I just ordered a Rokinon 85mm F1.2

andrewdoeshair · Apr 30, 2017

I dabble in all kinds of photography but the thing I want to hone in on and improve at most is portraits. I've got a Tamron 150-600mm for wildlife fun, and a Canon 16-35mm F2.8L ii for landscape stuff and walk around fun, but I've been using a Sigma 50mm Art lens for my portraits and knew I needed to get an 85mm if I wanted to get serious about portraits. I borrowed a friend's 85mm F1.2L ii and it seemed alright. I didn't use it enough to fall in love with it, but I could see how it was unique (bokeh balls the size of a thanksgiving turkey). I certainly didn't use it long enough to love it enough to want to spend $1,800 on one...

A friend of mine uses a Rokinon for pictures of stars, and he swears by it. I never paid much attention because I don't take pictures of stars and I figured it was good for stuff I don't do, so I don't need it. Another friend of mine, sort of my photography mentor, had been borrowing my 16-35mm for various video projects, but then he stopped borrowing it when he got a rokinon 35mm... He said the rokinon looks way better. HE SAID THE $300 ROKINON LOOKED BETTER THAN MY L GLASS. That got me really curious...

I've been watching and reading up on the Samyang/Rokinon 85mm F1.2 and according to one YouTube guy it's the sharpest (maybe second sharpest, I forget) lens he's ever tested, while according to another reviewer it's not the sharpest, but it does have the most pleasant bokeh. If either of them is right, I'll be pleased enough. I found the lens used for $750 and thought I'd give it a try. If I hate it I won't lose much if anything when I resell it.

Once I get to know the lens a bit I'm going to borrow the Canon 85mm F1.2L ii again and do some tests on my own. I figure I can share the results here if anyone is interested. If the lens is a let down I'm selling it and stepping up to the Sigma 85mm Art, and if that's a let down (doubt it) I guess I'm getting another red ring in my bag.

Have any of you tried this lens yet? Anyone own it? I have to admit that I'm excited to be forced into manually focusing. When I started shooting film (a few years after I had been shooting digital) it was really fun and challenging to manually focus, embarrassing miss rate aside.

Dave442 · Apr 30, 2017

I would be interested in the results.

Derrel · Apr 30, 2017

I would like to hear your impressions of the Rokinon, and maybe see some example images. I shoot most of my indoor 85mm flash stuff at f/7.1, where many lenses offer a very fine performance. My feeling is that the f/1.2 lenses offer more of that wide-open, shallow DOF look than do the more common 70-200mm zoom shots done at 85mm focal length, that are by nature, limited to a slightly sub-par wide-open f/2.8 maximum possible aperture value.

andrewdoeshair · May 2, 2017

When I first started shooting I had a 50mm F1.8 on a Rebel and I would shoot everything wide open because I thought bokeh was the defining factor that made a photo look Pro. The more I studied and tried to improve the more I crept away from wider apertures, now shooting mostly between F4 with continuous lights in the studio or F8 with flash. The only time I'll find myself anywhere near F2 is if I'm out at night or in a bar or something with friends being that annoying guy taking photos at inappropriate times. However, I've recently seen a lot of really shallow DOF portraits that were quite striking to me (this forum's Dan ostergren being one of the photographers) and it's got me pretty excited to open up the aperture again now that I have a little more experience and can hopefully use the shallow DOF more tastefully. The thing I'm really REALLY excited to do with the lens is shoot some film. I used to have that petzval 85mm with the swirly bokeh but I got rid of it before I started shooting film. I don't know if it's a universal feeling but when I shoot film I'm not worried about getting the ultimate in sharpness and detail, so revisiting the bokeh lust on film sounds like it's going to be a lot of fun. I haven't received the Rokinon yet but I've been watching the tracking number daily, and posting about my thoughts and feelings here is really satiating my GAS.

Here's a semi candid pic of my wife at Disneyland, shot with that petzval 85mm at F2. When I get the Rokinon, in addition to the obvious studio shots, I'm burning through a few rolls of Kodak Tri-X at F1.2 to F2.

Derrel · May 2, 2017

" Holy Cat's Eye Bokeh, Batman! "

Plus,some swirly bokeh too! Wild!

smoke665 · May 3, 2017

Would also appreciate your comments on the lens once you get a chance to use it. Considered that one as well.

andrewdoeshair · May 4, 2017

I received the rokinon about 30 minutes ago, and after 4 shots I'm floored. When I borrowed a Canon 85mm F1.2L ii I wasn't blown away at any point, but I could understand the appeal. Wide open it was a bit of a novelty, nothing was all that sharp, but it looked super artsy and fun. I used it at a Christmas party so I took shots with showers of bokeh balls from the Christmas lights strewn about the background. By the time I got to a clean sharp (enough) aperture of maybe 2.8 or 3.5, I figured I needed to buy a 70-200 to do this job better (and to get more focal lengths for my buck). The lens was plagued with a slow focus and in my barely-experienced opinion, if it's not a fast focuser, it may as well be manual focus. With this rokinon I've already practiced cranking the ring as though I were swapping targets in the real wod and it doesn't seem to take any longer than the canon 85mm F1.2L, it just takes a little more brain power and a second hand. Very little more brains power, since it does beep when it grabs focus.

After I got the 4 quick shots I cracked a rather strong beer and took residence on the couch then stopped trying to have fun in my boring condo with this rokinon lens. My gorgeous wife is sick today so with no makeup or hair done she isn't the willing model she usually is. I have a day full of haircuts tomorrow so hopefully time permits that I'll have a willing model to let me fiddle with this. My condo is a little on on the dark side for me to test F5.6 or F8, but I'll give it a shot tomorrow when I'm at my hair studio.

