Samyang Announces Four New XEEN Cinema Lenses
South Korean Samyang Optics is celebrating 50 years of activity. While Samyang glass is used by a myriad of other brands and their designs are sold in North and South America under the Rokinon brand, that hasn’t stopped them from crafting their own lenses. With today’s announcement, Samyang adds three T1.3 Meister primes and a single T2.3 2x anamorphic lens.
XEEN Anamorphic & XEEN Meister lenses will be unveiled to the world for the first time at the Micro Salon AIC Rome, Italy (Nov. 26~28) and Micro Salon AEC Madrid, Spain (Dec. 10~11).
The three XEEN Meister primes are designed for cameras with up to 8K resolution and feature Samyang’s proprietary X-coating technology. The lenses are color-matched across the entire Meister range and all offer the same T1.3 apertures with a 13-blade aperture diaphragm. Each of the lenses also has a 300º rotation angle for the geared focus ring, a 92º rotation for the aperture ring, a 114mm front filter thread, and measure 127mm in diameter so filters, follow focus systems, and other accessories work across the entire lineup.
The lenses are available for Canon EF, PL, and Sony E mount camera systems. The PL mount versions include the I Technology protocol for recording lens metadata, including focal length, aperture, and focus distance.
Samyang did unofficially announce that they were working on an anamorphic lens series quite a few years ago, and now it is finally here, the first lens in the series is a 50mm T2.3 2x.
As with its Meister companions, the 50mm T2.3 2x anamorphic lens is constructed of carbon fiber and metal. It also offers the same 114mm front filter thread, is 128mm in diameter, and uses the same 300º rotation angle for the focus ring. The aperture ring, however, is just 89.5º, 2.5º shorter than the primes, which have a faster maximum aperture. After the footage has been de-squeezed, the PL-mount XEEN Anamorphic lens covers 2.55:1 CinemaScope format. Other features include a 15-blade aperture diaphragm, luminescent paint markers for aperture and focus, and a minimum focusing distance of one meter.
There is no indication of pricing or availability for any of the lenses at the moment.
More info on Samyang’s website.
