contains advertisements. Clicking on the advertisements may earn the page administrator a reward. Details of the advertisements are listed at the links below.

Gallery

Sample photos taken with the LEICA M-P Typ240.

1.Overview

The HIPOLION 19mm is one of the Miyazaki History series, and with a lens barrel thickness of 2.6mm, it is the thinnest lens among Ms-optics lenses.

The name of this lens, “HIPOLION”, is a homage to Goertz’s Hypergon, a famous symmetrical lens made up of two pieces of glass, and this lens is constructed in a similar way.

The minimum shooting distance is 0.5m, and the aperture is unique; in order to obtain a sharp image for normal use, it is necessary to stop down to F8 or later, and this position is the aperture start position for the HIPOLION. However, the aperture can be opened up to F4, which produces a unique depiction.

The filter diameter can be screwed in on the entire surface with a standard 34mm filter. However, you will not be able to change the aperture because the aperture ring cannot be moved.

2.Usage

The lens is 2.6mm thick, which is thinner than the body cap, so you can barely feel the thickness of the lens when it’s attached to the camera. The focal length is 19mm, so it’s unlikely, but be careful because your hand may be reflected in the image depending on how you hold the body.

Because of its thinness, basic operations such as changing the aperture and adjusting the focus, which are necessary when using the lens, are a little difficult to perform. There is no vignetting when a filter is attached, but as mentioned above, the aperture cannot be changed.

Setting the aperture to F8 allows you to use it with almost pan focus, so it’s sufficient for casual snapshots.

The LEICA M Typ240, which is a veteran among 35mm full-frame sensors, has noticeable color casts and image distortion on the periphery of the captured image. It is better to use a camera with a sensor that does not notice color casts, or to use a small sensor of Micro Four Thirds or APS-C size that crops the periphery.

As mentioned in the overview, the aperture can be opened up to a maximum of F4, and below are example images taken at F4, F5.6, and F8. Even the softest image at F4 is still rendered to a certain extent in the center, so it can be used as an accent when shooting, but the images produced by F4 tend to look similar, so the photographer can become bored of them.

Even if the design is a bit unreasonable in this way, it is good that users can freely choose how to use the lens.
This lens shows part of the policy of designer Miyazaki, who prefers to produce a variety of expressions with a single lens.

3.Differences

The Contax G Hologon 16mm is a lens with a fixed aperture of F8, but when you look through the lens you can see a disk-shaped aperture, so it seems that you could make it brighter by opening the aperture, but the image quality would probably suffer.

The S-Nikkor 25mm, said to be a copy of Nikon’s Topogon, has an aperture of F4 at full aperture, and the reason it provides practical image quality even at full aperture is probably because the focal length and lens structure are different from the Hypolyon.

The Russian Orion 15, a symmetrical lens like the HIPOLION, has a focal length of 28mm and F6, but when you look through the lens it is at its maximum aperture, and just like the Hologon, it seems that the designers have limited it to a point where the image quality does not suffer.

The image is taken from The Thousand and One Nights of Nikkor, “The 29th Night: W-Nikkor-C 2.5cm F4”

Specification and Competitor

Item	HIPOLION	HOLOGON (CONTAX-G)	Nikkor 2.5cm F4
focal length(mm)	19	16	25
Maximum aperture	4	8	84
Minimum aperture	16	16	22
Lens configuration	2groups in 2elements	5elements in 3groups	4groups in 4elements
Leaf blade	10	–	8
Minimum distance(m)	0.5	0.3	1
Lens length(mm)	2.6	11	–
Lens max diameter(mm)	50	57	–
Filter diameter(mm)	–	–	–
Weight(g)	70	120/124(M)	–
Release date	2020.12	1994	1953
Official price	60,000 Yen		–