Rokinon SP 85mm f/1.2 High Speed Lens for Canon EF

2018-09-07T08:37:46

I highly recommend this lens for portraiture and studio work. I was able to use it for video too, but manual focus has its limitations with moving objects. The lens has excellent sharpness and color balance. It creates very pleasant shallow depth of field effects and bokeh. Considering the price, the results are outstanding, if you can handle the manual focus properly. Keep in mind that the lens is very heavy.

Igor P.

2018-08-05T07:57:52

I am a convert from Canon to Sony A7 bodies. I still have several Canon mount lenses that I adapt because they are too good to part with as is now the case with this incredible lens. Previously, I owned and really enjoyed the Sigma 85mm F/1.4 Art lens in Canon mount. Incredible lens, very sharp, producing fantastic images. The only downside being some purple fringing correctable in post. I sold my 85mm Sigma to a friend and purchased the even more incredible (hard to imagine) Sigma 135mm F/1.8 Art. The Sigma 85 is great, but the 135 is perfect. The only challenge is that the 135 can sometime be a little too long in some circumstances. So I found I was missing the 85mm focal length. I happened to catch an ad from Adorama (my favorite professional camera store) about this Rokinon SP 85mm F/1.2 on sale for an incredible price (38% off). I thought that the extra 1/3 stop could really come in handy indoors or low light situation and hoped the bokeh would be good, so I took a chance. I AM SO HAPPY I DID! The images this beauty of a lens produces are spectacular! And the manual focus is really no trouble when using Sony bodies thanks to great focus peaking and more import zoom focus capabilities. If you are a portrait photographer and your style places emphasis on lovely rendering, super sharp details and creamy, dreamy bokeh, BUY THIS LENS IMMEDIATELY FROM ADORAMA before they come to their senses and cancel the sale price. It is worth full retail price, but on sale, it is a steal!!!!

CHRISTOPHER L.

2018-08-02T16:03:00

This thing is awesome! Takes extremely sharp photos. Finding faults in the optics of this thing is going to be fairly difficult for the average photographer. Just as most other reviews on the net, I've gotta say, despite being manual focus, it has a very long, very smooth, and even throw, with just the right amount of resistance it that makes it pretty easy to do. If there is any negative that I could say about it it, is about the 86mm filter thread, which isn't the fault of, or particular to this lens really. 86mm is a changeover diameter for filter thread pitches. This lens is 0.75mm, and will need a fairly hard to find adapter to use 1.0mm pitch filters. Which means that any time a filter is purchased, it's thread pitch must be verified, as it isn't commonly listed.

Daniel W.

2018-07-22T08:46:35

Learning to use this lens I found it was easy . Snap shooting does not work . You must learn to take your time and focus as sharply as your eyes allow.. Under low light I was not able to do to well. Although some shots were good my eyes were not up to it. In normal light it was able to do well on fairly fast moving objects such as RC model planes. Have taken about 500 shots so far.

Kerry J.

2017-02-25T09:32:51

I'm keen on 85mm lenses, own a large number of them, new and old, and have rented others (I use them on Sony a7rII and a7s, which make manual focusing so much easier). I've yet to try the Otus or new Sigma, which aren't as fast anyway, but so far this is the best I've met in terms of sharpness wide open, contrast, freedom from aberrations, etc. It's at least as good as Rokinon's amazing 135mm f2. The only optical flaw I've noticed so far is that, like some other expensive high-end fast lenses, there's a mild onion ring effect on out-of-focus points of light in some circumstances wide open. This is the one area where the recent Mitakon equivalent wins optically. I also prefer the look of the Mitakon and the feel of its focus ring, but the image quality of the Rokinon is dispositive for me. The Rokinon's considerably shorter minimum focus distance is another huge advantage over the Mitakon and many other 85mm lenses. I'm not about to ditch the others I own, all of which are smaller and lighter and have their distinctive look, but for whenever I want the fastest and sharpest, I'll reach for this one. I would happily recommend this to anyone who doesn't need autofocus.

Simon R.