Thoughts on the Canon CN-E primes?

[Max Field]

Like the title says; I just want to gather some thoughts from industry guys on these. I love the image quality, but just wondering if it's worth the price tag.

 

How do they stack up with the competition?

 

Also do you find them only coming in EF to be a major drawback?

 

Thanks for any and all input.

[Phil Connolly]

We've got the 24,50 and 85 - I think they are great lenses.

 

The look good and they solidly built. E.g compared to the slightly cheaper Xeen's - they have a much smoother focus rotation. I think optically they are quite decent, but a bit chromatic aberration and some breathing.

 

I think they offer a really good combination of optical quality, great build quality and price.

 

I think at the price point they are great option. I think they would be more popular if they were offered and PL. But EF isn't a huge bind if you have an EF camera, we pair them with a Sony FS7 and adaptor. Lots of cameras either have EF or can be adapted to EF so its not a huge handicap.

 

I think the only other issue is they were slow to bring out enough focal lengths. For ages it was just the T3 14mm and then a jump to the 24mm at T1.5. That was a pain to navigate in smaller locations you wan't something a bit wider then 24mm and 14mm is a bit too wide for naturalistic work. Although its still a nice lens, I did a music video on the 14mm:

 

Really glad they do a 20mm now.

[Max Field]

Worth the $2000 difference from a Xeen to you?

Edited June 3, 2018 by Macks Fiiod

[Mark Kenfield]

'Canons' you can potentially rent out. 'Rokinons', not so much.

Beyond mere optical differences, I think it's important to consider things like brand recognition and serviceability if you're going to invest in glass.

The Canons have been paired with Alexa65 for the $100 million dollar show 'Altered Carbon' - that's a good selling point.

[Robin R Probyn]

Duclos will put a PL mount on them.. would make them far more rentable than EF.. strange that Canon supply their Cine zooms in PL but not the primes.. ?

 

I know someone who actually sold his Canon primes and bought the Sigma Cine Zooms T2 18-35.. (think its 35!) and the 50-100 as a sort of set of "vari primes".. breathing apart on the 50-100.. he's found them to be great,cheaper and quicker to work with .. but says he can rent out.. for not much less than he did the Canons..

[Adrian Sierkowski]

I personally much prefer the Sigmas to the Canons; but yes, the 50~100 breathes like I do after a 20 mile run!

[Robin R Probyn]

The Sigma FF primes seem to getting a decent reputation too..

[Phil Connolly]

Worth the $2000 difference from a Xeen to you?

I think so - they are both very good for the money. The both have large focus throws, but the travel on the CN-E's is much smoother and a bit heavier. The Xeen's are very light - so if your doing lots of shallow depth of field work with focus pulls - you do benefit.

 

However I work at a University and the Xeen's are great for the 1st and 2nd years where their focus pulling is less likely to be smooth and I mean't I could buy more lens's for my budget.

 

Best to try them. Canon lent me a couple of lens's to test prior to my purchase - it sealed the deal for me, I didn't want to give them back

 

On an undergrad film programme the lens's do get a lot of hammer. 3 years in we have only had to get one lens serviced and that was because it was dropped. The jury is still out on the Xeens, we've only had them 9 months. For use build quality and serviceability are just as important as optical performance. 2 sets of CNE's represent quite a big investment for us - so I need them to last.

 

Zooms are the next thing on my list to get, as we only have a mixed collection of DLSR zooms - been interested in the Sigma's but not had time to test them yet.

 

The fact a lot of the lenses cover FF is also great. Our CNE's look great on super 35, but on larger sensors, I assume they'd look better and the CA would seem smaller.