Right on April 1 (what a day to announce a new product) Rokinon released a new 100mm f/2.8 macro Micro Four Thirds lens. You can already preorder it at BHphoto (Click here).
Here comes the full official presentation text:
Home in on close-up subjects with the Micro Four Thirds mount 100mm f/2.8 Macro Lens from Rokinon, which affords life-size 1:1 magnification along with a minimum focusing distance of 1′. This manual focus portrait-length lens also incorporates one high refractive index element and one extra-low dispersion element into its design to reduce chromatic aberrations and distortions throughout the focusing range. An Ultra Multi-Coating has also been applied to minimize flare and ghosting for increase contrast and color neutrality. A long focal length lens with close focusing abilities and a high magnification ratio, this macro lens is ideal for making close-up, detailed images of nearby subjects.
- This 100mm f/2.8 lens features a Micro Four Thirds mount, and is compatible with Micro Four Thirds sensors where it will provide a 200mm equivalent focal length.
- A bright f/2.8 maximum aperture is useful for working in a variety of lighting conditions and the minimum f/32 aperture helps to attain a long depth of field when working with close-up subjects.
- One high refractive index element and one extra-low dispersion element help to control chromatic aberrations and minimize distortions throughout the focusing and aperture ranges.
- An Ultra Multi-Coating has been applied to lens elements to reduce lens flare and ghosting for increased clarity, contrast, and color fidelity.
- Featuring a macro design, this lens affords a 1:1 maximum magnification ratio along with a minimum focusing distance of 1′.
- Benefitting working with especially close subjects, this manual focus lens features an internal focus design to maintain the overall lens length during use. Additionally, the front filter mount does not rotate when focusing to better enable the use of polarizers, graduated ND, and other filter types that require precise positioning.
- A rounded nine-blade diaphragm contributes to a pleasing out-of-focus quality when using selective focus or shallow depth of field techniques.
More info and preorders at BHphoto (Click here).
39 Responses
770 gr, 🙁 keep it Samyang
Wow, that weight can’t be right, surely? That’s a lot more than a Sigma 105mm f/2.8 macro and that’s not a light lens!
I have Sigma 150 Macro which is FF 150mm 2.8 1:1 macro and not extend – and weighs only 800g 🙂 ddid I mention that it has af :))) LoL
770g. Whoaaa…that’s nuts! CAN’T be right. Can it? The OLY 60mm Macro is only 185g. WTF?
I have to correct my statement according to B&H its 725gr fpr MFT which is still too much
Yeah, no kidding.
My Nikon Micro-Nikkor 105mm f2.8 AI-S macro lens only weighs 515g (plus whatever the lens adaptor weighs). I wonder if this Rokinon is better?
The difference between 60 and 100 is quite big: if you downscale this 100/2.8 you get weight of 770*(60/100)^3 = 166 grams
770gr? X_X
“This means it’s not an unnecessarly extra bulky heavy DSLR lens adapted for MFT!”
Riiiiight: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1132702-REG/rokinon_100m_n_100mm_f2_8_full_frame.html
The fact that it goes to f/32 suggests that it’s designed for bigger sensors than m43. It might give good dof but it’ll be soft as sh*t.
never mind, you’re right, ha.
No the image clearly shows 32.
Yeah I edited before I saw you reply. Sorry about that.
Not that it makes a difference but I’m not sure that’s a real image of the product anyhow. The perspective on some of that text looks off.
ahahaha, admin is high? 🙂 the bulky design of course, like you already know, it is directly proportional with sensor dimensions, isn’t it? so what if A7 is mirrorless? 🙂
A nice compact lens that you can just shove into your skinny jeans pocket and forget its there.
That’s nice, but you can have an autofocus Tamron 90mm F2.8, which has very good reviews and is cheaper.
Except that autofocus doesn’t work with adapted lenses on M4/3 bodies.
This is the problem with the Samyang on m4/3. Other adapted lenses might lack AF which is not that useful in a macro lens, and auto-stop down, which is very useful in a macro lens. But neither does the Samyang have either of these features. So an adapted 100ish macro lens with an aperture ring will for all intents and purposes be just as good and useful as the Samyang, and probably cheaper.
This is what I’m baffled about. Most other Samyang lenses tend to be cheaper, sharper, faster, or have a different focal length than other options, which are what sells Samyang lenses. But none of that is true with this type of lens and it’s feature set.
LOL, nice April Fools joke. There is no way a lens at this focal length for M4/3 with only a 2.8 aperture could be this large. This is more like a Fool Frame lens!
Also, I like how the “ROKINON” is poorly shopped onto the lens hood in the second image. At least TRY to disguise your April Fools jokes as real!
