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I recently bought the Rokinon 85mm Cine lens to use on a Sony a99 camera, mostly for video. I found that I liked that particular lens so much that I started using it for still photography as well. In fact, I like the sharp look of those files so much that I started to look for more Rokinon lenses to put on my camera. I'd been researching this 35mm 1.5 Cine lens of Sony Alpha cameras for a couple of weeks when I noticed one of those mysterious Amazon price drops. It seemed like too much of a bargain to pass up so I went ahead a bought one. I'm very happy I did.
Stuff to get out of the way right up front: This (the 35mm Rokinon Cine lens) is absolutely a manual focus lens. There is no electronic interface between the lens and the camera. It does not focus for you. If you can't tolerate focusing the lens yourself then this is very much not a lens for you. No autofocus. But not having autofocus is part of the design and part of the appeal for me. It means that there's so much less stuff to go wrong with on this product. And most people who are seriously into making films and commercials on video use manual focus lenses because it gives them maximum control over the look of their images. If you are lucky enough to shoot with the new Sony SLT cameras you'll find manual focusing is made simple with the cameras' built in focus peaking. If you are shooting with more prehistoric Nikon and Canon bodies you'll probably want to use the lens on a tripod so you can depend on Live View and magnification to get sharp focus.
Stuff to get out of the way, part 2: Since there are no electronic linkages between camera and lens there is no automation beyond what the cameras naturally give you with aperture priority control. Again, fine by me since I'm using an EVF and real time Live View I can always "pre-chimp" and see exactly what I'm getting while I'm shooting. That means I can compensate and change settings in a heartbeat if the scene in my finder looks too light or too dark. Finally, since the camera has no idea what lens is on front or what the heck the lens is doing there's no way it can give you complete exif data. You'll just have to get over that. The lens is also enormous. Not too heavy but large in size.
So, the lens seems primitive by modern standards. What does it have going for it? Well, my quick tests show me that the lens is sharp wide open in the center and just keeps getting sharper as I stop down. By f5.6 it's as sharp as any lens I've played with in the last 20 years. According to photozone.de it's a sharper lens than the $1400+ Canon 35mm 1.4L and the $1800+ Nikon 35mm 1.4 lenses. And that's both wide open and stopped down. Pretty amazing for a lens that's so inexpensive.
My work is generally slow and thoughtful. I work to a client's comprehensive layout or I shoot foot or I shoot portraits. I'm not a sports shooter. In the realm within which I work there's no bonus for super speedy handling. For me the lens works very, very well. I want a handful of things from a lens: I want high sharpness, I want good resolution, I want good contrast, I want good bokeh and I want the lens to be well built and able to take professional use for years to come.
The Rok 35mm 1.5 delivers all that.
Bonus: If you shoot video you'll find it's nice to have clickless apertures and a geared focusing ring. The clickless apertures mean you can make very subtle exposure or focus changes while filming instead of having to endure half stop jumps in exposure while the camera is running. The geared focusing ring means the lens can be used with follow focus units already on the market with no sweat. If you don't shoot video and have churlishly decided that you never will you should consider the non-Cine, f1.4 version of this lens. The optics are the same (great) but the aperture is click stopped and the focus ring is just a conventional focus ring. The bonus is that you'll save between $75 and $100 dollars.
I feel like the 35mm and 85mm Rokinons (Cine f1.5) are the two lenses I could take anywhere and do compelling work with. I rarely go wider but I do go longer. If I were starting my career from scratch I would certainly consider the 35m, the 85 and an a99 body as the core of my systems. Add some lights and a tripod and I can make stills and great short films.
When you compare this to the major brand offerings from Sony, Canon and Nikon it's clear that, if you are willing to learn manual technique, you'll end up with as good or better image quality at a fraction of the price. I'd buy it again. In fact, I like it so much I might buy a second one as a back-up.
One more thought: This would make a wickedly sharp 50mm equivalent on a cropped frame (APS-C) camera body.
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