Rokinon Cine Lenses, any experiences?

[lilbuddha]

These lenses are pretty reasonable in price and I like the geared focus ring.

[sandymandy]

No experience but the Samyang (aka Rokinon etc.) Still lenses are highly respected for shooting video (and stills but manual focus is a pain in the ass often which doesnt matter for video). Guess the video versions are even better due to their handling. The 35mm delivers L lens quality so to speak.

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Rokinon does not make lenses, they are just one of many rebranded versions of Samyang lenses.  Rokinon, Bauer, and others.  Typically, in the USA, Samyang lenses are sold as Rokinon but not always.
If you search the internet for Samyang Cinema lens, you may find a lot of information.

[Nick Gombinsky]

I don't have the "cine" version of them, but I do own the normal versions, which are the same minus geared focus and stepless aperture. They are awesome and I use them for shooting commercials and music videos. I very much prefer them to Canon L lenses and unless you shoot wide open only, there is little to no difference with Carl Zeiss.

That is, if you get good copies. I found on the internet very mixed reviews, I must have gotten good copies. I'm very picky with sharpness, CA, and every aspect of optical quality in a lens. All of their lenses are so-so wide open, but as soon as you stop down one stop you're good to go. Except the 24mm. I love it even wide open.

[Albi86]

I'm sorry to bring back up this thread, but I was very much wondering how these lenses perform for still photography. Being cine lenses I would expect a particularly high and even quality throughout the frame - and in fact they are slightly more expensive - but is there any specific optimization for videos - besides the T stops - that would make them problematic for stills?

[Drizzt321]

I'm sorry to bring back up this thread, but I was very much wondering how these lenses perform for still photography. Being cine lenses I would expect a particularly high and even quality throughout the frame - and in fact they are slightly more expensive - but is there any specific optimization for videos - besides the T stops - that would make them problematic for stills?

Their cine lenses are simply their still lenses, but with clickless aperture and rated in T-stops. Other than that, I'm pretty sure they are exactly the same. Maybe they cherry pick some of the stills and put on the cine hardware instead of stills, but I dunno if they do that much extra work.

[Nick Gombinsky]

Same optics, different housing.