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)
