NiSi Athena Prime Rewind Have Different ‘Personalities’ Depending on Aperture

NiSi has announced the Athena Prime Rewing series of full-frame cinema lenses. The company says they are designed to shift between two optical “personalities” depending on aperture.

Wide-open images have what NiSi characterizes as a warm, vintage-inspired look that is softer and has halo effects in the highlights. Stopping down slowly changes the character until they respond more like a clean cinema optic by T5.6 to T8.

“The defining feature of the Athena Prime Rewind is its ability to deliver two distinct optical personalities from a single set of lenses,” NiSi says. “Wide open at T1.9, each lens produces a warm, vintage character with amplified aberrations, softened resolution, and enhanced foreground and background blur, complete with halo effects on highlights.”

The company says to expect a distinctive bubble bokeh (which means bright edges with dark centers in out-of-focus highlights) that is particularly pronounced on the 35mm and 50mm focal lengths. Flare intensity is also “significantly increased” over what can be found on the standard Athena Primes. NiSi says that, combined with retained barrel distortion across all focal lengths, filmmakers can expect a significant departure from clinical sharpness found on modern optics.

“As the aperture is stopped down, these characteristics progressively diminish. By T2.8, cinematographers reach a balanced sweet spot between stylization and sharpness, and by T5.6 to T8 the lens behaves close to a modern, clinically clean cinema lens,” NiSi says.

The company says that filmmakers can freely swap between the Rewind primes and the standard Athena primes without having to worry about extensive color correction, as while these new Rewind primes have a lot of analog character, they have been made to preserve neutral color fidelity.

The full series of five lenses — 14mm T2.4, 25mm T1.9, 35mm T1.9, 50mm T1.9, and 85mm T1.9 — is available in PL mount and provides full-frame coverage with a 46mm imaging circle. They also have matched weight and physical dimensions across the whole line to allow easy switching without having to adjust gimbals or matte boxes.

The 25mm through 85mm lenses are available for $1,269 each, while the 14mm is available for $1,399. The full five-lens kit is available for $5,999 and includes a purpose-built hard case.

Image credits: NiSi