Cine lenses, designed specifically for cinematography, share many attributes with their still photography counterparts. They can be fast, sharp, and occupy the same common focal-length range. I recently spent a few weeks with a Sirui Vision Prime 75mm T1.4 lens, putting it through its paces as a short telephoto and portrait photography optic, rather than as a video lens. I was impressed.
As the owner of two Sirui anamorphic lenses, I have developed an appreciation for the company’s optical prowess. Both lenses are primarily intended for shooting video, but in each case I used them exclusively for panoramic still photography. So, when invited to try out one of Sirui’s spherical lens offerings, I happily signed up.
Sirui and Vision Prime
The company is based in Zhongshan City, Guangdong Province — in the Pearl River Delta, near but distinct from the tech centre, Shenzhen. It was founded in 2001, initially as a photographic accessory manufacturer, runs its own roughly 30,000m² production facility with 500-plus staff, and sells through over 300 outlets in 60-plus countries, including a dedicated Sirui USA operation.
It introduced its Vision Prime cine lens series in February 2025, featuring three popular focal lengths — 24mm, 35mm, and 50mm — all at T1.4. If you are unfamiliar with the ‘T’ rather than ‘f’ nomenclature for cine lens aperture settings, you can find an explanation here, and here. In July 2026, Sirui added three additional lenses to the line-up: 15mm/T1.6, 75mm/T1.4, and 150mm/T4 (with macro).
Fast portrait lens
Based upon our previous Macfilos coverage of Sirui anamorphic lenses, the company offered us the chance to try out one of these six cine lenses. I selected the 75mm T1.4. Why this one? I own a Leica 75mm Summarit f/2.4, which I shoot on my M240. It’s a fantastic lens, and perfect for portraits. So the prospect of trying an even faster maximum aperture at this focal length made the choice easy.
You might have assumed I chose to try this lens because it is available in L-Mount. It turns out that each lens in the series is compatible with a range of mount types. That’s because a nifty feature of this lens series is its interchangeable mount system.
Rather than offering dedicated lenses compatible with each individual camera brand, each lens comes with a set of mounts that can be swapped. Since the lenses are all manual focus, there is no complicated electronic connection to the camera body to be managed. This simplifies the business of changing mounts, since the connection to the camera in each case is purely mechanical.
Full package
The Sirui Vision Prime 75mm T1.4 lens arrived, together with an impressive set of accessories, including a case, carrying strap, mount case, and toolkit. Sirui supplied the lens fitted with a Sony E-Mount. In the accompanying case were Nikon-Z, Canon-RF, and L-Mounts (as well as cognate mount caps).
In the toolbox I found the components of a fine-gauge screwdriver, with which I was able to remove four small retaining screws and swap the E-Mount for the L-Mount. Sirui also supplied spare screws, just in case one disappeared through a crack in the floorboards. Making the switch was a doddle, as soon as I figured out which set of four screws held on the mount.
I mounted the lens on a Leica SL2 for the purpose of the review. Although it’s a fast, manual lens, I was confident that the camera’s focus aids would help me capture a high percentage of sharp images — provided the lens itself was intrinsically sharp.
Optical design
According to Sirui’s spec table, the lens comprises sixteen elements in twelve groups. Among them are ED (extra-low dispersion) glass, HRI (high-refractive-index) glass, and aspherical elements, although the numbers of each are not specified for this particular lens. The aperture employs 18 blades — a huge number, even as cine lenses go — ensuring very smooth specular highlights.
This comes across as a high-end optical setup.
Build quality and ergonomics
The lens is an all-metal construction. The model I reviewed was decked out in a handsome titanium finish. Not surprisingly, the lens is hefty, weighing in at 600g with an L-Mount attached. It is 95mm long, with a 80mm barrel width and 67mm front filter thread. There is no option to fit a hood. Minimum focus distance is 0.75m.
As is customary with cine lenses, both focus and aperture rings are geared (toothed), and the aperture ring is de-clicked. Sirui uses an industry-standard 0.8 MOD pitch, so that a follow-focus rig or wireless lens-control motor engages precisely and repeatably, instead of relying on the friction grip a photo lens uses. The standardisation of the gear teeth across the entire Vision Prime range, and the industry, simplifies focal-length switching for cinematographers. The de-clicked aperture ring allows smooth, silent focus pulls.
Lens markings are very clear: engraved and painted, with aperture and metres in white, and feet in orange. The aperture scale is non-linear, with smaller apertures crowding together somewhat.
User experience
The first time I used a cine lens for stills photography it felt rather odd. But I quickly got used to it, and now don’t give it a second thought. Both rings are well-dampened and rotate smoothly. Once I had selected the aperture, it stayed put.
As with other lenses I have reviewed, I emphasised real-world usage, rather than photographing test cards or grids. Online reviews are available in which photographers employed more systematic evaluations of the lens’s optical characteristics. The consensus is that apart from some minor vignetting and pin-cushion distortion when used wide open, the lens is a strong performer. That is certainly my conclusion.
Focusing
Since the lens is manual, rather than autofocus, you would think there’s not much to say about this aspect of using the lens. However, unlike other manual lenses I have used, I found it extremely easy to achieve focus on the intended focus point. In large part, this is because the nicely damped focus ring has an enormous, 270-degree throw. As a result, even though the lens is fast and its wide-open depth of field is extremely narrow (see below), it is possible to make fine adjustments as you approach perfect focus. This greatly helps focus accuracy.
