Rokinon 135mm F2.0 Telephoto Lens for Nikon with Chip

I like to shoot portraits and 135mm on full frame sensors is my most favorite focal length; this lens is the first native 135mm for the Sony E-mount. I already have the Rokinon (aka Samyang) 85mm f/1.4 and I love it, so as soon as this lens became available I decided to make an order. I just received mine today and did some quick test shots and can confirm that the 135mm f/2 by Rokinon is incredibly sharp even wide open. To me, the 100% crops are jaw dropping. The bokeh is also creamy and gorgeous. As you know, this is a manual focus lens but focus peaking on the Sony a7 series cameras makes focusing very easy. What also helps is that the focus throw of this lens is long unlike some other lenses. The build quality is good (seems like the exterior is made of high quality plastics) but I don't think it is weather sealed (Rokinon did not make that claim as far as I know). Overall, I am very satisfied. I will try to update this review when I spend more time with this baby.UPDATE 1 (04 March 2015): After taking more shots with this lens I can still confirm that it is tack sharp. It is not Zeiss APO sharp corner-to-corner but still, you are getting A LOT of bang for the buck. I took shots of stationary birds at f/2.0 using this lens on an A7ii and the feathers of the birds were still clearly visible and sharp after heavy cropping. The colors that this lens renders are good but I won't call them great compared to the more expensive primes by Zeiss (could be the coatings); I find myself always increasing the saturation in Lightroom for more pop. When shooting wide open, I did notice dark vignetting at the corners but that is easily corrected in post processing and it is something that you can find in much more expensive lenses. This does not bother me at all. So far, I did not notice fringing or chromatic aberration which, in comparison, is something you will notice right away if you are using the Sony Zeiss 135mm/1.8 made for the Alpha mount (which sells for three times the price of this lens). Again, I've had the Rokinon 135mm lens for less than 3 weeks but I just wanted to provide a quick update of my experience with it after using it for taking more than 200 shots. Considering the price and the performance, I still think that this lens is worth my five stars rating. If it was selling for double that price I might have just docked one point and gave it 4 out of 5 for the vignetting, colors (kinda!), and lack of weather sealing.UPDATE 2 (02 January /2016): This is actually my third update but, for some reason, Amazon never published my second one which I tried to post some months ago. Anyways! I am happy to report that after using this lens for more than 1000 shots, I still find it an absolute gem. I am a 135mm fanatic and this lens does not disappoint at all. Wherever I go, I make sure that it is in my camera bag; always picking it over the more versatile and much more expensive 70-200. The quality of the bokeh and subject separation are just incredible and the sharpness wide-open leaves nothing to be desired. After using it extensively, I found that its main weakness is that the contrast drops when you focus on far bright subjects close to infinity (i.e. the sky). For portraits though, I still find this lens to be unbeatable unless if you are willing to pay four times the price to get the Zeiss 135mm APO (as I said above). In the past, many people slammed rokinon/samyang for low quality control, but so far, I had no issues whatsoever with this lens. The focus ring is still buttery smooth and the quality of the photos I get from this lens is consistent. I attached few of the shots I took with this lens, all at f/2.

Purchased mainly for astrophotography but the lens is so fast and sharp, I find it on my camera (Nikon Z8) more than I thought I would. THIS IS A MANUAL FOCUS ONLY LENS. I got my first SLR (Minolta X700) in 1983, so manual focus lenses are what I cut my teeth on and I still enjoy shooting with them for landscape, astro and portrait. Vignetting at f/2 is significant at 2.5 - 3 stops on a full frame sensor, but if you stop down to f/2.8 it improves to 1.2 - 1.4 stops. Chromatic aberration is well controlled on this lens and it is sharp from edge to edge. Bokeh is pleasing, especially for portrait work. The lens housing is aluminum and feels rock solid. At 135mm f/2, it is not a light lens, but I don't feel the weight is obtrusive. Focus ring is smooth and not too soft or too stiff. I paid $392 for my copy and overall feel it was an outstanding value for the price.

This lens is a work of art. I have a lot of expensive Leica lenses and this thing is just as sharp and it renders bokeh just as beautifully. I have a few Micro4/3 cameras like the GH4 and the Olympus E-P5. I purposely purchased the Nikon mount version because I wanted to use it with the Metabones Speed Booster.Like many other reviews, I was blown away by the quality of this lens. I showed it to my photographer friends and they were amazed. My other friend bought one the same day after seeing mine.I recently picked up the Rokinon 85mm F1.4, but I wasn't impressed with it. I'm going to send it back. It is nothing like this lens. It was not sharp wide open and the bokeh was "rough".This 135mm F2.0 combined with my Metabones Speed Booster gives me a 35mm equivalent of a 96mm F1.4 lens (192mm F2.8 taking the 2x crop factor into account.) I can finally get that full-frame looking depth of field with this micro-four-thirds system.This lens can obliterate out of focus areas...and it does it so smoothly. Buttery bokeh. Even without the Speed Booster, it still looks great. A bit sharper and smoother bokeh actually since it doesn't have the additional lens element. It's just harder to use because it acts like a 270mm F4 on a full frame camera. In-body stabilization on the Olympuse E-P5 helps a ton though.I included some photos. Sorry, mostly vape-related because I do product photography for some companies. Hopefully you get the idea what this lens can do on a Micro43 system.

Bought this (Nikon F mounting version) for using for deep sky astrophotography in conjunction with a ZWO ASI1600MM camera. That required an adapter, which I also purchased off of Amazon (search for: Camera Lens Adapter for F Lens to M48 Male Thread Adapter Astronomical Camera 294 533 2600), which was another $64 bucks, but for the money, this should make a wonderful addition to my scopes and be a GREAT RIG for astrophotography! You just can't beat it for the price of admission. I'm very happy with it! Will post a photo or 2 once I get it all set up; mounted in some 3D printed stuff I purchased off Etsy that's designed for use with the Rokinon and with astrophotography in mind. Looking forward to getting it all set up and under some clear night skies!