Narragansett in 60 w/ Rokinon 35mm prime

ericksonpost

ericksonpost

Active member
I took a chance and bought a Rokinon 35mm prime with out really seeing any footage shot with it. I've seen stills shot with it and Philip Bloom wrote a quick positive review of it, but that's about all I knew about it. This is what I shot with it:


The whole film was shot with only the Rokinon. I was pretty impressed with the DoF I could get with it even stopped down to around f4. The quality of the optics seems pretty good as well. It was actually pretty tough to get the lens to flare. You can see a flare in the last shot of the film. What I don't like about the lens in build quality. There's a mysterious light clunk if I rotate the lens end over end off the camera. It doesn't seem to effect picture quality of focus but it seems like quality control is probably an issue. Which I'm not really surprised about considering the price point. All in all I'm pretty happy with it and I think it will be a go-to lens for me shooting interviews.

*I definitely paid for the lens and did not receive anything to write this. Feel free to ask questions since I haven't really found a lot of info on here about the af100 and this lens.
 
one of the first lenses i bought for my old letus setup was a Rokinon 85mm f1.4. it was often my go to lens for interviews. i did have to have it repaired once because the aperature jammed on me, but it's been a pretty consistent lens with quality imagery for what i've used it on.

i originally bought it because it was such a fast lens and the price point was excellent. i still have the lens and though i've yet to pull it out for my af100 rig, if needed i would.

i'm actually wondering what the 8mm lens from rokinon would look like. haha

cheers
 
Build quality does seem to be the main difference between this brand and something like a Zeiss. For me though, I'm pretty happy with the image quality. It's good to know that the 85mm is also pretty good. Do you have any clips shot with it? I'd just be curious to see it.

I've also heard good things about the 8mm. But again, I've never seen anything shot with it on an af100 haha.
 
I have the Bower branded version of the 85mm Rokinon. I love it with my AF100, and it really has become my portrait/headshot lens of choice for my AF100. If I did not have the 35mm f1.4 nikkor already, I would have been all over this lens just based on the 85mm's performance. Seeing this sealed it for me. Do you know how it matches up to any of your nikkors if you have any?
 
for what it's worth...i've seen no visible issues, when i've switched between the rokinon 85mm and my nikon 50mm or 35mm on projects of mine.
 
Oliver - I don't have any nikkors :( I am looking at some of nikon zooms to use on a day to day basis though. Right now I've got a Olympus 14-54 as my "day to day" lens and I'm not really that impressed with it. I don't really like the fact it's not a constant aperture and the focus is electronic.

An update on the Rokinon - I'm going to exchange it as soon as I have some downtime. The light clunk does actually change the focus. I shot with it the first time off a tripod yesterday and when I hear the clunk the focus shifts slightly. Hopefully I just have a bad lens and it's not a common problem. It does seem as though my initial thoughts were correct about the lack of quality control. I'll update everyone when I exchange the lens.
 
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