I just ordered a Rokinon 85mm F1.2

Derrel · May 8, 2017

Yeah, the lens does seem to be free of obvious color fringing wide-open...which is quite often NOT the case with many high-speed telephoto lenses. It's surprising how low-cost Rokinon has been able to deliver some of its lens designs, yet hoiw high the performance level is. Manking them manual focus ceertainly keeps the costs down, and long,long,long terms I think makes the lenses more reliable/viable mechanically. Frankly at f/1.2, I would expect at least some CA issues on the edges of strong-edged objects. This does not seem to have much of an issue with that at least from these samples.

I am sure enjoying your posts and experiences. You'e made some good contributions to TPF, Andrew!

andrewdoeshair · May 9, 2017

I atteneded a small barbering seminar near me today to try this lens in the "real world" and it was a hell of a lot of fun. I was pretending to be the event photographer. I shot the whole day with the Rokinon SP 85mm F1.2 and I fell a little bit more in love as I found the specific quirks (that all lenses seem to have). I found that there was a sweet sot at F2.8 (first photo, of my friend, Charlie) but when I got a few at F8 they were so contrasty that they weren't very pleasing to the eye. Admittedly, the tiny room had the worst lighting ever and while I did use a Canon 430EXii with a Fong diffuser for a few shots it wasn't a great environment to be "flash popping guy" so I tried my best to mash my face against the glass to get on the good side of the action. I'll have to try F8 in the studio with flash to see what it's really like (got a victim lined up for late tomorrow night). The huge joyous factor with this lens so far has been the close focusing distance. I kept feeling like I was as close as close could get with an 85mm, and then realizing I still had over a 1/4 turn to my left on the ring. This thing is almost a macro lens compared to other 85mm lenses. I did these shots as a favor for a friend so he got the "20 minute editing session" and not the "10+ minutes per photo" session, so please excuse any bad editing. I'm still learning.

F2.8

F1.2

F3.5

F1.4

Derrel · May 9, 2017

An 85mm prime lens. Yes. Most definitely, YES!
Over the past 35 years I have owned, lemme see, seven different 85mm lenses...and every one was at the very least, what I would call a good performer. Two were great performers.

There is much in favor of a fast 85mm prime lens for people pictures! I am SO glad to hear that you are really liking this new Rokinon 85/1.2! It looks like it might qualify as a great performer.

andrewdoeshair · May 11, 2017

Studio fun with this Rokinon lens tonight. I've never tried to edit a photo this way before, please judge the coloring gently. But in any case, editing experiments aside, here's a taste of the lens in the studio.

F2 I think, using a continuous LED in a soft box, and a 22" reflector under his chin. The white balance was set in camera to like 3300k, then I tried to get his skin alone warmed up with the brush tool in Lightroom.

andrewdoeshair · May 31, 2017

This lens continues to amaze. I'm laying in a hotel in Northern Ireland at the moment, but today I was able to get a bunch of really nice shots out in the country with the Rokinon. This a jpeg uploaded straight to my phone and edited in Lightroom on phone. Shot wide open.

I also got a few shots of old buildings in Dublin last week. Normally I use a 16-35mm if I want to get a shot of a cool castle or something, but I've been challenging myself to try the 85 for everything I can before just grabbing a lens I already know very well. It's been really hard to get whole buildings in the frame, but when it works it works really well. It's quite nice to take a photo of a building that has straight lines, then see straight lines in the photo. Can't do that at 16mm. This was shot at F8 and uploaded straight to phone.

I've been between Dublin and Belfast for the past week, and I'm headed home in another week. I've taken like 1,000 photos already, it's basically all I'm doing here (cutting hair all weekend though). The clouds and, trees, and buildings make for really nice and interesting lighting scenarios. Golden hour also lasts like 3 hours here, and it's not golden, it's blue. More soft cool light than I know what to do with. It starts to get dark around 7:00pm but doesn't actually get dark until 10:00pm or so. When I get home I'm going to have a loooong day of editing, then I'll post a few more of the 85mm pics here and start anew thread with the highlight photos. I really wanted to shoot film out here, too, but I've given up on flying with it, it's always a hassle.

andrewdoeshair · Jun 9, 2017

After getting home and editing the photos from my trip, I wanted to throw the rokinon out the window! It was ultimately user error, I should have checked my shots more diligently, but when the focus indicator would beep I would shoot. I learned after dozens of poorly focused shots that at distances the lens thinks it is focused a few feet behind where it is actually focused. When this is a face 100 feet away, it's hard to tell that it's off when glancing at the LCD. Next time I travel with this thing I'm bringing a tripod and using live view to focus. Anyways, attached are a few more shots from the Rokinon 85 F1.2

F1.8

F1.2

F1.2

F5.6

andrewdoeshair · Jul 2, 2017

Rokinon SP 85mm F1.2 on a Canon Rebel G with Kodak Tri X 400 film. I think this was shot at F1.4... I'm kind of proud that I was able nail focus as well as I did on this hyper little lady. Other attempts were way off.