For reference purposes, my "standard" was set by the Sigma 50mm F1.4 Art lens for sharpness and by Canon's first 24-70 for focusing speed and convenience. The last (and only) 85mm I've owned was the very novelty Petzval 85mm F2, so I never used it much for real world or studio applications, just for fun. My experience with canon's 85mm F1.2L ii was over the course of a week, where I only really tried to dig in at a dimly lit xmas party, then farting around at home. I never got to try it in the studio or on the street.

Here's one of the four test images I got from the rokinon SP 85mm F1.2 which was shot at F1.2 on my 5Diii as a JPEG then uploaded to my phone via Eye-Fi Mobi Pro card. I'll update this thread as I get to know the lens more.

andrewdoeshair · May 4, 2017

That beer got me all social so I'll post a little more since I picked up the lens again. The focus ring is stiff enough that you won't bump it and move it by accident, but the rubber grip is sticky enough that you can easily turn it with a single finger (no closed grip between finger and thumb required). When I watched other online reviews they made it seem like breathing on the lens would turn the focus ring, but this is dialed in to feel really intuitive, it's not a chore to focus. My Sigma 50mm Art is a little bit easier to turn, but the finish requires a thumb and finger to get the ring turning. This focuses focuses like a jam session with a DJ scratching vinyl, it's very easy and fluid. You bump it into position without thinking. Maybe it's the wider diameter of the lens. My Sigma requires a very deliberate action to adjust focus manually, this one feels like an automatic instinct of my hand. The canon 85 1.2 had me stopping to be weirded out by the motor-driven manual focus every time I tried to touch the ring. Maybe even an ounce of distrust that the motor would turn as much or as little as I wanted it to. I've read that the finish on this Rokinon lens and focus ring attract grime and dust, but I'm already used to that. Most of my lenses have pomade and hair spray caked into the tread on the focus or zoom rings. At least this smooth rubber ring will wipe clean more easily than the rings on my other lenses.

Ifthis rokinon ends up delivering long term I'm going to move my Canon 16-35mm F2.8L ii to get a Sigma 35mm F1.4 Art and a cheap Rokinon super wide prime. I raaaaarely use the wide end of my 16-35 but I have a lot of fun at 35mm when I'm out walking around. It would be nice to get better low light performance on the 35mm end and designte the wider end to another lens altogether.

Derrel · May 4, 2017

Try focusing from far to near...it's got the more-favorable focusing ring travel for hand-and-eye focusing...the huiman eye can see change easily, so going from Infinity and in toward minimum frocusing distance causes the most-rapid change...

Start far, crank the ring INward, till it looks good, then STOP!!! Maybe (as in maybe) do a very slight tick the other way, and BAM! In-focus!!!

andrewdoeshair · May 4, 2017

Thanks for the tip!

andrewdoeshair · May 7, 2017

I still haven't really been able to have a good long play with this lens, but I did snap a few quick haircut photos yesterday. This was shot at F3.5 with a single continuous light (30w LED guy by Savage) in a soft box with a 22" reflector under his chin. I would have liked to have more time to try differerent settings, but I was on a schedule and had about 4 minutes to get a shot.

Today my wife and I are hanging out with her grandma and I'm not a big talker so I'm just quietly taking pictures and posting here. I know wide open shots aren't always the cleanest and if I were trying to get "the best image possible" I would totally tighten it up, but when you're looking at an F1.2 lens you want to see what it does at F1.2. Here's my wife with the lens wide open, shot as a JPEG, unedited, uploaded to my phone via Eye Fi mobi.

I've learned today that the focus confirmation works intermittently. I don't know if all copies will do this, but my copy on my 5Diii does it. It's a little bit frustrating, but I guess I shouldn't rely on it and should train my eyes. I use back button focusing to activate my registered AF point (usually set to the "automatic selection: 61 AF points) and I use the shutter button to activate the center AF point. When the confirmation has stopped working with this lens I found that using the back button focus will get it going again. I don't get it. I'm probably missing something, but that's what it's been doing. None of the reviews I've read about this lens mentioned this, it may just be user error.

andrewdoeshair · May 7, 2017

Embarrassing... Focus confirmation isn't actually intermittent. I had the focus beep turned off and the viewfinder illumination set to "auto" so in some situations it wasn't lighting up the focus dot. Focus confirmation works fine, user doesn't seem to work very well

Derrel · May 7, 2017

The three new 85/1.2 pics look good. Look forward to hearing more, and seeing more, from this new lens you'e recently procured.

andrewdoeshair · May 8, 2017

I'm having trouble uploading some pics I got of this dark metal wind chime that I got at F1.2 that shows how little fringing or aberrations this lens has. Maybe the images are too large... I'm sick of looking at light room right now, I'll try exporting them smaller later. The short story is that those faults are nearly non-existent. There is some vignetting at 1.2, but it's tasteful, not overboard or difficult to correct. I'm still in the honeymoon phase with this lens, and I'll leave this thread alone for a while until that changes, but if anyone were ever to ask me about an 85mm recommendation, this is it. Not that I'm by any means an expert, but it's been loads of fun and a big learning experience. The manual focus is fun and I do feel like it has made me a little bit better already. Not just by taking a second to get focus, but it got me to get out of manual mode and appreciate aperture priority mode. I've always enjoyed thinking about my settings, but since I've started thinking about focus, too, I decided to try to letting the camera decide my shutter speed and/or ISO, and now that I've fiddled with aperture priority mode I can see times when it'll be really helpful in the future.

Anyways, here's a few random shots I got of and with wifey today, after some editing (thanks for the tips about adding cayenne to skin tones and lightening the iris, Derrel!)