Also poorly ‘shopped on to the body in the upright photo. The lens curves back into the distance, but the logo magically avoids perspective warping or lighting changes like the markings on the other side.
at 100 mm physical FL, the size difference between FF and 43 lens is minuscule
Hehe, looks like B&H and Samyang pulled a prank on rumor sites 🙂
No, it is a dslr lens, not a mirrorless lens like the awesome ultra wide 12mm F2.0. You will get an empty tube attached to the lens if you buy the m43 version. M43 is doomed again.
Get it with a Nikon F mount for maximum flexibility.
Swap adaptors for different systems and mounts.
Yep. Or add a cheap focal reducer (Canon EF or FD) and have yourself a 70mm f/2 lens (that’s probably cuttingly sharp) for free.
focal reducer with a macro lens??
You’re right, with a macro lens, a focal reducer will also reduce the maximum magnification. So it doesn’t make the same sense it would make with an ordinary lens.
I can’t see a single reason why not. You don’t only need to use macro lenses for macro, you know. A 70/f2 is a nice portrait option.
Its not a DSLR lens actually. It was designed for Sony FE full frame mount and so you have no option but to buy the m43 mount version if you want this lens as there is no DSLR version available.
I’d be interested in their sales numbers. Obviously, by offering different mounts for the same lens they reduce R&D costs but FF lens stuck on a M43 camera just feels wrong. 12mm F2, that’s something I’m willing to tolerate because it was designed for short flange distance and even though it’s not totally native, at least we get the low-distortion centre part of the image circle. Maybe it would be a viable strategy to offer FF and mirrorless APS-C lenses (but also with M43 mount).
Ha, I love the depth of field scale on the lens! It looks extremely helpful!
An application of Olympus AIR from the Japanese DC WATCH
http://dc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/review/labo/20150402_695796.html
Looks pretty interesting but I think in the West, the photographer would have been gunned down as a terrorist…
Relevance to the Rokinon 100mm Macro lens? Zero.
Yeah, it’s not relevant actually but just want t oshare it.
Just like most of the lenses produces by Samyang, I would have pay extra money for autofocus, and even more if it was m43 native glass. I would have paid 900$ without any hesitation.
I don’t think this is quite the bargain other Samyang lenses are. There are a lot of 100ish macro lenses about, both modern and legacy lenses. Generally all are good performers, some are quite compact and light, and a lot aren’t too expensive. Auto stop down is very useful for handheld macro shooting where you maybe using quite a small aperture, and flash. Whilst most don’t have it, the option of a tripod collar is useful in a lens like this when using on a tripod. This is not so much for balance, but because it makes it far easier to align the orientation of the lens. If you use the side to side tilt on a tripod it seriously alters the framing, and you will have to physically move the tripod as well.
If Samyang wanted to produce a 100mm macro lens they should have given it features other macro lenses don’t have like greater than 1:1 focusing, a tripod collar etc. It’s difficult to see what attraction this lens will have to macro shooters. There will be cheaper options such as used legacy lenses, which can be used on m4/3, and being manual stop down the Samyang has no advantages over them. Regardless of how stellar the image quality is, it won’t make much difference with most macro lenses producing fairly similar performance at diffraction limited typical macro apertures.
Most of the other Samyang lenses have had clear advantages over other options. Much cheaper, better image quality, unusual focal length or aperture. Whereas this lens is going to have a lot of competition, which maybe cheaper, with no clear advantage to the Samyang. In fact the Samyang may have less desirable features compared to competition not so different in price. This is particularly true in other fits, where people are going to have the options of quite reasonably priced Tamrons, Sigmas, Tokinas etc, plus AF and auto stop down.
My advice to Samyang if I’d known they were going to produce a macro lens, would be to either produce a long macro lens in the 150mm-200mm+ range, with a rotating tripod collar, or a shorter focal length macro lens, which went to at least 2:1. By choosing the crowded 100ish 1:1 market, they are going to struggle to sell a lot of these lenses.
I will never understand why companies announce products on the internet on April 1st, particularly if it’s just a Wednesday or some other midweek day.
A somewhat-less-common-focal-length macro lens isn’t much of a prank, so this particular example isn’t so bad, but when you’re announcing something like Amazon’s wacky “push this button to buy laundry detergent” product from yesterday, or back when Google announced the original Gmail with it’s then-seemingly-staggering 1GB of storage on April 1st 2004, it just makes no sense. Why announce a big product that you then have to explain to people is serious and not a hoax?
Isn’t it kind of expensive compared to Oly 60/2.8, which has AF and weather-sealing (and much much smaller and lighter)? And given that the 60mm is much shorter, even the working distance is going to be about the same.
That lens is something owners of FF cameras have to suffer, not for m43.