Categories: Learn

This cheap lens will make you a better photographer

Credit: Brightin Star

All photographers get stuck in creative ruts.

Sometimes, all it takes is to try something new, and once again you’ll be feeling that creative energy. That’s why we made an article for New Year’s resolutions for photographers, but in the video below, Youtuber Mark Wiemels suggests something else: a very unique, super-cheap lens – the Brightin Star 10mm F5.6 APS-C manual focus lens.

The Brightin Star lens is a tiny, $60 fixed aperture 10mm fish eye lens, but as Mark explains (along with many positive reviews online), this little piece of gear can produce some great images. It may sound like a lens you would never have thought to use, but that’s exactly the point. Trying something completely new forces you to really be mindful of your surroundings and the composition of your images, particularly because of the super-wide fish eye distortion. And don’t forget, this lens is extremely affordable.

Chinese lens manufacturer Brightin Star, well-known for making affordable ‘manual-everything’ lenses, has also recently released their first ever lens with autofocus – if you’re interested in exploring this budget-friendly manufacturer some more.

To check out a full in-depth, hands-on review with sample images, watch Mark’s video above.

Do you have any Brightin Star lenses? If so, what do you think of them? If not, are you now considering one?

Sam King

Lens Front Founder - Sam is a freelance web developer and amateur photographer. Currently splitting his time between the UK and France, for the last 2 years Sam has been travelling full time, visiting countries such as Bosnia, Serbia and Australia, and even spent a month in Wadi Rum, Jordan, where he lived and worked with Bedouin tribesmen in the desert.