IRIX 45mm T1.5 Cine Full Frame Lens Review
Cine lenses or cinema lenses are designed to meet the specific demands of filmmaking. The basic characteristics of cinema lenses are the mod gears for follow focus and focus motors, the smooth operating manual focus system with a big number of degrees of focus range that gives a lot of control and precision. They have T stops instead of F stops, exceptional image quality, sturdy build, Internal Zoom Control, and usually High Price and Value.
The Irix Cine Lenses series has 5 different focal lengths, the 11mm 15mm 30mm 45mm and 150mm macro. In this video we are taking a look at the 45mm focal length.
It’s very sharp modern cine lens with a little character on it that gives a unique feel to your footage.The lens is available in the most popular mounts: Sony E, Canon RF, Nikon Z, Leica, Canon EF, Arri PL and Micro Four Thirds.
It has 9 rounded Aperture Blades that offers a great quality, smooth bokeh and a very well adjustment between T1.5 and T22 with very low focus breathing. The markings are very cleared, both visible on both sides of the lens easy to see from the operator or the focus puller, engraved into the barrel with white UV color making them easy to see.
The Front Filter Thread is 86mm and you have the option to get from Irix a variety of different filters like ND or Pollution Filter which I have to admit it does a really good job in the colors at night. Also it supports a magnetic mount system for filters which is a great option to have. All of the cine lenses from Irix have a 95mm front diameters for matte boxes.
Like every cine lens it has standardized 0,8 pitch mod gears and has a reliable construction with rubber seals placed in all crucial points making it safe to shoot with rain or dust. With the lens you will also get a lens support foot which can be placed on either top or bottom of the lens to work best with your rig.
What I enjoyed the most using this lens, is that with the first sight you think this is an enormous lens that will be heavy as well. Aluminium and magnesium alloy construction and housing weight only 1,1kg. So you can be rest assured that you are not going to have problems shooting handheld with it.
The focus ring has some nice resistance with 180 degrees focus throw to infinty and the aperture ring is smooth. Irix have designed a rotatable ring with a cut out that you can position where your follow focus ring is which leaves space for those gears to run without any problems.
The bokeh on this lens is nice and round as you can see here. There is not any good amount of flare across the entire frame that cause any problems in the footage.
The lens doesn’t suffer from any focus breathing and this is something that you should expect from a cine manual lens. However, not on a cine lens on this price point and this is something that blows my mind thinking of a feature that usually exists on Arri Signature Prime lenses to exist on this lens as well.
Rapping up its a pretty fantastic cine lens. Very well build, the image is nice and sharp and for the money I don’t know a lens that can do the things that this lens can do. Do I like it? Definitely yes. Do I recommend it, it depends. And let me explain. If you are ready to join into the world of the cine lenses, then it’s one of the best purchases that you’re going to make. But if the style of the videos that you create is focused on the focus and you need to have auto focus into your lens, then as you can understand this is a manual lens. It’s not going to work for you.
