Irix presents new Ambassador - Bleron Çaka (Kosovo)
I’m Bleron Çaka, and I’m a professional landscape photographer from Kosovo.
I started taking pictures in 2007 when I was only 15 years old. At first, I captured everything: flowers, portraits, abstracts, until I found my real passion for landscape photography.
Since Kosovo has a lot of breathtakingly beautiful mountain peaks, lakes, and waterfalls, I’ve started exploring these sites so I can further improve myself at landscape photography.
To capture such beautiful places, I also started taking on a lot of hiking trips which allowed me to better explore the world we live in.
It was only when I started exploring other countries abroad and spending time camping outside that I found my other drive in life – which is astrophotography, with a special focus on photographing the Milky Way and using time-lapse. While I was continually improving what I do, I was always seeking new opportunities. I wanted to have the best gear possible to make sure I achieved my photographic goals. This is the reason why I now proudly represent Irix.
For a long time now I’ve been studying photographs taken with the Irix 15mm f/2.4 Blackstone wide angle lens. Produced by this new Swiss-Korean company, I was very interested to learn about the quality this lens offers, especially when discovering that lots of talented landscape and nightscape photographers had started using it.
When reading the feedback from these photographers, I could see that this lens offers great image quality. Since I’m specifically focused on landscape and Milky Way photography, I understood that this Irix lens would offer me these possibilities and so help me improve my work. Considering the fact that it has an open diaphragm up to f/2.4, I saw that I could use the lens to take photographs of a high quality starry night as well.
Today I’m very pleased to have become an Ambassador of Irix and to have the opportunity of cooperating with this brand, and in turn presenting my photographs taken with Irix products.
When I first got the lens in my hands I was very surprised, and couldn’t wait to get outside and into the natural world and start making use of it as soon as possible.
The metal lens body gives me a very good feeling of stability when keeping it attached to the camera. I’ve only taken a few photos with this lens, but the results are amazing.
I then wanted to test it out in some challenging conditions to see how much light this lens can handle. While using it to take photos in direct sunlight at midday, I saw that it created perfect sun-stars with the nine rounded blades that it has. The quality of the optics, consisting of 15 elements in 11 groups, enables the photographer to take photographs with sharpness on all sides.
One of the great advantages of this lens is the focus. If you focus on an object, you can lock the focus range wherever you want. The lens focus feature is very smooth. In my opinion, this feature has been very necessary and I’m surprised that it hadn’t been thought before by anyone else. But Irix has made it possible. The other advantage that this wide lens possesses is a 95mm diameter filter thread, which most other lenses don’t have.
It is also worth mentioning that Irix has also taken care of the rest of those photographers who want their lens to be a lighter weight. With the Irix 15mm f2.4 Firefly, the exterior is mainly made of plastic, while the optics and all the other elements are the same as the Blackstone type.
Now I look forward to going out on new adventures and taking new photographs with my Irix lens, a lens which will be an inseparable part of my photographic gear and equipment from now on.
I would like to recommend this lens to all passionate landscape and astrophotography photographers. It’s a must! And it has a very good and affordable price for the quality it offers.
Now I can’t wait to set out on my new trips and take my next set of photographs with this amazing lens and so offer more feedback on how to use it best.
It is a pleasure to cooperate with Irix!
