Description
Nisi Athena 85mm T1.9 Full Frame Cinema Prime Lens
T1.9 and Round 16-Blade Bokeh
Four of the five Athena lenses feature a T1.9 aperture – it’s only the 14mm that is slightly slower at T2.4 – this was a requirement to ensure perfect corner to corner sharpness. This delivers beautiful background separation and bokeh, when required, as well as excellent low-light ability.
Focus
The Athena lenses have no noticeable focus breathing. This is a claim that many lens manufacturers make on a regular basis, but the actual footage seldom delivers the proof for that claim. At the price point, Athena’s focus breathing performance is pretty damn amazing. All 5 lenses have identically positioned focus rings with a buttery smooth 300 degree focus throw. This allows lightning-fast lens swops without having to reposition the focus motor.
Crisp, Clean Image Quality
Many of the budget cine lens manufacturers use “character” as an excuse for poor image quality. NiSi designed these lenses to be clean, sharp and free of “character” flaws. The Athena lenses are brilliantly sharp while retaining excellent micro-contrast. There is almost no chromatic aberration or distortion and the Athena lenses produce beautiful flare when shooting into a light source.
Drop-in Filters
Firstly, all the Athena lenses except the 14mm have a standard 77mm filter thread, which means you can use normal screw-in filters. All 5 lenses (14mm included) have an 80mm outer diameter, allowing easy and consistent matte box mounting.
The real highlight is however the drop-in rear filter slot. The mirrorless mounts feature a proprietary drop-in filter slot that will make it super fast and affordable to filter these lenses.
The PL mount sadly doesn’t allow it, but they have added a screw-in rear filter mount for the PL version.
Glow-in-the-Dark Metric & Imperial Focus Scales
You don’t have to choose a focus scale based on where you live – the Athena lenses
feature both feet and meters.
All of the markings are luminous, so you don’t a light to find the right lens when you’re in the shadows off-set. The caps also have the focal length in gigantic luminous letters, making it easy to pull the right lens out of the case when it’s dark.
Macro Conversion with Close-up Lens
Need to get a tight shot of a person’s eye, an insect or a the detail of a product? No need to buy an extra lens. The Athena lenses work absolutely perfectly with NiSi’s 77mm apochromatic close-up lens without degrading the image quality in any way.
Pop it on the 85mm for 1:1 magnification and you’re ready to go.
