If there is one trend at this year’s NAB Show, other than HDR of course, is affordable lenses. Canon announced a brand new 18-80mm servo zoom for about $5K, and Fujinon also unveiled a brand new 20-120mm T3.5 PL zoom for about $10K. Both lenses are ready for S35 4K cameras and for the first time are offered at a price point below $11-12K. Most pro cine zoom’s cost $20K or above, so to have access to servo ergonomics created specifically for S35 4K cameras is quite the achievement. On the cine prime front things have been moving a bit quicker as in prior years we’ve seen the Samyang XEEN’s and also the Veydra mini primes, which offer professional cinema lens performance at a really affordable price point.
And now apparently there’s a new kid on the block. There are new affordable cine prime lenses coming from Taiwan at a very reasonable sub $4,000 price point similar to the Zeiss CP.2’s called Bokkelux. Taiwanese based Bokkeh had a few prototype Bokkelux lenses at their booth apparently and were demoing them at the show floor.
The company’s CEO Vincent Huang states in the video below by Frost & Sullivan, that the company is planning on releasing a total of 5 cine primes (25mm, 35mm, 50mm, 75mm, 100mm) later this year all at T2.0.
The best part about these lenses is the price – between $3,500 and $3,800 a pop, which makes them quite interesting. In comparison the Zeiss CP.2’s and the Schneider Xenon’s costs twice as much and even more depending on focal lengths and speed. Bokkeh will also offer different mounts for their Bokkelux cine primes including PL, EF, Sony E and MFT with the possibility of more in the future.
Interestingly enough, the Bokkelux primes cover full-frame 35mm sensors (36 x 24mm) and are set to feature a uniform body design, uniform 105mm fronts and matched focus and aperture gear rotations. Just looking at them from the demo video they look strikingly similar to the Schneider Xenon’s and also offer the same focal lengths.
I doubt that the two companies have anything in common, but nonetheless it’s worth to point out. It would be great to see more footage of these when they ship (at least 4 of them) in late Aug/September.
4K Test with Sony A7s + Atomos Shogun:
Comparison test with the Schneider Xenon 75mm t2.1
We’ll keep you guys in the loop on more developments around these lenses and in the meantime you can tell us what you think of them in the comment section below.
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