Samyang XEEN - new line of cinema lenses announced

Ebrahim Saadawi said:
Remember these are not SLR magic M43s cine lenses, not Veydra m43s lenses, not Samyang rehoused cine lenses, these are full-fledged PL cinema lenses from the world of Arri/Panavision/Zeiss/CN-E, a PL FF full body cinema lens..
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No, these are the exact same optical design as the older Rokinon and Rokinon Cine DS lenses with a new 14 layer lens coating, in brand new housings with an 11 blade iris, and between 180 & 200 degrees of focus rotation depending on the lens.
 
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David W. Jones said:
No, these are the exact same optical design as the older Rokinon and Rokinon Cine DS lenses with a new 14 layer lens coating, in brand new housings with an 11 blade iris, and between 180 & 200 degrees of focus rotation depending on the lens.
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Forgive my ignorance on optical engineering, but is it possible to remedy breathing by rehousing the elements? Or does the actual optical formula need to change to fix that?
 
Just out of curiosity - how different is the glass itself on Rokinon compared, let's say, to a Zeiss Otus in terms of purity, resolving power, chromatic aberration and so on regardless of the lens design?

PS. Is that a stupid question?
 
David W. Jones said:
No, these are the exact same optical design as the older Rokinon and Rokinon Cine DS lenses with a new 14 layer lens coating, in brand new housings with an 11 blade iris, and between 180 & 200 degrees of focus rotation depending on the lens.
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No that's not what they claim. Do you have inner insight? tried them or a friend tried them? genuinely interested.

They claim they're not rehoused, but are high quality cine lenses with minimal breathing, colour consistent through the whole range, different bokeh, standard size and placement cine focus rings and iris rings, cine body structure, same length/diameter. Seem pretty worthy of ''proper-cinema'' category.

What is cinema lens category really? I believe a lens that has the optical and mechanical characteristics of standard cinema lenses. This excludes stills glass and superficially rehoused stills glass for better mechanics.

Aside from good image quality- which most stills lenses have -high resolution, good contrast, good flaring etc a proper cinema lens has:

-The optical characters exclusive to cinema lenses vs. stills lenses, which are no lens breathing whilst focusing, percise colour and optical matching among different models in sets, consistent contrast, consistent maximum T stops (to a degree, excluding widest end) and consistent flaring coating and bokeh look overall with round iris blades)

-The mechanical elements of cinema lenses: rated in accurate T-stops, have focus distance marks, smooth geared focus ring with 270-360° throw, smooth clickless iris ring, have identical rings positions, have identical bodies (length and diameter), and solid build quality that can stand high demanding environements.

For example a Canon CN-E set had everyone of those checked therefore a proper cinema lens set, no matter what the optical design is firstly based on a still or a TV or a microscope lens, as long as it's modified to meet cinema characteristics.

Samyang Xeens seem to be the same, like CN-Es and CP.2s.

Stills glass with lots of breathing, completely unaccurate T rating, no iris rings, variation among samples, being sent to get a new smooth focus ring however is not a proper cinema lens and cannot be used to replace them. They're just stills glass with a smooth geared focus ring.

If anyone knows any news about these Samyangs please share. Many of us have been very interested in obtaining a proper cine glass set below the CP.2/CN-E range and aside from that lonely SLR Magic 50mm T/2.1 we have no other options than these new Xeens.

Cool name too, has a good impact marketing-wise.
 
Ebrahim Saadawi said:
Do you have inner insight? tried them or a friend tried them?
If anyone knows any news about these Samyangs please share.
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Umm, yes I do have insight.

I'm not sure where you got your information, but mine is correct!

These are the same optical design as their still lenses, which was then used again for their Cine DS lenses, and again in these new Xeen cine prime lenses.

New housings with 11 blade iris and a new 14 layer lens coating. Optics are the same old still lens design.
 
David, i can pick up canon cn-e lens used in excellent condition around $2500-2900. That would put the price range the same or just a tad higher. Which one would you buy? the used canon cn-2 or the new Xeen?
 
