Howy you again everyone and today I'm Checking out one of a couple of new Lenses from Chinese manufacturer sirui Their 16 mm night Walker T 1.2 it's part Of a set of affordable cine lenses with Affordable prices three of which are Reviewed already the 24 mm 35 and 55 mm Lenses this new much wider angle 16 mm Lens officially costs £379 here in the UK or $400 or as a set with a new 75 mm lens Which I'll be testing out very soon Which gives you a free carry case they Come in gunmetal gray or this black Color they are currently available for Sony e-mount Canon RF Fiji X micro 4/3 Or L Mount mirrorless cameras they are Completely manual lenses they are not Anamorphic cleansers and they offer an Apsc or super 35 crop image Circle Here's the coverage if you shoot this 16 Mm lens on full frame I'd like to thank Siri very much for sending me this lens For testing although as usual this is a Totally independent review 16 mm on a Crop sensor camera is the full frame Equivalent of about 24 mm a quite Strongly wide angle although not Ultra Wide angle still very useful in fact I Love the touch of drama this very wide Angle offers you what's really Impressive is its brightness of T 1.2 Which is probably about f1.1 or 1.2 not Only does this let in plenty of light
For thirsty camera sensors which is Especially important for video work it's Getting you an impressively out of Focused background for such a wide-angle Image too as you can see the build Quality of the lens is really quite nice Metallic and at a little over 500 G not Especially heavy its physical dimensions Share a lot in common with its 20 4 35 And 55 mm Brothers in order to make the Set of three easily interchangeable on Whatever follow Focus system you might Have although the 16 and 75 mm lenses Are just a few millim bigger than the Others the lens is based on a metal Mount but without any noticeable weather Ceiling then there comes a geared Aperture ring it juts out quite close to The camera mount so if you're using a Very small camera you might have a Little trouble fitting it onto a tri OD Plate without some kind of adapter the Aperture ring turns smoothly and lightly But the aperture points are not spaced Out evenly so for example trying to Change between f11 and F16 is really Fiddly to do ahead of that comes the Geared manual focus ring it turns a Generous 270° so it has plenty of precision to it And it's been designed so you can see The focus distance marked on either side Of the lens but not on top that that Focus ring turns smoothly and evenly and
Quite lightly without any damping it has Hard stops at either end which makes a Pretty noisy tapping sound when you hit Them some damping there to stop that Noise while shooting would have been Beneficial Focus breathing on the 16 mm Lens as you can see here is nicely under Control this is about as good a Performance as you're going to get Apologies for the dirty camera sensor by The way each of these civy night walker Lenses has a 67 mm filter thread that Thread is surrounded by a thick Protective lip on the front edge which Can make it slightly tricky to remove Thinner filters the lens does not come With a hood and is not image stabilized Overall while a more expensive cine lens Will handle a little better for example An evenly spaced aperture ring and Slightly better damping on the focus Ring still the build quality of this Sirui lens is fine for the money you're Paying it feels toughly made and it Certainly looks pretty good Aesthetically okay let's move on and Look at image quality I'll be testing it Today on a Sony a5100 camera with its 24 Map apsc sized sensor no end camera Corrections are available with this lens At T 1.2 image quality in the middle of The frame is surprisingly good there's a Load of sharpness and contrast here with Only a light touch of color finging
Which goes away as soon as you stop down To T too let's look over in the corners They're looking all right actually There's a decent amount of sharpness and Contrast there too although contrasting Edges do see a touch of ghosting and Those Corners are looking a little dark From vignetting at T 1.4 they're perhaps Just a little brighter at T2 they're Looking brighter and sharper again and At t2.8 they're basically perfect nice The lens Tays this sharp down to T8 Although due to defraction T 11 and t16 Look softer still this is a great little Performance T 1.2 really is a very Bright aperture for such a wide angle Lens even if it is just for apsc cameras So the fact that we are being offered Such sharp image quality is a huge Advantage and this lens is more than Sharp enough for Stills photography or For 4K video work all right let's take a Look at Distortion and vignetting and There's more good news here the lens je No real Distortion here and while the Corners are noticeably dark at T 1.2 I Was expecting vignetting to be much Worse th this sto down to T2 and that Vignetting quickly goes away so that's Really an excellent performance the lens Can focus down to 30 cm so that's a Little further than average even for a Wide angle optic here we're exposed to a Clear weakness at closer distances the
Lens's contrast bottoms out leaving us With a very ghostly image stop down to T2 for an improvement and at t2.8 we get A sharp image now so you definitely will Want to stop down a bit when shooting Close up now let's see how the lens Works against bright light it's a Slightly below average performance here As the lens produces quite a lot of Broad flaring but the good news is that It isn't too opaque let's take a look at The quality of this lens's bker which is Rather distinctive in this case at T1 to You can get some surprisingly Autofocused backgrounds here it's a very Artistic fact as you can see here Difficult backgrounds can look a little Busy with a little outlining on specular Highlights although it's nothing totally Disastrous more deeply autofocused Backgrounds look very pleasing although Highlights can have a bit of an onion Pattern within a sub structure still Nothing offensive going on here and Related to Baka comes longitudinal Chromatic aberration at T 1.2 the Ghostly close-up image quality makes it Hard to see well just about anything Really at T2 contrast returns and some Visible color fringing on bcka Highlights is visible at t2.8 it's still There but at T4 it's mostly gone overall Well when I tested sir's 24 35 and 55 mm Night walker lenses their image quality
Was a mixed bag from being good to just Mediocre well civui seemed to have put Extra work into this 16 mm lens because Optically it's a cut above the others Offering very good sharpness and Contrast straight from T 1.2 as well as Low Distortion and vignetting all very Important for getting clean usable 4K Video footage and even 24 mapix still Pictures from very bright apertures it's Not a Flawless lens by any means some People might find its bcka a little edgy And its flaring is a little strong and Close-up image quality a little soft Still for $400 you're actually getting Very good value out of this thing Especially considering that super bright Aperture it offers a lot of creative Opportunities for those happy to focus Manually so it definitely comes Recommended thanks for watching everyone If you find these videos helpful and Find yourself watching them often then As usual patreon links in the Description below where subscribers get Extra bonus content plus a warm Happy Feeling deep inside them for helping to Keep this channel Trucking on ciao for Now everyone
