I just picked up a Rokinon 85mm f1.4 and i feel like the wide open shots are a little softer than the reviews I've read should be. I'd appreciate seeing some wide open 100% crop type shots from a full frame camera Nikon/Canon. Unedited/unsharped idealy. I'll post some of my own later for reference. But I was just curious what people are getting out of this lens wide open.

My Rokinon 85/1.4 isn't quite as sharp wide open as my other 85's, but it's definitely not bad. The main reason that I keep my Rokinon is that it handles bokeh of complex backgrounds much better than other 80mm to 90mm lenses that I've tried. Here's some threads that might help you out.

http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/952008/0&year=2010#9001461
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/987267/0
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/941350

jcolwell wrote:
My Rokinon 85/1.4 isn't quite as sharp wide open as my other 85's, but it's definitely not bad. The main reason that I keep my Rokinon is that it handles bokeh of complex backgrounds much better than other 80mm to 90mm lenses that I've tried. Here's some threads that might help you out.

http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/952008/0&year=2010#9001461
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/987267/0
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/941350

Thanks, my shots tend to show a "haze" at F1.4. at F2.0 it improves drasticly, is this typical on yours?

dills84 wrote:
jcolwell wrote:
My Rokinon 85/1.4 isn't quite as sharp wide open as my other 85's, but it's definitely not bad. The main reason that I keep my Rokinon is that it handles bokeh of complex backgrounds much better than other 80mm to 90mm lenses that I've tried. Here's some threads that might help you out.

http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/952008/0&year=2010#9001461
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/987267/0
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/941350

Thanks, my shots tend to show a "haze" at F1.4. at F2.0 it improves drasticly, is this typical on yours?

No. I can't say that my Rok 85/1.4 shows a 'haze' at f/1.4. It's just that the edges and corners don't get as sharp as the others until you stop down a fair bit. Maybe there's some bright metal on the mount that's causing internal reflections. Is it in native Canon mount, or something else with an adapter? You can use flat black paint or adhesive-backed flocked paper to cover any internal bright metal areas, if you actually have some.

jcolwell wrote:
dills84 wrote:
jcolwell wrote:
My Rokinon 85/1.4 isn't quite as sharp wide open as my other 85's, but it's definitely not bad. The main reason that I keep my Rokinon is that it handles bokeh of complex backgrounds much better than other 80mm to 90mm lenses that I've tried. Here's some threads that might help you out.

http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/952008/0&year=2010#9001461
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/987267/0
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/941350

Thanks, my shots tend to show a "haze" at F1.4. at F2.0 it improves drasticly, is this typical on yours?

No. I can't say that my Rok 85/1.4 shows a 'haze' at f/1.4. It's just that the edges and corners don't get as sharp as the others until you stop down a fair bit. Maybe there's some bright metal on the mount that's causing internal reflections. Is it in native Canon mount, or something else with an adapter? You can use flat black paint or adhesive-backed flocked paper to cover any internal bright metal areas, if you actually have some.


Using the native canon mount on a 5D Mark 2. Last night I expeiremented shooting my apple white keyboard. The letters on the keys would get a slight haze and softness @ f1.4... but it would completely dissapear by f2.0. Starting to wonder if I have a faulty lens.

I'll post examples later when I get home from work. thanks for your advice.

here is the only 100% sample i have up from my copy. sharpening is turned down to zero in lightroom. it's taken on a NEX with a pixel density similar to the d800, so it should look sharper than this on a 5DII.



whole frame:

sebboh wrote:
here is the only 100% sample i have up from my copy. sharpening is turned down to zero in lightroom. it's taken on a NEX with a pixel density similar to the d800, so it should look sharper than this on a 5DII.




Beautiful shot! I do see the "haze" i had mentioned previously in your shot though. I guess this just comes with the territory on super wide aperture lenses.

Thanks!

Can't say i've noticed "haze" or "glow", but it does catch the sun quite easily.

No sharpness complaints here, just the difficulty with getting focus exactly in the right place without live view.

dills84 -- You see a haze or general low contrast fog in sebboh's shot? I don't see anything -- when I look into the dark shadow areas, they look outstanding and free of fog, haze, and typical spherical aberration manifestation. Contrast looks very good.

I'm curious to see your examples.

dills84 wrote:
sebboh wrote:
here is the only 100% sample i have up from my copy. sharpening is turned down to zero in lightroom. it's taken on a NEX with a pixel density similar to the d800, so it should look sharper than this on a 5DII.




Beautiful shot! I do see the "haze" i had mentioned previously in your shot though. I guess this just comes with the territory on super wide aperture lenses.

Thanks!

there is a little glow, but much better than most f/1.4 lenses. this shot is also at mfd so there's a very narrow dof. as i mentioned before, yours should look a little bit better due to the lower pixel density.

