85mm lenses with wide apertures are some of the most popular out there, but a high-quality one is often far from affordable. On the other hand, the Rokinon AF 85mm f/1.4 bucks that trend by coming in at over 75% less than the price of the highly respected Canon RF 85mm f/1.2 L USM, making it quite the intriguing alternative. Can it keep up with those top-shelf options, though? This great video review takes a look at its performance and image quality to answer that question.
Coming to you from Dustin Abbott, this excellent video review takes a look at the Rokinon AF 85mm f/1.4 lens for Canon RF mirrorless cameras. At $679, the 85mm f/1.4 is quite affordable as far as such lenses go, making it a potentially popular option for quite a few photographers. Beyond that, it offers features like weather-sealing for working outside, impressive sharpness and contrast, good control of aberrations, nice bokeh, and more, plus you get the benefits of Canon's highly capable eye autofocus feature and more. Altogether, it looks like an impressive performer, particularly for its price, that should satisfy the needs of most portrait photographers looking for a choice that won't break the bank. Check out the video above for Abbott's full thoughts on the lens.
Fantastic bargain. Got mine during Black Friday sales for $500. Very pleased with its performance in low light event work.
Let's be certain of one thing. The lens "quality" is mostly irrelevant when compared to the photographer's skill.
Camera shake, for instance, is far more relevant than small resolution differences? (Minimum shutter speed equivalent to focal length rule of thumb, etc)...often forgotten by zoom users?
Plus some uncoated soft lenses for instance have reached legendary status...nano coated hi res hi contrast optics may not be what the portrait requires?
Superb lens - even better when the cost is thrown in. Owned it for 3 years and it's one of the lenses I've enjoyed the most (and I've had plenty of Contax, Zeiss, Voigtlander, Nikon, Pentax and Sony G & GM lenses).
The reality is that I spend most of my post work softening images that are too sharp SOC (45MP sensor...) - so I have never seen he need for pixel-peeping at 400% the last bit of sharpness in a lens. All modern lenses are already plenty sharp IMHo (and vintage lenses are popular specifically because of their imperfections!!)
the price difference is accounted for by a lot of factors which have no bearing on the quality of the lens or of its resultant images