SIRUI 40mm Autofocus Anamorphic Lens Review – T1.8, 1.33x, S35 for an Affordable Price

Lens Review

by Johnnie BehiriToday

SIRUI just launched their Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign for their new 40mm T1.8 1.33X S35 AF Anamorphic lens. We took this interesting lens for a spin and came up with some solid thoughts about it. A video with some footage samples will be added in the next few days, so please mark this link and come back for additional visual information.

It seems there is a new market niche that companies are starting to compete in – autofocus anamorphic lenses. BLAZAR was the first to announce their plan of launching an autofocus anamorphic lens (in case you missed it, watch our APEX review here), but most likely SIRUI will be the first company to bring such a lens to the market.

Whoever “the first” may be, apart from being mentioned in books dealing with “anamorphic lenses on a budget”, we as customers, don’t care as long as we get an affordable option that can deliver as advertised.

In this regard, BLAZAR did really well with their APEX AF anamorphic lenses (35mm and 50mm), meaning, the sample products that we received seemed to be very promising for S35, 1.33x anamorphic lenses. But what about SIRUI, can their new lens compete?

SIRUI 40mm T1.8 AF anamorphic lens

By now, we have gotten used to SIRUI coming up with “family names” for their lenses. The last one that we reviewed was the spherical Aurora 85mm lens (review here). However, this SIRUI lens will be the first that won’t come with a name, so I’ll refer to it in my review as “SIRUI 40mm T1.8 AF anamorphic lens”…

Upon the announcement, the lens will come in three guaranteed mounts: Sony E, Nikon Z, and FUJIFILM X. The fourth, an MFT lens, is promised to see the light of day early next year. Like its only competitor in this AF anamorphic market, it is an S35 lens with a de-squeeze ratio of 1.33x.

What to expect

The new SIRUI 40mm lens is an “electronic lens”- meaning, it needs to be connected to the camera to power up. I’m mentioning this, so you are not surprised when your aperture doesn’t physically change when rotating the aperture ring. On top, unlike the BLAZAR APEX lens, don’t expect physical hard stops for minimum and maximum focus distance. In all honesty, this is a bit of a surprise when the manufacturer itself is referring to the lens as a “prime cine” lens. But there is more to that “fly-by-wire” lens phenomenon. It means that when changing between manual and autofocus, the lens elements will NOT drive back to the last registered manual focus point. I hope I’m explaining myself well here, as it might be a bit confusing to understand. For some, this feature (which is found in the BLAZAR APEX by the way), might be extremely important, while for others, it wouldn’t matter all all. So it is very much depending on the type of work you do. As a side note, this new 40mm AF anamorphic lens does have a nice focus ring which is begging for a follow focus to be connected, but as I mentioned before, the lens focus ring will rotate endlessly so this is of course not practical.

I guess what triggered me to start my review with this paragraph are the words “prime cine” lens. When you write “cine” on a product, there are certain expectations!

SIRUI 40mm AF anamorphic lens at a glance

Fast T1.8 aperture and sharpens

We tested the new lens together with the Sony FX30 (the same way we did the BLAZAR lens) and came up with the following findings: When fully open at T1.8, anything but the middle of the lens is very soft. Close the lens to T2.8 and the center gets much sharper while the frame edges get better sharpness, too. Close it farther to T4 and you get a good balance between sharpens and aperture setting.

Now, it is important to write that pointing a lens at a chart and checking its resolution capabilities is important, but when filming in the field, it can be that some of those weaknesses are not fully interacting depending on your subject of filming.

Fast accurate silent autofocus operation

Though we received only a pre-production lens, it performed rather well! I was again surprised at how silent the lens is (same as SIRUI’s Aurora 85mm)! When it comes to AF accuracy, the lens performed well around 90% of the time, mostly because the software is still being tweaked. I had no issues at all between close-distance objects and up to 5 meters away. It is an infinity that did not show consistency in accuracy. After talking to SIRUI, they promised that the final lens version would not have this issue.

Bokeh:

The bokeh this lens is exhibiting is nice (also wide-open), although not even. One can certainly expect an oval-shaped background rendering.

Chromatic aberration: 

Chromatic aberration is definitely visible! One should be aware of it when shooting against bright objects like the sky, for example.

Lens flares: 

The lens will be offered in two versions of flares, blue and neutral (meaning, depending on the color of the source light, the lens will respond). For our testing, we got the “neutral flare version”, and I have to say that I liked what I saw. The flair distribution across the frame looks even and not distracting at all.

Focus breathing: Well controlled.

Pincushion distortion:

SIRUI is continuing to manufacture anamorphic lenses with a pincushion distortion effect (unlike BLAZAR which is contacting their lenses with barrel distortion). With this particular lens, we are told by SIRUI that the distortion level is at around 4%. As you can see from the above image, it is not that visible on the chart itself.

Lens body design:

When taking a close look at the lens body design, it seems to be identical to the newly announced Aurora 85mm spherical lens. There are two clutch buttons on each side of the lens. One for switching between autofocus and manual focus, and the other, for “clicking” or “de-clicking” the lens aperture. There is an additional button marked with “AFL”. It is an assignable button, but I left it on “focus lock” as this proved very convenient while filming. To ensure that the lens is “up to date”, like with most SIRUI lenses, there is a USB-C input connector for updating firmware if needed. Last but not least, the new lens features weather-sealing at the barrel and mount for additional rain and dust resistance.

The new lens is very compact and weighs just above 600g. The minimum focus is 0.6m which is fine, but still for getting closer to objects, one will need some rings with dioptars.

Conclusion

The new 40mm T1.8 anamorphic autofocus lens is a decent offering from SIRUI. Considering its price point, I’m sure it will satisfy the needs of many. In general, autofocus for anamorphic lenses is a “small engineering miracle” and it’s good to see competition in this niche, too! It is a very different product from the BLAZAR APEX lens(es). With its hard stops focus ring construction the BLAZARs seem to be more “filmmaking-friendly” (next to the ability to go back to the last manual focus mark). Saying this does not mean that anything is faulty with SIRUI’s new offering, it is just aimed at a different crowd. I’m sure that those doing a variety of different types of work, such as filming and photography, will be quite happy with such a versatile lens.

In terms of picture aesthetics: Don’t search for anything beyond 1.33x. If you are using the entire 16×9 sensor, 1.33x is your best friend.

Pricing

SIRUI is offering the first 1,000 lenses on Indiegogo for $639. The next tier is the Early Bird price of $699, and then, the retail price will jump to $799. Lens availability is expected at present.

What do you think about SIRUI’s newest lens? Are you eager to test the new generation of anamorphic autofocus lenses? Please share with us your thoughts in the comment section below.