Bubble said:
David, i can pick up canon cn-e lens used in excellent condition around $2500-2900. That would put the price range the same or just a tad higher. Which one would you buy? the used canon cn-2 or the new Xeen?
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The Canon CN-E's are known and proven. They may not be Master Primes, but they are good. I have a five lens set of the Canon Cine Primes and I really like them. Skin tones, contrast, color, bokeh, fast (except the 14mm), build quality… The only thing they don't have going for them is that they aren't PL or (easily)swappable to PL.

Everytime someone writes about Samyang or Rokinon lenses they say they are good… FOR THE MONEY. They ALWAYS say FOR THE MONEY. That tells you everything you need to know. You wouldn't pay $10 for a McDonald's hamburger, but .99… A lot of people would and like it. I probably wouldn't eat it if you gave it to me, BUT I'd pay $12 for the burger I get at the local burger bar and never regret it and be completely satisfied when I left.
 
Run&Gun said:
... Everytime someone writes about Samyang or Rokinon lenses they say they are good… FOR THE MONEY. They ALWAYS say FOR THE MONEY. That tells you everything you need to know.
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Well, Duclos says the XEEN is a good buy for the money ... and, at $2,500/, they better be better than the $400-$600 Rokinon primes. Which, allegedly, they are.

Now, where's the test video?
 
I liken these to the Zeiss CP.2 lenses. Same concept. Take your decent quality still lens optics, add better lens coatings, and put them into cine housings. These are no different in concept. Entry level cine lenses, and or a base set of inexpensive PL mount lenses for the owner operator. I'm not trying to knock these lenses, just stating the facts. Both the new lens coatings and the new cine housings will help correct a few shortcomings with the DS cine lenses. For what it's worth, a real cine lens takes on average 2 years to complete from concept design to market release.
 
David W. Jones said:
Umm, yes I do have insight.

I'm not sure where you got your information, but mine is correct!

These are the same optical design as their still lenses, which was then used again for their Cine DS lens.
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From someone testing them and under NDA, he says it's different optics and the quality results are completely different (Frank owns a set of Cine DS and compared the Xeens to them).

I would expect it's based on the same optical design, but modified (by any means, changing glass alignment tolerances, glass type tolerance, changing coatings, flange distance, mechanically altering, iris blades) to eliminate the stills lenses downsides for cinema use (breathing, PL flange distance, colour matching, contrast matching, flaring is consistent, and the 24mm seems to be sharper too)

Anyway whatever how they do it, what matters in the end is the results, if they're based on high quality stills lenses design and modified to eliminate the cine downsides optically and mechanically then it's a proper cinema lens. A lens with the optical and mechanical characteristics of a cinema lens is a proper cinema lens. And what matters is how they'll perform vs other cine lenses.

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?134751-New-line-of-pro-cine-lenses-by-Samyang

It'd be very premature to dismiss them as just Cine DS lenses with 5x price before comprehensively testing them optically and mechanically against other Cine glass.
 
Ebrahim Saadawi said:
From someone testing them and under NDA, he says it's different optics and the quality results are completely different (Frank owns a set of Cine DS and compared the Xeens to them)..
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And here is what Frank said after being questioned about them, after others who's NDA has ended claimed the glass was the same.....

When I said, "not just rehoused" I was referring to the great new coating and totally redone mechanical design, new iris with more blades, (and some other stuff) that makes a world of difference.
 
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Well it was pretty misleading of him to say completely new optical design then. I think that's a slight problem that comes when companies give people early access prototypes before release, one feels obligated to say nice things. I am personally having this problem right now testing a new SLR Magic Prototype cine product and one feels a bit hostile if he says negative comments (That's not to say they have certainly not even implied restricting what I want to say) but you, yourself out of courtsey end up just giving marketing talk. The other even worse situation is when a company signs you up and only allows you to talk nice, which might of might not be the problem here with Frank on the Xeens. Anyway, I will reserve judgment of these being real cine lenses until they're tested against the older Cine DSs and other real cine glass. The SLR Magic 50mm T2.1 Cine PL when tested against CP.2s and CN-E and Zeiss Master prime held up extremely well as a proper real PL cinema lens with all the characteristics that make up one, and it's 2000-2500$, Xeen range, so I can hope the Xeens are on par and work similarly to CP-2s and CN-Es.
 
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