Sirui 56mm f1.2 – The First Attempt (III)

This is the last of the Sniper lenses I have with me. By now, if you have read the first two lenses, I guess you should know my opinion of this series. Anyway, I still need to finish sharing my opinion of this focal length.

Intro

This is the third lens introduced by Sirui together with the 23mm f1.2 and 33mm f1.2. In summary, they started with crowdfunding from one of the popular platforms and this Sniper series succeeded.

Design and Build Quality

For some reasons, the “white ceramic coating” or simply white plastic seems to be the worse built quality among the three colors. Having said that, it still far better than the Meike 85mm f1.8. That’s my opinion. As part of the Sniper family, it shares many similarities such as filter size (58mm), no aperture ring and no weather resistant. Also they share the same length as well. This is beneficial to videographers who need to mount on a gimbal.

At 419 grams, the weight of this lens feels okay. Although it may seem heavy, it is evenly distributed. Like its siblings, it comes with a lens hood. The difference is that it comes with a round lens hood instead of a petal-shaped lens hood.

Image Quality

Optically, it shares a lot of similarities with the Sniper family. At f1.2, the image is soft and lacks contrast. Coupled with it are the mild vignetting and strong chromatic aberration. Of course, everything gets better when stopping down. For my acceptance, f2 is the minimum f-stop for sharpness and contrast.

The rendering of the background blur is not as smooth as I expected. Somehow it looks kind of hard and unpleasant. Or maybe it is something that I don’t appreciate?

Focusing

It comes with a Stepper Motor (STM). The focus is okay. It is not as snappy as the XF56mm f1.2 WR (just using it as a benchmark). Probably quite average among the rest of the 56mm focal length.

On average, I do encounter some pull-push effect before focus is locked on my subject. Not every time, but encounter it quite often. Hard to catch the behavior here but fail to do so. I hope the future firmware provides some remedies.

Also, the manual ring is different from the typical manual ring, this one can do a 360° rotation angle electronic focus ring. For photography per SE, I think it might help with precision focusing but I believe this benefits videography more. 

Minimum Focus Distance (MFD)

For a typical 85mm (in full frame equivalent), what is your expectation for a MFD for this focal length?

To share some examples of what other 56mm lenses MFD are: TTArtisan 56mm f1.8 is 50cm, XF56mm f1.2 WR is 50cm, Meike 55mm f1.4 is 60cm and Sigma 56mm f1.4 is 50cm.

The MFD of this lens is 60cm. Not quite on par with the average one but not any worse. The image quality, fortunately, isn’t degraded any worse too.

Price Point

At 279 USD (discount from the usual price at $349 USD from it’s official store), it is a good price point for a f1.2 autofocus lens. Or 799 USD for the 3 lenses.

For a quick comparison, XF56Mm f1.2 WR is priced at 999 USD, Meike 55mm f1.4 is priced at 199.9 USD, Sigma 56mm f1.4 is priced at 479 USD, and Viltrox 56mm f1.4 is priced at 299 USD. Is the price attractive?

Others

Like all other Sniper lenses, it comes with an USB-C port for future firmware update.

Also, it comes with a circular lens hood but mounting and dismounting it gives a quirky noise that always makes me think that I am breaking it anytime with a little pressure. Probably I have a bad copy of the lens hood?

Lastly, it has a thin lens cap (similar to its siblings) which gives me some problems when removing the lens cap from the lens. That’s because the pinch-to-release area is too narrow for big fingers (like mine) to pinch and remove the cap without any level of struggling.

Who is this for?

This 85mm (in full frame equivalent) focal length is suitable for the portrait genre. But not only that, this lens is also suitable for product shots, street, documentary, etc.

If you are a new photographer and have a limited budget, this lens together with its siblings forms good trinity lenses for a starter. Only if you are acceptable with its not-so-perfect image quality.

Conclusion

We do not lack any third-party autofocus lenses for Fujifilm. If you are looking for a “complete set” of third-party lenses, there are a few brands that I can think of at the moment; Sigma and Viltrox.

Considering the price point, I find this lens acceptable, especially since it’s an f1.2 prime rather than the typical f1.4. However, I may have overestimated its capabilities. Nevertheless, I’m eagerly anticipating the release of their “Mark II” Sniper lenses, hoping for significant improvements in this series.

Oh yes, Sirui has launched another 2 new Sniper lenses, the 16mm f1.2, and the 75mm f1.2.

Thank you for reading. 

Disclaimer:
1. All the shots taken here are shot by me.
2. Most of the shots are straight out of the camera with some shots edited via In-Camera Raw Processing.
3. The opinions are based on my experience. If there is any mistake, please kindly drop me a message and I will gladly make the amendment.
4. I reserve ownership of these images, if you wish to use my images, please notify me.

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