Last year NiSi announced its cine lens debut with the Athena Prime lenses, which garnered a lot of attention for their full-frame manual design delivering sharp, detailed imagery with minimal chromatic aberration, gentle bokeh, and a uniform aesthetic across the whole set. These qualities quickly endeared them to both narrative and documentary filmmakers.
Now NiSi is expanding the Athena Prime lineup with three new offerings: an 18mm, 40mm and 135mm, all available in Sony E, Canon RF, Arri PL, Fujifilm GF and L-Mounts. Notably, the E, L and RF versions feature drop-in rear filters for convenient use of neutral density or diffusion filters – making these a very versatile lens set.
The 40mm maintains the line's hallmark T1.9 maximum aperture for consistency in performance, while the 18mm and 135mm lenses introduce a T2.2 aperture. All the Athena lenses share uniform dimensions and weight, facilitating seamless compatibility with accessories like matte boxes and wireless follow focuses, as well as simplifying adjustments on stabilizing equipment such as gimbals and Easyrigs.
These new focal lengths will broaden the creative horizons for videographers – particularly the 135mm, extending beyond the original 85mm limit of the lens set. The user-friendly 300° focus ring, robust yet lightweight aluminum alloy construction, and the 10-blade aperture design ensure smooth, circular bokeh.
I'm sure cinematographers will appreciate the expanded versatility of these new lenses while maintaining a consistent color rendition, which is critical for documentary or commercial work.
The lenses are available individually, as an add-on kit for existing 5-lens kits, or as part of a comprehensive Master Kit featuring all eight lenses.
In addition to the new optics NiSi also introduced a nine-lens hardshell case to accommodate the full set, along with a PL to Z Adapter enabling the use of Athena lenses on mirrorless Nikon cameras – something that we could see more of, now that Nikon has acquired Hollywood cinema camera giant Red.
Those interested in the 8-lens Master kit will have to cough up $8,999 (approximately £7,100 / AU$13,600) in any lens mount, while the 18mm, 40mm, and 135mm can be purchased separately for $1,268 each (£1,000 / AU$1,900) – which is a steal if you ask me!