I used both the camera’s focus-peaking and magnification features to help the cause. I set up focus peaking as an option in one of the user-selectable EVF views, and can access a magnified view by pressing the rear joystick.
Image quality
Given its focal length and fast maximum aperture, I used the lens to shoot as many portraits as I could in the time I had available. Most of these were impromptu shots of friends, but I also took a few shots of strangers willing to be photographed. I focused on the subject’s eyes in each case, highlighted by the camera’s focus-peaking feature mentioned above.
Where possible, I shot wide open at T1.4. Together with the mild telephoto compression from the 75mm focal length, this resulted in excellent subject separation. The lens captured fine details of skin texture and hair, rendering them in lifelike colour.
In the image below, the plane of focus sits right on the subject’s eyes and spectacle rims, and the micro-contrast there — individual eyebrow hairs, the texture of the frame material — is crisp rather than merely “acceptably sharp”.
Across the board, the results were uniformly superb. This is one of the sharpest lenses I have ever used.
Depth-of-field and bokeh
When shooting wide open, the depth-of-field was extremely shallow. According to an online calculation I did, at one metre from a subject, the region of focus extended only 7mm in front of or behind the focal plane. As a result, when the subject’s eyes were in focus, the tip of their nose often was not. Their ears were definitely not in focus.
It would probably have been sufficient to shoot at T2.8-4, achieving good subject separation without such dramatic fall-off in focus. Nevertheless, wide open, the lens generated very pleasing bokeh, and gorgeous specular highlights. You can see in the backlit shots of the gal in the straw hat, and the smiling fellow in the necktie, the background is smooth and dreamy.
Along with its superb sharpness, I would rate the lens’s bokeh as a further strong point.
Image quality comparisons
I hesitate to say this, but of the lenses I own or have used, the Sirui 75mm T1.4 Vision Prime reminds me of the Leica Summicron-SL 50mm f/2 APO. Both are incredibly sharp, with great contrast, and render beautifully. I might even give a slight edge to this Sirui lens because of the extra stop of light gathering it offers.
I took some informal portrait shots earlier in the year with the flagship Hasselblad X2D II and superb XCD 35-100E zoom lens. Here is an example.
Is the image quality any better than the Sirui? I would be hard pushed to defend the Hasselblad lens as markedly superior to the Sirui in terms of sharpness, colour, and bokeh.
Cost, alternatives, and conclusion
The lens retails for $649 in the United States. UK and EU pricing is not currently available.
Budget alternatives to the Sirui Vision Prime lenses include the Vespid 2 series from DZOFilm and the NiSi Athena series. You can find links to both these series in the table below. These options are significantly more expensive (almost double) and slower (typically T1.9), and they lack the mount interchangeability Sirui offers.
Unless there are Macfilos readers out there who enjoy taking videos as well as shooting still photographs, this lens might be too niche for the average punter. As mentioned at the outset, my motivation for trying it out was to compare the performance of a spherical lens offering from Sirui to the anamorphic lenses with which I am familiar.
I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent with it, and it confirmed my belief that Sirui produces well-built lenses, with exceptional image quality, at very keen prices. In my opinion, the optical performance of this lens easily bears comparison with those from founding L-Mount Alliance members, Panasonic and Sigma, and would even give Leica a run for its money.
I shall be on the lookout for opportunities to try one of Sirui’s fast primes designed specifically for photography. As cool as the toothed focus and de-clicked aperture rings are, given a choice, a conventional control surface would suit me fine.
Use the above link and Macfilos may receive a small contribution to our running costs. You may also use the coupon code MACFILOS when ordering from the Sirui website.
Further reading
| Macfilos Articles | Other Links |
|---|---|
| Sirui: Innovator in anamorphic lenses, and emerging force within the L-Mount Alliance – Macfilos’s profile of Sirui’s rise within the L-Mount world | SIRUI Vision Prime 1 Series T1.4 Full-Frame Cine Lens – The official product page for the full Vision Prime range |
| Is 50mm the world’s most boring focal length? Not if you shoot with this lens… – Another Sirui optic put through its paces for stills | SIRUI VP-1 Announced: Full-Frame T1.4 Cinema Lenses – CineD’s launch coverage of the interchangeable-mount VP-1 system |
| Leica SL2: Long-term review of the SL successor – The body used to test the Vision Prime 75mm for this review | Understanding Cinelenses: What is a T-Stop? – A plain explanation of T-stop versus f-stop nomenclature |
| Leica, Panasonic and Sigma launch the L-Mount Alliance – The background to the alliance this lens’s mount system serves | DZOFILM Vespid prime 2 – One of the budget cine-prime alternatives mentioned in this review |
| First Impressions: Leica Summarit f/2.4 lens range – The Summarit 75mm referenced as this reviewer’s own comparison lens | NiSi ATHENA PRIME Full Frame Cinema Lens Kit – The other budget alternative discussed in this review |
| Hasselblad X2D II and 35-100E: Probably, the best camera-lens combination in the world – The medium-format combination used for this review’s comparison shots | Sirui VP-1 Vision Prime 75mm T1.4 Full-Frame Cine Lens – Where to buy, full specifications, and pricing |
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