Just to confirm no haze with a Rokinon = Samyang 85mm 1.4 / D800E. Focus is on the tallest boy's eyes. Posting 1200 pix wide on purpose so that you can review the IQ.

markhout wrote:
Just to confirm no haze with a Rokinon = Samyang 85mm 1.4 / D800E. Focus is on the tallest boy's eyes. Posting 1200 pix wide on purpose so that you can review the IQ.



Is that a crop? wide open at 1.4? thats real sharp.

Thanks

dills - see here for a LR screengrab, with sharpening details:

Ok! so here's some samples of what I'm talking about. Please let me know if this is normal behavior at F1.4. I guess it just feels a bit soft compared to examples I see online. The "haze" or "glow" I'm referring to only seems to happen @ f1.4 wide open.

Thanks!

Full image ISO chart example

I think my Rok would look sharper at f/1.4 in the middle on the test chart. OTOH, it's not easy to get critical focus on a fast, short telephoto, when it's wide open. Could you describe your procedure ? Just askin'. I generally do this kind of shot (i.e. test pattern/resolution target) on a tripod, with MLU and self-timer or remote release, and using LiveView for manual focus. I take at least three images, and use the 'best' for comparison with other 'best' images. It also helps to have really good lighting, or use flash (which helps with WB).

The second set of images of the keyboard shows significant CA. It's probably 'lateral CA', or 'bokeh CA' - I forget the term (there are many, it's not a well-defined vocabulary - at least, not widely agreed)... Anyway,

This CA is most obvious in the first image at f/1.4, but is also apparent in the other two, too. The light-dark edges in the foreground have pronounced reddish (magenta) colour, and those in the back have pronounced green edges. Note that the front right (south-west) corner of the J key has little or no CA. That's on the plane of sharp focus. It extends to the left and right. The "J" on the J key is behind the plane of focus, and so it doesn't look very sharp. The "M" is softened by CA, while the N and bottom of the K are very well defined (i.e. good resolution), but the generally low contrast of the image makes them look 'not sharp' [apparent sharpness = resolution + contrast].

I can also see slight CA in the test pattern shots, but not more than could be expected.

Of course, if you want to take sharp close up photos without CA, you should use a good macro lens.

The 'slight haze' effect you describe might be the effect of an extremely shallow DOF, combined with CA, in at least some cases. Your comment that you can see haze in sebboh's "flower with honey bee" photo is interesting. IMO, the full image is sharp and clear - the bee and front row of flowers, and slender leaf plus stick debris at the bottom, all look great (i.e. plenty sharp). The rest of the image shows what "well behaved" bokeh should be. The Zeiss Planar 85/1.4 and Leica Summicron 90/2 would look a lot more 'nervous' in the background. Things aren't quite so sharp-looking in the 100% crop of "sebboh's bee", but it has sufficient detail to tell me that I could make a large print (e.g. 16 x 24) with no worries.

I suggest that you should spend more time with your Rokinon in real world situations, before deciding if you have a problem or not. If you still perceive the same problem after a few days, then maybe you could return it and try another. It's not a perfect lens (none are), but it can produce fantastic images.

I shot all of them on a heavy duty tripod and focused using magnification in live view mode on my 5D MK2. So the shots should be pretty accurate.

Well then. The only example photo of yours that looks below my expectations is the f/1.4 test pattern. OTOH, I don't think I've ever shot a test pattern* with the Rokinon 85/1.4.

* my favourite is still the "USAF 1951" resolution chart - YMMV.

jcolwell wrote:
Well then. The only example photo of yours that looks below my expectations is the f/1.4 test pattern. OTOH, I don't think I've ever shot a test pattern* with the Rokinon 85/1.4.

* my favourite is still the "USAF 1951" resolution chart - YMMV.

Thanks for the great post above. I also purchased the Rokinon 35mm F1.4 and I find that to be extreeeemely sharp even wide open. I guess this is why I find the 85mm to be sub par. I'll get out this weekend and test both in real world scenarios. Just wanted to make sure I didn't get a bum copy of the lens. Maybe I'm just being an anal pixel peeper (which I shouldnt be on a sub $300 lens)

Thanks again.

Any more examples are welcome. Love seeing the 100% crops.

your f/1.4 shot looks a little less sharp than i would expect mine to be in that situation, but i've never shot anything like a test chart with mine so i couldn't say for sure.

dills84 wroteI also purchased the Rokinon 35mm F1.4 and I find that to be extreeeemely sharp even wide open. I guess this is why I find the 85mm to be sub par.

I have the same samyangs 35mm and 85mm on my D800E. The 35mm is sharp - perhaps even too sharp! The 85mm stopped down is about as sharp as my 105mm 2.5 ais stopped down.

I think that the issue is more on focusing the 85 which is extremely difficult. However, I understand that autofocus 85mm lenses are not necessarily in focus wide open either. Liveview with an evf and static subjects are in order. But in my boys example above I managed to focus correctly - and I can tell you that they were not static subjects...

Also, I would expect some sample variation in this price range.