I just received the new Rokinon XEEN Cinema Prime Lenses this morning. Very smooth focus and iris gears along with nice build quality. Not as heavy as I thought it would be. The 85mm is just a few ounces heavier than Canon's 85mm F/1.2L II.
Since I also have a Rokinon 85mm Cine, I decided to do a quick test. Nothing technical, just a side by side comparison between the common Rokinon 85mm T1.5 Cine Lens (non DS) vs the new Rokinon XEEN 85mm T1.5 Cine Lens. These tests were performed at ISO 800 on the A7RII in SLOG at 1080p.
Under the same conditions the new XEEN lens has better color, contrast, and sharpness. I even tried stopping down the older Rokinon 85mm Cine as it seemed a bit washed out, but it didn't have much of a difference except to underexpose. I guess this has to be attributed to the new 'Nano Coatings' that are highlighted in the new XEEN specs.
Now the only flaw with this test is that my Rokinon 85mm Cine is not the 'DS version' which is said to have better coatings than the 'Non DS' version of Rokinon Lenses. A true test would be to compare an actual DS version lens to the new XEEN lens. I'm going to try and get my hands on a set of DS version lenses to see how close they are to the XEEN, and if there's any difference between a DS Lens versus a Non DS Rokinon lens.
Rokinon 85mm T1.5 Cine Lens (non DS)
Rokinon XEEN 85mm T1.5 Cine Prime
Rokinon 85mm T1.5 Cine Lens (non DS)
Rokinon XEEN 85mm T1.5 Cine Prime
Rokinon 85mm T1.5 Cine Lens (non DS)
Erik
My Xeens are PL mounts. So I'm using a cieco7 PL mount to E-mount A7s. I also tested them at on an Epic. At T2, T2.8. Close focus seems accurate, but you're right, I may have to shim the e-mount adapter. Going to try a Wooden Camera A7s PL mount adapter one and see if that fixes it...Also someone just told me that on some cinema lenses, even high-end ones, it's very expensive to make a hard stop at exactly infinity focus (and have ie. your horizon in focus) and manufacturers (I assume also Rokinon) will deliberately skimp on this to save money, and plus different cameras need different collimations so it's never going to be accurate anyway...
Emm
Post author@Erik - To have all three so off, my first question is what camera are you mounting this to? And are you using a lens adapter? If you are using a lens adapter, it's possible the flange distance of this adapter may be throwing the focus off. Also these lenses will be soft at wide open, so make sure to stop down a few and look for sharpness.
Erik
I just bought a set of these. But I noticed at infinity focus, although there is a hard stop, my far-away landscape shots aren't really in focus on all three lenses. Do you know how accurate the focus marks are?
Emm
Post author@jimmy - That's a lens gear for a follow focus. They are out of stock now but it's like this: https://jag35.com/onesizezipgear.html
jimmy
Where did you get that red rubber ring around the 85mm?
MarkJ
The Rokinon Cine DS lenses are significantly better than the older non DS versions. I'm confident the Cine DS lenses will hold up just as well.
Kaster
Yes!!! Please do a comparison video with the DS lenses, there's a ton of people including myself that would love to see a proper side by side video.
Emm
Post author@krys - Possible from flaring, but the lights were pointed away from the camera. It may also have a lot to do with the 'coatings' that is promoted to reduce lens flaring.
krys
soooooo much clearerrererer. maybe theres something to do with mild flaring from lights in background? i remember on cinema 5d they had discussion with zeiss, rokinon and someone else and talked about making their lenses to control the amount/type of flaring