Samyang Xeen Cine Video Lenses Review

Recently Korean manufacturer Samyang (Rokinon in the U.S.) announced new line of Cine pro video lenses called Xeen to compete against Canon, Zeiss and a few other manufacturers. Today we bring you several review of the Xeen lineup, plus comparisons to other relevant Cine lenses.

Lets start with the basics – the current Samyang Xeen line includes 3 lenses – all primes – 24mm, a 50mm and an 85mm. They all look and feel very similar externally.

Above you can see a video by Ryan Connolly from Film Riot who took the Xeen lenses for a test and compared them to the Zeiss and Canon Cine counterparts. Below you can see another interesting comparison by the guys from newsshooter of the the XEEN 85mm T1.5 against the ZEISS CP.2 85mm T1.5 and the Sony CineAlta 85mm T2.0 cine using a Sony a7R II (using full frame and S-35 modes in S-Log2 at ISO 800). The same basic grade was added using Film Convert to each shot, with no further tuning.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmXB5JopMBo[/youtube]

Here is a general tech specs for the new lenses:

Full-Frame coverage (available in PL, Canon EF, Nikon F, Sony E, and Micro 4/3 Mounts).
Metal Construction and mount (with internal focus, dual sided focus and T-Stop scales).
Fully manual (no electronics).
Multi-Coating.
11 Blade Iris
Gearing for focus and iris (for pulling focus\aperture).
200 degrees focus rotation.
Min. Focus Distance: 24mm — 10″, 50mm — 18″, 85mm — 3′ 9″
114mm Front Diameter
1/4″-20 thred for lens support.
Weight: 24mm — 2.6 lbs., 50mm — 2.56 lbs., 85mm — 2.7 lbs.
Price: $2,500 each (see here on B&H).

A short 1-min video shot with the new Xeen lenses

[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/135852481#at=6[/vimeo]

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Iddo Genuth

Iddo Genuth is the founder and chief editor of LensVid.com. He has been a technology reporter working for international publications since the late 1990's and covering photography since 2009. Iddo is also a co-founder of a production company specializing in commercial food and product visual content.