Zeiss Super Speeds vs. Canon CN-E vs. Rokinon Cinema Primes (Cinema Lens Shootout & Comparison 2020)

- Like no: 1 tappin; in to show support - As always, very informative & well put together - We've dropped our final vid of 2019 - Be great to have you tap in & let us know what you think.

You keep mentioning price points, but has Rokinon ever released their price points? Wait..do you mean price? If so, I have good news: you can just say price. It's shorter, and it means...well..price. Unlike the term "price point," which does not mean price. Cool?

This vid is awesome. Here I am thinking about getting a 35mm prime, but wanted to do a comparison. It’s like you all hacked my brain and read my mind!

Great video, deserves a lot more views and I'm sure it will get them. I think only a couple of things I noticed, it seems like your voice audio has some noise on it, perhaps a bit of noise reduction would remove the slight hissing sound. Also, I think you should have shown the price of each lense along with their test, as I forgot what the lens prices were by the end, which is the main thing you were comparing. But very enjoyable and good production value.

The Rokinon and Canon optics are sorely lacking character. One reason the 1980's Super Speeds continue to hold their value is their character and how them make actors look more interesting. Modern optics are highly corrected and rectilinear which is great for shooting products, but terrible for photographing humans. Check out Shane Hurlbut's comparison between between the Leica Summilux and Cooke S4. Full disclosure I'm a Cinematographer and I own a set of the Zeiss T1.3 primes and I've also shot with the Canon's which I found to be dull and boring.

I prefer vintage lenses, because they have character. However, since I'm almost always on a tight budget, I'll take the Rokinon any time.

A=$300 & B=$1500

The longer I look at the stand in the more tired and creeped out she is looking back at me. Was this ungraded?

CN-E : Sharpest.
Super Speed MK2 : best Bokeh (depth of field)
Rokinon: best over all because it’s under $500

Tanya looks like she is really enjoying this LOL

Lens A is $15k is my guess b/c the roundness of the bokeh.

Wow. I'd take the Rokinons every time out of the bunch. The differences are so small considering the prices. Such a shame the Rokinon 50mm has onion ring bokeh though, that really sucks.

Thank you so much for your research and time dedicated to this video.

I wonder what kind of difference I'd see with these 3 on my C300, or even my C100 ????? All i have is 2 Rokinon 35 T1.5's and the rest is just all Canon L zooms (70-200 2.8L IS and 24-105 f4L IS) plus the gold ring primes (50 1.4 and 85 1.4)..... ?????????? that is a humongous difference on your Alexa Mini !

Thanks for this test, resold on the CN-E's sharpness and lack of onion skinning. A CA test would have been cool; looking at the maglite, though, seems like the CN-E's have more purple fringing. Would also be interesting to compare the CN-E's to the L series, to confirm whether they are simply rehoused or if they may have additional coatings. Maybe you've done that comparison already?

I love your videos Christian ! Keep up the good work ! You deserve so much more followers. ,-)
I have a little question regarding the song between 6min55 and 9min39. Can you tell me please what's the brand/title and where can I buy/find it ? (Shazam doesn't recognize it). Thanks in advance.

liked the video, would love some more analysis from a DP who's worked with them all. Possibly even doing a long form like Media Division. Very interesting to see the differences though. Some very unexpected characteristics from the super speeds

wow thanks, the Rokinons killed it for the price

Great comparison mate. Thanks for taking the time to do this 🙂

Thank you for posting this test. I came here through your link on the FB thread.

питер?

good deal 🏁

The Zeiss definitely looked sharper than the other two to me. I liked the color of the Canon the best, but even though those two things are true it's hard not to pick the Rokinon as the winner just because of price. They really aren't bad looking lenses, albeit a little soft IMO. Still, for three hundred bucks you could leave them in the car in a bad neighborhood and not worry about it.

In my opinion The lens is better which shoots better content nobody focusing on lenses as long as your content is very good

Thanks for this comparison between the 3 families of lenses. Very illustrative and well presented separately and side-by-side. I own the Rokinon Cine Lenses 24mm, 35mm, 50mm, 85mm. I'd have to give the nod to the Canons in these tests. The Zeiss appeared to have more field separation between subject and background. These 1st gen Rokinons look remarkable, stupendous for the money. The bokeh on the Roki's was my favorite actually, uniformly round. I didn't prefer the football shape bokeh on the others. Sharpness on the Roki's is a bit soft wide open, but appears to be quite sharp at 2.8. I've found them to be a little soft throughout, but sharp enough for professional use.

The model is very beautiful, is she ur girl? if yes u better marry her cuz beauty :)

Rock n’ roll with Rockinon 😳😲 Man..., that lens looks awesome for the price!!! THANK you SO MUCH for showing us the magic! Stay well and safe, and keep rocking

I don’t know why I type Rokinon (on Amazon- I’m in Italy) and they give me Samyang. Are they the same people???

I don’t know why I type Rokinon (on Amazon- I’m in Italy) and they give me Samyang. Are they the same people???

The one on the left is definitely the $15,000 lens. The lens still appears sharper, you have a better color balance, and less fringe.

