Rokinon 85M-N 85mm F1.4 Aspherical Lens for Nikon (Black)

by Rokinon

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 3.5 x 3 x 3 inches ; 1 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0025EX3XK
• Item model number: 85M-N
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (94 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: April 4, 2009

Product Description

Style: Nikon DSLR

From the Manufacturer

The Rokinon 85mm F1.4 Aspherical Lens is razor sharp and crystal clear for photo and video.  It is widely used as a portrait lens to shoot ultra-bright & vivid portrait pictures.  Rokinon’s 85mm lens stacks up extremely well against the Canon EF 85mm f/1.2 and against the Nikon 85mm f/1.4.  It is also the least expensive lens of its kind in the market!  The lens is manual focus and the aperture needs to be controlled directly from the lens, but at a cost of less than $300, how can you go wrong? 

The Rokinon 85mm lens is made with mostly glass and aluminum components and the build quality is superb.   Its focusing is silky smooth with an internal focusing (IF) mechanism so that the physical size remains constant during focusing.  There are little or no chromatic aberrations and Bokeh is just about perfect.  The lens comes complete with a removable lens hood, lens caps, lens pouch, instruction manual and one year warranty.   The lens is available in the following mounts:  Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Sony & Olympus 4/3.  There is also a slightly more expensive version (Model # 85MAF-N) for Nikon that features a built-in focus confirm chip.  
See the uploaded video that was taken with this lens.  Below are detailed specifications and some sample photos taken with this lens.

ROKINON 85mm F/1.4 Aspherical Lens
Aperture Range:	F1.4 ~ 16
Optical Construction:	9 Elements in 7 Groups
Min. Focusing Distance:	3.3ft (1.0m)
Focus Type:	Manual
Filter Size:	72mm
Mounts Available:	Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Sony, Olympus
Angle of View:	28.3 Degrees
Weight:	1.4 lbs (20 oz.)

Sample Photos

 
     
             

Product Description

The Rokinon 85mm f/1.4 Manual Focus Lens for Nikon is an ultra-bright lens with a maximum aperture of f/1.4. Although you can only use this lens in manual focus mode, it is fully compatible with the automated features available with digital SLR cameras. It is compact and lightweight, and offers the ideal focal length and bright aperture for use as a portrait lens.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Would be a bargain at twice the price, September 29, 2009

By 

E. J Tastad "ejt" (Marion, IA United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Rokinon 85M-P 85mm F1.4 Aspherical Lens for Pentax (Black) (Electronics)

Pros:
Image quality from wide open
Bokeh
Handling
Construction quality
Value
Video use

Cons:
Image quality doesn't improve a lot stopping down the aperture
Included 72mm lens cap is junk
Hood not positive feeling
Focusing at 85mm f/1.4 is difficult
About 1/3rd stop darker than my other 85mm lenses

Bottom Line:
Buy this lens now if you want a superb manual focus long portrait lens of modern design and don't want to empty your pocket book. It performs like a name brand 85mm f/1.4 at a fraction the price. You must be proficient with manual focus to use this lens at f/1.4 (or be willing to learn).

Review:
The lens produces nice usable portraits from wide open. There is a pleasing softness too it, but the eyes appear nice and sharp and the bokeh transitions are smooth. Specular highlights in the bokeh are smooth and fairly uniform with minimal rings or donuts. The modern aspherical lens design takes care of most spherical aberration. I bought this lens solely for f/1.4-f/5.6 usage. If I want to use the f/4+ range I will use my f/4 zoom, so wide open performance of the 85mm was critical too me, otherwise it added nothing over my slower zoom. I would not be afraid to use this lens at f/1.4 for portraits.

Wide open it does show a small amount of purple fringing around very high contrast subjects, but it almost has to be blown out next to a darker object for it to be noticeable. The lens also has your typical green/red chromatic aberrations (CA) visible in the bokeh, which I think is longitudinal CA. This is actually fairly typical of large aperture lenses, even good lenses. It is generally not intrusive. The lens is also a tad darker than my other 85mm lenses, maybe 1/3rd f/stop.

Focus is critical at 85mm f/1.4 as the depth of field is shallow, and most dSLR focus screens are designed to focus for f/4. I think the one in my K-7 is a bit better but still doesn't show the true DOF at f/1.4, so it is impossible to focus totally precisely less than f/2 or so, but with practice you can get really close. Also, for slower subjects live view is useful. The focus feel of the lens is excellent with a heavily weighted focus ring that feels high quality.

