There are a lot of cine primes out there with fast maximum apertures, but not many that are near-perfect wide open AND affordable.

This is one of the areas where NiSi's Athena lenses absolutely shine - you can confidently use these at their maximum aperture knowing that the edge of the frame will be sharp.

The engineers at NiSi Optics set out to build lenses that deliver impeccable image quality, full stop. They did exactly that when it comes to sharpness - no using "character" as an excuse for areas of underperformance. Athena delivers brilliant sharpness across the frame, even when wide open, even on the ultra-wide focal lengths. And it does so without compromising on colour or micro-contrast.

Athena comfortably resolves 8k and beyond, ensuring a long life span into the future of sensor development.

A 9-blade iris delivers beautiful bokeh at wide apertures, creating brilliant subject isolation and soft backgrounds. The longer FLs like the 85mm and 135mm are a dream for potrait shots with dreamy backgrounds

As is expected from a premium cine prime in 2024, these lenses have almost no noticeable focus breathing. You have to look really hard to find any, even when running the full focus throw with extreme foreground/background seperation.

One of the aspirational qualities of the very best high end primes is cinematic flare that you would confidently frame right through a hero shot. Athena brings exactly that within reach of a normal budget - the simple design of these lenses produces clean flare with a beautiful aesthetic.

No more shying away from the light - the combination of flare performance and Athena's natural bloom renders a brilliant picture when shooting into hard light. When producing our local marketing content, this blew us away again and again - into the sun, into powerful studio lights, bright scenes framed through a dark interior. Athena will you give you new confidence to shoot challenging exposures.

Finding chromatic abberation in Athena footage is a challenge. Pretty much the only situations in which we've noticed any is on high-contrast out of focus elements where there is extreme background/foreground separation.

Get near 1:1 magnification without any degradation of image quality simply by adding the NiSi 77mm Close-Up adapter to the 85mm or 135mm.