Samyang AF 35mm F1.4 Autofocus Lens for Sony FE

Product Information

Many awards were received, including the Bronze Tower Industry Medal (1989), and various trade awards from organisations such as the Science Technology Promotion Association (Presidential Award, 1993). What was most relevant for the photographer in the UK was the development of a continuing line of excellent lenses at affordable prices. This has never faltered over the last 50 years. Since there are no complex AF geartrains, and no complex AFS motors or clutches, I'll bet you that this lens will outlast any of Nikon's AFS or G lenses. Only the Nikon Nikon 35mm f/1.4 AI-s is tougher. If you can do without autofocus there are some other options including three Samyang lenses (two geared for videographers), one Voigtländer, and a Zeiss Loxia: Auto focus: Built-in AF drive. Manual-focus override is by simply turning the focus ring. The Samyang and the Sony f1.4 have non-linear gearing which depends on the speed you turn the focus ring. The Samyang does not have an AF/MF switch which all other lenses in this comparison offer. The Sony f1.8 and Sigma have linear gearing and a focus hold button which can be assigned other tasks in the camera menu. As is usual with autofocus lenses for mirrorless systems all lenses in this comparison have no distance or dof markings. [+]

En rafale l’AF suit bien pour les sujets lointains mais perd le point quand le sujet s’approche de près. (voir dans la vidéo ci dessous You won't see this, but I see these differences working under microscopic conditions. I hate it when junkier lenses make me have to spend time spotting-out all the dirt with which they arrive. Samyang has employed their linear motor autofocus system which has served them well in other applications. This focus motor is fast, quiet, and efficient. Video focus pulls are quiet and smooth, without any focus noise and also without any kind of nervousness (settling or pulsing). Focus pull speed is smooth rather than fast. It feels like the motor is nicely damped for this kind of work. Sony Alpha 7R IV, Samyang AF 35mm F1.4 FE II, 1/6sec at f/4, ISO 400, hand-held. Image credit: Andy Westlake The Samyang AF 35mm f/1.4 FE ships with a soft drawstring bag and a large plastic petal-shaped lens hood. It accepts 67mm filters. Focal RangeImage: The 35mm length is ideal for full-length portraits, although it takes practice and patience to focus manually with precise accuracy, using a shallow depth of field Build and handling

Chromatic aberrations are kept well under control, only exceeding 0.5 pixel widths in size towards the edges at f/11 and beyond. This low level of fringing should pose few issues, even in very large prints, or harsh crops from the edges of the frame. When used with full-frame image sensors, this lens' wide-angle perspective is well-suited to use in a broad array of conditions. When used with APS-C-sized sensors, this 56mm equivalent standard prime lens provides a similar field of view to normal vision. It comes in versions to fit Nikon, Canon EOS and Sony/Maxxum. I'm testing the Nikon version here. You can make the usual extrapolations for other brands.John started off by asking why Jayce had chosen Leigh Spinners Mill rather than a high street location. Unlike the firm’s AF 50mm F1.4 FE II, though, this isn’t a completely new lens. Instead, it takes essentially the same optics as its predecessor, but adds some handy new features. Firstly, it gains a Focus Hold button on the side, whose function can be assigned by the user. Secondly, a Custom Switch allows the manual focus ring to be used for controlling the aperture. In addition, the autofocus has been updated and the barrel is now weather-sealed. Barrel distortion is a little more noticeable than with many 35mm lenses on full-frame cameras but still quite minimal and further reduced when using the lens on a crop-sensor camera. Verdict

The sample images are from various Samyang 85mm lenses, whilst we keenly await a sample of the new Samyang AF 85mm f/1.4 FE II. A pre-production sample of this lens has already been in use with Hybrid Photographer Jayce Clarke and he is very enthusiastic about its improved sharpness, smaller size, lighter weight and the extra programmable controls are already seen on the Mk II 35mm and 50mm lenses. Our full review will follow as soon as we have a sample available. All in all, however, I got precise focus without any drama. Samyang has really done a good job of maturing quality of focus with their lenses. I would suspect that the Sony lens is marginally better for focus, but I would be hard pressed to tell you where. AF35 Image QualityBokeh is the quality of the defocus, not the amount of defocus. Focal length has more to do with defocus than aperture; any 50mm f/1.8 lens like Nikon's superb 50mm f/.8 D will throw things far further out-of-focus. Focus accuracy and repeatability is critical to consistently produce sharp shots especially with large aperture lenses. Repeatability (the accuracy of focus on the same subject after repeated focus-acquisition) of this lens is the poorest I’ve seen so far since testing FE-mount lenses. It measured only 92.8% in Reikan FoCal with acceptable repeatability over 20 shots when focusing from further away but with 6 outliers out of 20 shots when the lens focuses from a closer distance. I also noticed a pretty erratic behaviour of focus-by-wire when trying to manually focus the lens. These might be problems of my individual copy but I strongly advise you to test your copy for these glitches before you buy.