ZY Optics Pittura 30mm F/2.4 Medium-Format Lens Review

The mechanical simplicity of the ZY Optics Pittura 30mm F/2.4 puts the quality of this lens front-end-center. Even though it is designed with the latest modern optical elements, its exterior brings back the tactile experience that was common long before the digital era. This review covers the build, ergonomics and quality of the lens. The analysis is based on the version with a Fujifilm GFX mount. Expect everything to be equally applicable with the Hasselblad mount version.

Construction & Ergonomics

The first thing to notice when holding the ZY Optics Pittura 30mm F/2.4 is how dense it feels. This lens contains 13 optical elements in an exceptionally compact form. As can be seen in the above image, most of the barrel of this lens is actually narrower than the lens mount! This 30mm F/2.4 lens is one of the few that is widest at the mount-side.

This lens has virtually the same diameter is the Fujifilm GFX mount, about 81mm wide. At 84mm long, it is only slightly longer than wide. The lens weighs 550g. Compared to thethe Fujifilm Fujinon GF30mm F/3.5R WR
Fujifilm Fujinon GF30mm F/3.5R WR, it is marginally heavier, even though it is nearly a full-stop brighter. At the front of the barrel, which measures 62mm across, there is a bayonet mount for a detachable lens hood and a thread that accepts standard 58mm filters.

As a fully mechanical lens, this one has exactly two controls: A slim aperture-ring at the front and a wide focus-ring in the middle. The rings rotate extremely smoothly with hard stops at both ends. They each have fine ridges to improve grip. The remainder of the lens is covered in an very smooth matte black finish.

It is unusual to have the aperture-ring at the front. However, since the aperture-ring is always slimmer than the focus-ring, its position there is advantageous as it is much easier to rotate such ring when it is further way from the camera body. The ring is marked in full-stops from F/2.8 to F/22. There is also one factional stop marking for F/2.4. Each mark has a matching detent. The detents are noticeably yet on the soft side. Given a short 45° throw and no intermediate detents, there is also no way of precisely selecting fractional aperture stops.

The mechanical focus-ring turns extremely smoothly with a nice consistent resistance that minimizes chances of shifting focus inadvertently. This is is 25mm wide with most of its width covered in ridges and a smooth portion with focus markings from 20cm to infinity. There is a 90° throw which makes focusing reasonably precise. Focusing at infinity is easy since there is a hard-stop precisely at that focus-distance. Markings on the barrel line up with focus distances to show the approximate depth-of-field.

The Pittura 30mm F/2.4 is very well built with tight tolerances. Medium-Format lenses are expected to be solid in general since they are generally high-end products. One important point about the build is that ZY Optics did not equip this lens with a weatherproof construction. Hasselblad does not either yet every single Medium-Format lens from Fujifilm is fully weatherproof. Since a system is only weatherproof if both parts are, this lens should not be used in the rain or under heavy snowfall.

Optics

The 13 optical elements inside this prime lens apply highly effective correction against optical distortion and aberrations. From wide open down to its minimum aperture, the ZY Optics Pittura 30mm F/2.4 does not exhibit any noticeable amount of geometric distortion. A detailed shows there below 0.1% of complex distortion near edges.

Vignetting is harder to notice on this lens because it very gradual from the center outwards. There is in fact a 2/3-stop brightness difference between the center and extreme corners of images. On most other lenses this would be easily noticeable. It is also unusual that vignetting barely changes with aperture. There is less than ¼-stop variation in vignetting between F/2.4 and F/22. This consistency is helpful when processing images since the same preset correction can be applied to all images from the Pittura 30mm F/2.4. Because it does not report its aperture to the camera, it would be impossible to create a single correction preset for all images taken using this lens.

The resistance to flare of this lens is very impressive. Even with a light source right outside of the edge of the framing, it cause a small blooming area and does not affect contrast much outside of it. There is no sign of chromatic aberrations anywhere either. The overall image contrast is reasonably good. This gives images a slightly dreamy look, specially at bright apertures.

This ultra-wide lens captures roughly an 85° field-of-view. While changing the set aperture does shift focus, it has some minimal effect on the field of view. This could be a problem during video capture that requires post-processing to remove what is known as Focus Breathing. With its expansive field-of-view and 20cm minimum focus distance, the magnification of this lens is not going to be high. An exact specification was not provided by ZY Optics. Neocamera estimates this magnification to be 0.23X, which is higher than typical ultra-wide lenses.

Sharpness

With recent Medium-Format Mirrorless Digital Cameras now capturing over 100 megapixels and having an extra large sensor are extremely demanding of lenses. Designing ultra-wide lenses poses an even harder challenge. For this review, the sharpness of the Pittura 30mm F/2.4 is measured from images captured using a Fujifilm GFX100S II. Hasselblad also has current models with over 100 megapixels.

Lenses are optimally sharp in their center and stopped down from their maximum aperture. For the ZY Optics Pittura 30mm F/2.4, this happens just over one stop down, which is typical. At F/2.4, the center of images is very slightly soft, with some improvement by F/2.8. One stop further down to F/4, it looks quite sharp. By F/5.6, it is tack sharp, resolving the finer details than the human eye can.

Corners are visibly softer, which again is common for most lenses. It is easy to notice that F/2.4 to F/4 show a fair amount of softness. F/5.6 is a lot better. The maximum corner sharpness is reached at F/8. Beyond that, the diffraction limit prevents any extra details from being captured. For an uncropped image, it is possible to make a post-size print taken at F/8. Large prints are also easily possible at F/5.6. Photos taken at wider apertures require a compromise between cropping and limiting print size.

Select an aperture above to see 100% unmodified crops taken from the center and all four corners of an images captured using the ZY Optics Pittura 30mm F/2.4 lens mounted on a Fujifilm GFX100S II
Fujifilm GFX100S II. This a 102 megapixels Medium-Format Digital Camera and so the optical testing chart is captured with extreme details.

One very important consideration is that critical sharpness requires critical focus. The a Manual-Focus Only lens such as this one, this depends significantly on the camera it is attached to. The newest Fujifilm Medium-Format cameras have excellent viewfinders that have an electronic magnification mode to assist with manual-focus. This works up to moderately dark scenes but no further. An inconvenience, specifically of the GFX100S II, is that it disabled focus peaking when a third-party lens is attached.