Rokinon is giving its Cine lenses an upgrade with the Cine DS lineup. Starting with a brand new manual focus 50mm T1.5 AS UMC Cine DS Lens, video shooters are now provided with a standard cinema lens option compatible with full-frame cameras. This second generation of cine lenses offers a few notable benefits for video shooters, in addition to the use of de-clicked aperture rings and gears. First, the focus and aperture gears are unified, meaning that swapping out lenses will not require adjustments to your rig. Second, for convenience to the user there are dual focusing scales, one on each side. Third, all of the Cine DS lenses are tested to be color matched, ensuring that your footage will feature the same color and contrast throughout your production.
Having had the opportunity to take an EF-mount version out for some test shooting, the first thing I noticed was its solid construction. Not that I would recommend dropping it, but it feels dense and it has a metal lens mount. Also, it is quite fast at T1.5 maximum aperture. The T-stop provides an accurate measurement of light transmission, as opposed to an f-stop's mathematical ratio, which may not be exactly telling of the lens's true brightness.
When used on a C100 Cinema EOS Camera, the lens proved to be quite sharp, showing only slight softening at T1.5 with the cropped Super35 sensor size. It does increase in sharpness when stopped down and, during my time with the lens, I noticed it was best between T4 and T8. The click-less aperture was also very smooth and when compared to Canon's standard EF 50mm f/1.4 USM lens, it was a welcomed improvement (the Canon doesn't even have an aperture ring on the lens). The lens also has 77mm threads to attach filters, such as a Vari-ND filter, as well as a bayonet-style hood.
I set the lens up on a rig with a follow focus and it worked just as one would hope. There was slight breathing, but nothing dramatic or immediately noticeable. The lens is designed with bright distance and aperture markings printed sideways on the barrel so that the 1st AC or focus puller can easily see what they are doing.
The lens performed admirably for shooting stills, as well. It is bright when wide open and provided sharp, color-accurate images with the 20-megapixel Canon 6D on which it was placed. The full-frame camera showed very slight vignetting and some distortion, but nothing extreme. This is benefitted by the use of aspherical and hybrid aspherical glass elements in a 9-element / 6-group design. It does not, however, have any electronic communication, meaning that there is no focus confirm or transfer of metadata to the camera.
The smooth focusing is nice for stills as well as video, and there are white and orange distance markings for pre-focusing. The click-less aperture may take some getting used to if you are accustomed to click-stops for denoting aperture settings, but this is easily realized. The diaphragm features 8 blades, which enable pleasing out-of-focus areas.
In general, the lens performed well on the C100 and 6D and provided sharp imagery in a variety of shooting situations. Filmmakers and videographers, whether working with Cine cameras or DSLRs should definitely consider it, especially if you already shoot with Rokinon’s other Cine lenses.
The 50mm T1.5 Cine Lens is available in the following lens mounts: Canon EF, Nikon F, Sony A, Sony E, and Micro Four Thirds. The 85mm, 35mm, 24mm, and 14mm lenses will also receive the Cine DS treatment and each will be available in Canon EF, Nikon F, Sony A, Sony E, and Micro Four Thirds options.
Still Image Samples
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| Lens Mount | Canon EF, Nikon F, Sony A, Sony E, Micro Four Thirds |
| Focal Length (35mm Equivalent) | Full Frame: 50mm APS-C: 75mm APS-C, Canon: 80mm Four Thirds/Micro Four Thirds: 100mm |
| Maximum Aperture | T1.5 |
| Minimum Aperture | T22 |
| Angle of View | Full Frame: 46.2° APS-C: 30.8° APS-C, Canon: 29.0° Four Thirds/Micro Four Thirds: 23.6° |
| Minimum Focusing Distance | 1.5' / 0.45 m |
| Autofocus Motor | N/A |
| Image Stabilization | N/A |
| Weather Resistance | N/A |
| Lens Construction | 9 elements / 6 groups (1 aspherical & 1 hybrid aspherical) |
| Diaphragm Blades | 8 |
| Filter Ring Diameter | 77mm |
| Dimensions (D x L) | 3.2 x 2.8-4.0" (81.6 x 72.2-101.0mm) depending on mount |
| Weight | 1.2-1.4 lb (545-640 g) depending on mount |
10 Comments
I am trying to decide between a set of Rokinon DS Cine lenses and the Zeiss ZE SLR set on the site.
I like that the Zeiss lenses comunicate electronically with the camera and therefore capture metadata. (The Rokinon does NOT capture metadata, correct?)
I am worried however that the Zeiss lenses do not have clickless aperture (correct?)
Thank you for the help!
Michael
The Zeiss ZE lenses do not have a clickless aperture, no. They also don’t have an external aperture ring, so you would be controlling the lens’s aperture through your Canon camera. And with the Rokinon, information about the lens will not be written into the metadata. *Christina*
This lens seems to be much sharper than the Rokinon 24mm 1.5T which is really soft and halo like @ 1.5. There is some color fringing going tho. I was so disappointed with the 24mm 1.5 that I havent bought a rokinon lens yet. Hopefully this is a better quality lens.
I'm using a Nikon D5300 for video shooting and I currently have a 35mm 1.8G Nikkor lens that I use for close up shots, and I wanted to get the Rokinon 14mm T3.1 cine lens to use for wide shots and Glidecam shots, but I'm a little stuck. I noticed that there is a DS version of the lens coming out soon. Other than the focus and aperture gears being unified, dual focusing scales, and the color being matched between the different cine DS lenses, is there any other way that the DS version is better than the standard cine version (sharpness wise, durability wise, etc.), or should I go for the original 14mm cine lens and save $100?
For the short term, go with the cheaper one. For the long term, the DS line is the way to go. You will thank us later.
Thanks for this article.
2 things on the video:
1.) it doesn't seem as though the video was color graded, or at least very well. It looks flat to me.
2.) I believe that the C100 should have the ISO set at a minimum of 850 or so. This puts the sensor in the optimum range for light gathering.
3.) the stills are awesome.
I have the 35mm and the 85mm -- simply great lens for the money.
I recently read that 850 is only the native iso when using the cine-log color profile. When using Wide DR, 320 is a better iso setting. I'm not 100% on this, and can't remember where I saw this new info but, It's worth checking out.
Let me know when in stock
If you haven't already, you could choose the Notify When in Stock option on the lens’s page on our website. We would then send you an email when it came into stock. You can find the len’s page on our site if you click here.
Do the demo videos have a setting to tell at what bit rate I'm viewing it? The videos are slow loading, for me, I would guess 480? Hard to tell the quality of the lens, if it's not in HD.