Rokinon 85MAF-N 85mm F1.4 Aspherical Lens for Nikon with Automatic Chip (Black)
by Rokinon
$329.00
At Amazon on 3-8-2012.
Aperture Range: F/1.4 - F/21
14 Elements in 7 Groups
Angle of View: 28.3 Degrees
Minimum Focusing Distance: 3.3 ft
Filter Size: 72mm
From the Manufacturer
The Rokinon 85mm F1.4 Aspherical Lens is razor sharp and crystal clear for photo and video. It is widely used as a portrait lens to shoot ultra-bright & vivid portrait pictures. Rokinon’s 85mm lens stacks up extremely well against the Canon EF 85mm f/1.2 and against the Nikon 85mm f/1.4. It is also the least expensive lens of its kind in the market! The lens is manual focus and the aperture needs to be controlled directly from the lens, but at a cost of less than $300, how can you go wrong?
The Rokinon 85mm lens is made with mostly glass and aluminum components and the build quality is superb. Its focusing is silky smooth with an internal focusing (IF) mechanism so that the physical size remains constant during focusing. There are little or no chromatic aberrations and Bokeh is just about perfect. The lens comes complete with a removable lens hood, lens caps, lens pouch, instruction manual and one year warranty. The lens is available in the following mounts: Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Sony & Olympus 4/3. There is also a slightly more expensive version (Model # 85MAF-N) for Nikon that features a built-in focus confirm chip. See the uploaded video that was taken with this lens. Below are detailed specifications and some sample photos taken with this lens.
ROKINON 85mm F/1.4 Aspherical Lens
Aperture Range:
F1.4 ~ 16
Optical Construction:
9 Elements in 7 Groups
Min. Focusing Distance:
3.3ft (1.0m)
Focus Type:
Manual
Filter Size:
72mm
Mounts Available:
Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Sony, Olympus
Angle of View:
28.3 Degrees
Weight:
1.4 lbs (20 oz.)
Sample Photos
Pros:Image quality from wide openBokehHandlingConstruction qualityValueVideo useCons:Image quality doesn't improve a lot stopping down the apertureIncluded 72mm lens cap is junkHood not positive feelingFocusing at 85mm f/1.4 is difficultAbout 1/3rd stop darker than my other 85mm lensesBottom Line:Buy this lens now if you want a superb manual focus long portrait lens of modern design and don't want to empty your pocket book. It performs like a name brand 85mm f/1.4 at a fraction the price. You must be proficient with manual focus to use this lens at f/1.4 (or be willing to learn).Review:The lens produces nice usable portraits from wide open. There is a pleasing softness too it, but the eyes appear nice and sharp and the bokeh transitions are smooth. Specular highlights in the bokeh are smooth and fairly uniform with minimal rings or donuts. The modern aspherical lens design takes care of most spherical aberration. I bought this lens solely for f/1.4-f/5.6 usage. If I want to use the f/4+ range I will use my f/4 zoom, so wide open performance of the 85mm was critical too me, otherwise it added nothing over my slower zoom. I would not be afraid to use this lens at f/1.4 for portraits.Wide open it does show a small amount of purple fringing around very high contrast subjects, but it almost has to be blown out next to a darker object for it to be noticeable. The lens also has your typical green/red chromatic aberrations (CA) visible in the bokeh, which I think is longitudinal CA. This is actually fairly typical of large aperture lenses, even good lenses. It is generally not intrusive. The lens is also a tad darker than my other 85mm lenses, maybe 1/3rd f/stop.Focus is critical at 85mm f/1.4 as the depth of field is shallow, and most dSLR focus screens are designed to focus for f/4. I think the one in my K-7 is a bit better but still doesn't show the true DOF at f/1.4, so it is impossible to focus totally precisely less than f/2 or so, but with practice you can get really close. Also, for slower subjects live view is useful. The focus feel of the lens is excellent with a heavily weighted focus ring that feels high quality.Lens construction is equivalent to any Canon L lens or Pentax DA*. It is a metal body at the base with a quality feeling plastic focus ring/upper body (this feels like the Plastic in DA* or Canon L lenses). The only part that feels cheap is the rear lens cap, the front lens cap, and the hood. At least they only cut costs with the non-critical items.This will make an excellent manual focus video lens too, because of the pleasing bokeh wide open and the shallow depth of field. This is one of the reasons I wanted the good bokeh wide open.Overall, this is a great lens for a superb price. The maker is Samyang, but it is sold under the Vivitar, Opteka, Bower, Rokinon, Polar, and other names. Image quality is supposedly the same between any make, but accessories might differ depending on what the brand wants to include with the lens. The Vivitar Series 1 lens has a slightly different look to it.
