So continuing my journey of exploring photography I was looking to add another lens to my Fuji XT1 to pair with the 18-55mm kit lens. While this lens is an excellent factory kit lens that pairs well with the XT1 I was looking for something with a bit longer reach. Since I bought the XT1 used and am not ready to sink in tons of $$ for insane zoom lenses I was looking for a budget friendly option. After some research I came across the ROKINON 85mm F1.4. I watched countless of YouTube reviews and read all about it and finally decided to give it a try. Snagged it up from Amazon for $270 shipped.
I was pumped to get it and try it out to say the least. First thing I notices is the lenses size and weight. The construction is solid being made out of aluminum and it's a hefty fella. It's robust and I feel confident that even if I dinged it on a few things here and there it would stay strong.
When I first got around to shooting with it there was a bit of a learning curve. I'm used to fast action auto focusing lenses in which I can just hold down the shutter and fire away and nail shots right after one anther. With this lens being a manual focus lens, I needed to take a different approach to shooting, especially if I was trying to capture a moving subject or people in general.
Needless to saw I got the hang of it fairly easily and I was off enjoying the wonders of F1.4! Now, one thing that I had to keep in mind and if you a FUJI user you should as well is the focus peaking option. I keep my focusing to either "M" or "C" because with "C" mode engaged I can have face detection still on. This helps for getting moving shots and people in focus. Now for normal still shots or even portraits I would use "M" mode for more precise shooting and focus checking.
I won't get all hard core and crazy with the specs and details of the lens as you can easily look that up. Just my honest opinion and real life review here. I would rate this lens high 8.5/10 mainly because the images are very sharp, you can't beat the quality of this lens paired with F1.4 for the price, and the build quality is great.
I don't think anything can be perfect, but this lens does a great job. The fact that it doesn't have auto focus and no electronic connection to the camera is really the only downfall, yet for something equivalent from one of the big companies you will easily pay 4-5x the price.