Lens construction is equivalent to any Canon L lens or Pentax DA*. It is a metal body at the base with a quality feeling plastic focus ring/upper body (this feels like the Plastic in DA* or Canon L lenses). The only part that feels cheap is the rear lens cap, the front lens cap, and the hood. At least they only cut costs with the non-critical items.

This will make an excellent manual focus video lens too, because of the pleasing bokeh wide open and the shallow depth of field. This is one of the reasons I wanted the good bokeh wide open.

Overall, this is a great lens for a superb price. The maker is Samyang, but it is sold under the Vivitar, Opteka, Bower, Rokinon, Polar, and other names. Image quality is supposedly the same between any make, but accessories might differ depending on what the brand wants to include with the lens. The Vivitar Series 1 lens has a slightly different look to it.

45 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rokinon, Samyang, Vivitar, Opteka, etc., June 21, 2009

By 

Cottage Photography (NJ) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Rokinon 85M-N 85mm F1.4 Aspherical Lens for Nikon (Black) (Electronics)

I have the Rokinon version of this lens. It is great! I use it on a Nikon D700 and have compared it with the Nikon AF 85mm f/1.4 (which I had rented for a weekend to test) and I much prefer this lens to the Nikon.

When I used the Nikon AF version, I found myself having to manually focus to get the plane of focus just where I wanted it and so decided I really didn't need to pay extra (almost a $1k more) for the AF feature. So the only thing that would make sense for paying more was if the Nikon's Image Quality was significantly better... it wasn't. In fact, at f/1.4 (which is where you will be shooting this lens 99% of the time, else why buy an f/1.4 lens) I found the Rokinon/Opteka to be sharper and have more contrast than the Nikon.

There are a lot of reviews to be found on the inter-net for this lens. Some express concern for obtaining a good "copy". I am sure this lens is not as consistent in its build quality as Nikon is, but I got lucky right out of the chute with my first one. It is amazingly sharp, mechanically sound, and the IQ is just what I needed it to be (bokeh is wonderful).

Bought mine through Amazon from Cameta Camera. Great store with quality customer service.

For the price, you really can't go wrong.

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A hidden gem - awesome lens., April 13, 2010

By 

J. Smith - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Rokinon 85M-N 85mm F1.4 Aspherical Lens for Nikon (Black) (Electronics)

I had really never heard of this company or their lens until I happened upon a few web threads from various forums, specifically fredmiranda and dpreview.

After seeing some amazing images posted from owners of pretty much every camera brand and seeing great bokeh and sharpness comparison shots, I knew I had to get one.

Just got it today (April 13) and it's awesome, awesome, awesome, especially given the price.
I'm using my lens on a D700.

----

OPTICS - Outstanding. Seriously. I started shooting this thing wide open at f/1.4 and it's just great. Before this lens, one of my more enjoyable lenses was the outstanding Nikon 105mm f/2.5 AI-S. I think this lens, though, beats it. It's a more comfortable length for me, and the build quality is pretty high - and the bokeh is just amazing.

Did I say amazing? How about just delicious. Creamy, smooth, great transitions from focus to unfocused areas. It's great after some initial testing and already I have a shot of my young daughter that is frame-worthy (straight from the D700 using RAW and "normal" profile).


BUILD QUALITY - Well, you don't get something for nothing, but you can come very close with this lens. It looks like it's a combination of heavy plastic and metal. The focus ring is of adequate size and mine has absolutely no play in it - damping is pretty good. And hurray for Nikon, Rokinon made the lens focus the "right" way, so that AF confirmation in your camera is going to match which way you actually need to turn the lens.

The lens hood is probably the weakest part - it's pretty flimsy, cheap, falls off too easy and is hard to line up to reverse for storage. But hey, this thing is dirt cheap and gives amazing, inspiring results. A Sigma-type lens cap (pinch on edges, not center) and cheesy felt carrying bag round out the deal. I also don't like how thin the aperture ring is, but I don't plan on stopping down all that often, so it's of no concern and I think I'll get used to it (I'm used to my 105 AIS).


If you have a Nikon body that will meter with AIS lenses (D300, D700 and up, maybe D200?), this lens deserves your attention. Don't be afraid of MF - it's not as easy as autofocus, but with practice it becomes pretty darn easy, especially with the AF confirmation and having a large viewfinder with D700+ camera models. Awesome lens.

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