Samyang seem to be on a mission, just as I buy their 35mm T1.5 cine lens they announce a further range of newly designed cine lenses…XEEN lenses. I have to disagree with Samyang on this one, why produce a further set of lenses in a “new” housing and not make them optically better than the previous set ! Also, the last range of cine lenses have not even reached the market and are still on back order !!!
I have to commend Samyang on their 35mm T1.5 lens for being sharp and if truth be told I used it on a recent film “The Spirit of Edradour” in favour of 4K Canon glass to save the extra weight when filming hand held.
Having the lighter 35mm Sanyang lens for this shoot was a joy and the pictures were very good.
A frame from the original footage using the Samyang 35mm cine lens. ©RMN Productions.
To start with Samyang are bringing out 3 updated cine lenses, a 24mm, 50mm and 85mm for about £1600 each.
All 3 lenses will have the following specs…
- Covers Full-Frame 35mm/Vista Vision
- Available in PL, Canon EF, Nikon F, Sony E, and Micro 4/3 Mounts
- Metal Construction & Fully Manual, No Electronics
- Internal Focus Design
- Multi-Coating for Color Consistency
- Dual Side Focus and T-Stop Scales
- 11 Blade Iris
- Cinema Gearing for Focus and Iris
- 200° Focus Rotation
- Min. Focus Distance: 24mm — 10″, 50mm — 18″, 85mm — 3′ 9″
- 114mm Front Diameter
- 1/4″-20 for Lens Support
- Weight: 24mm — 2.6 lbs., 50mm — 2.56 lbs., 85mm — 2.7 lbs.
- 3 Year Limited Warranty
- Availability: August 2015
Here is a video produced with the new lenses…
First Look: Xeen Cinema Primes from Cam Noir on Vimeo.
Tend to agree also. Seems not so much a new range but a rehousing situation. All well and good but missing a trick by not improving the optics as there’s not as much of an incentive to upgrade for existing cine lens users (unless you have the cash and really need the larger cine housing benefits of course.)
Taking in consideration:
1. My impressions about previous Samyang glass (sharpness and robustness, mainly).
2. The results in this sample footage presented here.
My conclusion is that I still prefer buying Contax Zeiss glass and cine-mod/rehouse those lenses. The cost ends up more or less the same and the result is much better IMHO.
contax zeiss made by whome?
Hey asok, Duclos do cine-mod rehousing of Zeiss lenses. http://www.ducloslenses.com/pages/cine-mod
As mentioned by HD Warrior and Darren, these Xeen lenses seem more of a rehousing maneuver than an optics improvement. I believe Samyang lenses could benefit more from that latter than the former.
Contax Zeiss lenses are made by Zeiss. Some however have glass by Zeiss and bodies by Kyocera in Japan. These were lenses with outstanding optics made mainly in the 70s and 80s and the Contax bodies have as much quality mechanically speaking, as the Zeiss glass have optical quality. this made a range of lenses with excellent quality and affordable price, which can then be cine modded. In terms of the Zoom lenses from the Contax/Zeiss lenses, you have sharpness that rivals with prime lenses. This is one of the outstanding aspects of these lenses.
Ultimately, lenses preferences may burn down to personal tastes. To my taste, Contax Zeiss lenses are the amongst the best. Of course I could talk about cine Canon Primes and Zooms… But we’re talking about multiplying the price by 10, 20 or 50… And we don’t get a proportional increment in quality.