Howdy again everyone and today I'm Checking out the third in a new set of Lenses from Chinese manufacturer Siri The 55 millimeter nightwalker T 1.2 it's Part of a set of new affordable cine Lenses with affordable prices which Costs 340 pounds in the UK or 350 in the US or the set of three is a thousand Dollars they come in black or this Handsome gunmetal gray color they are Currently available for Sony e-mount Canon RF vgx and micro four thirds Cameras they are completely manual Lenses they are not anamorphic lenses And they offer an aps-c or super 35 Cropped image Circle here is the Coverage if you shoot the 55 millimeter Lens on full frame I'd like to thank Siri very much for sending me a set of These lenses for testing although as Usual this is a totally independent Review and this particular lens is 55 Millimeter on a crop camera that's the Full frame equivalent of about 83 Millimeter a short to telephoto field of View useful for getting a stronger Emphasis on your subject but not so Telephoto that your background is Totally eliminated that's a great focal Length for dramatic effect especially if You're up for the challenge of manually Focusing when zoomed in that far because When shooting at T 1.2 not only does the Lens let in plenty of light for your
Camera sensor it's getting you very out Of focus backgrounds too as you can see A very Nano depth of field which looks Gorgeous but is a little tricky to Handle with manual focus the build Quality of the lens is really quite Solid metallic and at about 500 grams Not heavy its physical dimensions share A lot in common with its 24 millimeter And 35 millimeter Brothers in order to Make the set of three easily changeable The lens is based on a metal Mount but Without any noticeable weather sealing Then there comes a gear that aperturing It juts out from the camera mount quite Early so if you're using a very small Camera you might have a little trouble Fitting it onto a tripod plate without Some kind of adapter that aperture ring Turns smoothly and lightly but the Aperture points are not spaced out Evenly so for example trying to change Between T8 and t11 will be very fiddly To do ahead of that comes the geared Manual focus ring it turns a generous 270 degrees so it has plenty of Precision and it's been designed so you Can see the focus distance marked on Either side of the lens but not on top That Focus ring turns smoothly and Evenly and quite lightly without any Damping it has hard stops at either end Which make it 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 55 millimeter lens as You can see here is there and noticeably Stronger than on the 24 and 35 Millimeter lenses it's not terrible but Still undesirable on a semi lens each of These lenses has a 67 millimeter 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 does not image Stabilized overall while a more Expensive cine lens will handle a little Better for example an evenly spaced Aperture ring and better damping on a Focus ring still the build quality of This ceremy optic is fine for the money You're paying here it feels toughly made And it certainly looks pretty good Aesthetically Okay well let's move on and look at Image quality I'll be testing it today On a Sony a5100 camera with its 24 Megapixel aps-c sized sensor no and Camera Corrections are available with This lens at T 1.2 image quality is a Bit soft with low contrast As you move Outward through the image frame Sharpness stays about the same but right In the very edges it's very soft at T 1.4 the corners look about the same but There's a touch of extra contrast back
In the middle T2 looks lovely and sharp With good contrast although we're also Seeing some magenta color fringing stop Down to T 2.8 and image quality looks Fantastic in the middle now the corners Are still looking pretty poor though Stop down to T4 however and sharpness Becomes fairly good in the corners stop Down to T 5.6 or T8 and they become Brilliant stop all the way down to t16 And the image gets a lot softer due to Diffraction so it's not a great Performance here overall the lens needs Topping down for good sharpness Especially in the corners it'll still be Good enough for 1080p video and just About okay for 4K though let's take a Look at Distortion and vignetting the Lens project moderate pin cushion Distortion vignetting is notable at T 1.2 but not strong stop down to T2 and The corners brighten up really nicely The lenses minimum Focus distance is 60 Centimeters not bad unfortunately Close-up image quality is dreadfully Poor for this lens and at T 1.2 your Image is very soft at T 1.4 there's a Small Improvement here's T2 and even T 2.8 is still a little soft only ht4 do We see some decent sharpness although It's accompanied by a touch of magenta Fringing on contrasting edges so this Lens is not optimized for close-up Shooting let's see how the lens copes
With bright light now we see some very Broad transparent flaring with a few Strong spots at T 1.2 stop down to T2 And contrast increases but the worst of The flaring remains while we're working In the dark let's take a look at coma Levels coma is present on right points Of light in image corners but worse is The huge amount of false color fringing T2 looks only slightly better at T 2.8 And T4 we see great movements and Fabulous sunstars they look slightly Bigger at T 5.6 but that is as big as They get I love sunstars always great to See them popping up as for the lenses Blocker it's perfectly fine here some Gentle outlining can be seen with tricky Backgrounds but on a whole they look Soft enough finally related to Tobacco Comes longitudinal chromatic aberration Due to the poor close-up image quality It's hard to see anything much at all at T 1.2 so here's T2 and we can see some Fairly strong color finishing on bucket Highlights here it's still there at T 2.8 but mostly gone at T4 so that's a Weakness of the tested lens overall then It's been interesting testing this set Of three series lenses they're all low Budget the image quality of the 24 Millimeter lens was good enough the 35 Millimeter lens was a bit weak this 55 Millimeter lens Falls between the two it Handles well enough for low budget cine
Lens and while it's not sharp enough for High resolution Stills photography and Is good enough at 1080b or 4K video work As a pinch but stop down air temperature For best results All right thanks for watching everyone And a huge thank you to my patreon Supporters for their generosity and Keeping this channel going I love Putting out extra content and Early Access videos for them so check it out In the description below and ciao for Now everyone
