Samyang/Rokinon 85mm ƒ1.4

[CRAusmus]

I'm really wanting a fast prime in the 135mm range.  Greatly considering this lens.

 

As much as I'd love the 90 over this, the funds just aren't there right now and probably won't be until Fuji has another promotion, I can find an excellent deal on a good used one or I get a nice bonus at work.

 

Any thoughts on the 85 by Samyang or Rokinon?

 

Are there really no differences between the two companies?  The lenses' stats look identical and everything I can find online says they are both the same lenses just rebranded.  So why the different names?  Is Rokinon rebranding Samyang or the other way around?

 

Any opinions, samples, thoughts, criticisms etc. are very welcome.

 

 

Thank you...

Edited July 30, 2016 by CRAusmus

[quincy]

The manufacturer is Samyang Optics Company Limited, founded 1972 in South Korea. All lenses are produced in the same factory in Masan. The other brands are just importers (Rokinon for North America, Walimex for Europe...) or trademarks.

 

I can't tell you much about the lens itself, but I can give you two quotes:

 

I have the Samyang 85mm 1.4.

 

It is a decent quality lens specially for it's price. It's obviously made for portrait and it works good IF you like the soft look. This is not an ultra sharp lens. But for specifically getting soft results, it is quite good. I don't regret buying it, cause i know there are situations i really like to use it, but to be honest it's use is quite limited. Now that the 90mm F2 fuji lens is out, i would not buy it, cause i get the soft results in post production if i really want to, and i'd have the sharpness that the samyang 85 simply can't get.

 

.Most of you will be proud, this is my first post.

 

I have Rokinon 85mm T1.5 CINE (EOS Mount) which you listed it as Samyang 85mm f/1.4 VCSC.

I owned it for nearly 10 months. I use it with EOS-FX ZY Optics Lens Turbo II (Focal Reducer). The lens really sharp wide open but critical to nail the focus because the DOF is very shallow... you will end up with small focus area where it's sharp, this why most people claimed its soft. If you stop it down to f/2.4 and up, it starts to get sharper all the way up to f/11 Bokeh performance doesn't have the characters of the classic vintage lenses. I owned many vintage lenses that needs to be mention. If you decide to get the lens, you might not be happy with bokeh but mostly happy with sharpness and how it handles CA very extremely well. My work speaks for itself, check out the samples here!

[CRAusmus]

Thanks quincy.  I've been wondering about it.  Read some reviews on B&H, but most were just about how well it performed for the price, and the two examples customers included did appear sharp enough for what I'm looking for.

 

I'm wondering though if I might just be better served to get a vintage lens and a mount adapter.  Might even wind up cheaper in the long run.  I'll play around with my M42 lenses and the converter I do have and see what I think about that option as well.

 

I'm still shopping around at this point, which why I posted this so I can start some feedback from sources I trust.

 

Thanks again for clearing up my confusion on the Samyang/Rokinon situation...

Edited July 31, 2016 by CRAusmus

[plaidshirts]

Just wanted to chime in.

Rokinon 85/1.4 is an excellent lens for the price.

It's sharp with good colors and a pleasant bokeh, but it's HUGE.

For that reason, I find I use much smaller and cheaper vintage lenses like a Takumar 105/2.8 or Olympus OM 135/3.5 when I'm outside even though the Rokinon is faster and it's IQ a whole lot better.

If I'm shooting inside without much moving about, it's the Rokinon every time.