I mean those Rokinons are built like garbage. Go watch Duclos lens guts of him taking one apart. Also just because it has the markings that doesn’t mean they are accurate and were built right. If you ask me it doesn’t make sense to buy those Rokinons. Their qc is garbage and infinity is always off. It’s just people who would rather look cool than to buy a quality product. I’ll take a zf2 before I would a Rokinon. I bought a fisheye Rokinon some years ago for my Sony to use for skateboarding and while the optics are okay it’s just a terribly built lens. Zeiss is built like a tank. There’s no point in buying a Rokinon just because it gives you markings on the side and has .8 gears built in. Tiltas gears are $2 now and they work super good. Zeiss already has a long focus throw and will be smoother than any Rokinon out there. Plus they aren’t made with plastic and they actually have qc. The Rokinons mount may be metal but it’s screwed into plastic and that ain’t going to last very long if you use it a lot. It just makes more sense to cinemod. The cost isn’t that much more than the Rokinons. Remember to invest in glass, not just buy something that looks cool lol. Basically what I’m saying is yes if your Rokinon breaks you could just buy another and be at about the same cost as that canon but the problem is that you are probably 95% going to have to buy another. Just save your money and invest in something worthwhile, those “cine” lenses are built like they’re priced. Don’t be fooled by it looking professional.

thanks for the work you did! I had a little budget when I saw your video I made the decision and I already have the 35mm and 50mm Rokino

I want to shoot a feature film with Red Komodo. Please suggest me the lens for better output. Budget is not a big issue. I want only the best result comparison to CP3 / Ultra prime. Please reply.

I of course have to watch this in 4K to notice all the finer details - but that seems to be what you're paying for with high end lenses. The Rokinons are perfectly serviceable - but wide open, they really lack sharpness and have more chromatic aberration/fringing than the Super Speeds. Also, I never noticed how "dirty" the bokeh are on the Rokinons before, compared to the smoother bokeh of the other two. And the Super Speeds have some kind of magic pixie dust to them that makes the image look brighter, more silvery, and renders highlights a little differently. I can see why someone would want to rent these higher-end lenses. As a filmmaker on a budget, I am of course going to stick to my Rokinons until I can afford to hire something nicer. This is a great comparison for all of us who can't afford to get hands-on with these lenses!

Well done but i'd like also to be compared to the Zeiss Milvus superspeed f1.4

Good info

I'm guessing lens A is the Zeiss... only because of the onion skinning in the lens B bokeh. Great tests thank you! Its funny how they looks so similar but they don't feel the same. The Zeiss has the best depth rendering IMO.

Watching again 😉

What bothers me is the soft focus. I haven`t found a good budget friendly sharp lens for my BMCC4k, they all seem soft

Looks like if you did a slite dehazing on the rokinon then add a lil more contrast you'd get it to look like the $15,000 lens in the A/B/C side by side. If I had the both I would definitely try this in post. But then I guess you'd have to add back the color temp seeing how the colors are already damn near the same. But I wonder..? To me it seems the Canon is in 3rd place while the zeiss take lead (of course) and the Rokinon to my surprise is in 2nd.

Wow, what a great shootout. It’s interesting/weird to me that the similar FL lenses still showed different DoF at the same T stop (say with the 50mms when you were at 2.8). The Zeiss example had the models face a bit further back, but the Canon vs the Rokinon was striking.

I ended up going with a full set of Meikes for my Sony A6600. Have only shot the 35mm at any length thus far, but I dig it a lot.

I see here in the comments that the model is your fiancé. You are a lucky man — she’s beautiful and her smile, combined with the shape of her eyes, is bewitching.

You really do pay for what you get...

Looked to me like the Canon lenses had the most consistent performance. They weren't always the best, but even in tests where they weren't, they were always very close to it. The Rokinon lenses were the worst in just about every test, but definitely not 10 to 50x worse. In fact, in a few of the tests, I dare say they even a little better than the others-- or at the very least, comparable.

To me the clear winner is the Zeiss. However, there is a small difference to the Canon primes - and more of a gap between Canon/Zeiss to the Rokinon. If you consider the price relation, the Rokinon is the winner ... especially good enough when filming a breathtaking story.

The arri just makes even low budget lenses look good

The 35 and 50 Samyang/Rokinon are amazing for the price, but once you slip out of those into other focal lengths they fall apart especially all the lenses wider than 35 unfortunately. Personally better off renting higher end lenses if you're shooting a short or need consistent quality across the focal lengths. I still keep my Rokinon 50mm because it's great.

Just picked up 4 of the Roki Cine DSX, on sale!!! Thanks for showing the incredible value these lenses offer for us poors lol

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Considering that all the people who spend time watching Netflix series, on a laptop, a tablet and sometime a phone, will look for sharpness, highlight roll off, contrast and will not even pay attention to the story, I will always go for the most expensive Cooke lenses I can't afford. Seriously, even though the Rokinon are as good as the other lenses, if the story is decent and original, with amazing acting with great lighting, the Rokinon is all what you need.

Definitely getting something special out of the Zeiss. Not sure if it makes them worth 500x more, but if money is no object they are absolutely the right choice for cinema work. With that said, in the real world there’s no reason not to go with a Rokinon.

Let us know which Lens is which in the Blind Test! Will post the answer in a few days.