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

Product Information

Jayce - I am now firmly a Hybrid Photographer. That is, both stills and videography, working as a Trainer and covering Events, Weddings and Portraits. I work in the studio and on location and also hire out the studio to other photographers. I also run a weekly group, not exactly a camera club, but a gathering of like-minded photographers. Weighing in at 645 grams and measuring 11.5cm in length, the Samyang AF 35mm f/1.4 FE is a big lens given its focal length. It's similar in stature to the Sony Zeiss Distagon T* FE 35mm F1.4 ZA lens. As seen in the photos below, it rather dwarves the full-frame Sony A7R II camera, especially with the lens hood attached. Out of-focus-highlights are rendered neutral with little outlining at shorter distances and some outlining off-center at longer distances.

Image: Of the 12 elements, the two white elements are high refraction (HR) and the yellow is an aspherical type Optical quality Although it might sound counter-intuitive, one of the key features of this lens is that it’s a manual-focus optic. This is often favored for street photography, and the Samyang’s manual focusing facility is well implemented. There’s a long rotational travel in the focus rings, and a pleasant fluid feel to the movement, enabling smooth and precise focusing. There’s also a focus distance scale with depth of field markings for apertures of f/2.8, f/5.6, f/11, f/16 and f/22, which are great for zone focusing, so you can set the nearest and furthest parts in a scene which will be rendered sharply. If one can live with the vignetting & rendering, it seems like the Sony 35mm 1.8 might actually be the 35mm 2.0 many have asked for.As always evaluating flare is a complex matter since you can get any lens to look bad if you push it hard enough and a slight change of scenario will affect results a lot. Because there is quite a bit of field curvature the midframe area is significantly sharper at wider apertures if you refocus at it.

Il y a beaucoup de 35mm pour la monture E (plus de 20) , si l’on se concentre sur ceux conçus pour les hybrides avec AF on a 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 level of performance that comes from a lens which is still only relatively new in a very competitive market is truly something to behold, especially considering how much less it costs compared to others available out there. 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 dessousI can sell my Tamron 28-75 for almost 85-90% price of I bought, but the resell value of Samyang lenses is significantly lower. I think this represents the general perception of Samyang lenses; used Samyang lenses have bad centering quality or some other problem. A good eye is required for the wider apertures, where the depth of field and therefore correct focus can be down to a matter of millimetres. In busy and erratic scenes, a manual-focus lens will result in a lower hit ratio, but it should generally keep the eye of the photographer sharp. The lens focuses in around 0.7 sec on a Sony A7R II from infinity to 0.44m (1:10 magnification), same as the Sony f1.8. This is slower than the Sony FE 35mm f1.4 ZA at 0.5 sec. The Sigma takes a little longer at 0.8 sec. The plastic focus ring is 40mm wide and can easily be operated with one finger like all the other lenses in this comparison expect for the Sigma. Le Sony 35mm F1.4 GM est le plus piqué de tous suivi de très près par le Sigma 35mm F1.2 DG DN Art, le Sigma 35mm F1.4 DG DN suit de très près The lens feels quite chunky on a Sony mirrorless body and at 75x115mm and 659g, the Samyang is both larger and heavier than Sony’s 35mm F1.4 G Master lens. Even so, it’s easily manageable and the fully internal autofocus mechanism means that the front element neither extends nor rotates during focusing. That’s good news in terms of handling, especially when using filters like circular polarizers and ND grads.

The 35mm f/1.4 FE at its brightest aperture can be a little soft around the far corners and it does tend to produce a bit of vignetting as well. Samyang has been relatively quiet in recent years, but the company’s recent spate of lens launches has seen some very interesting offerings. Our initial impressions are that these lenses are generally well made, and offer very impressive optical quality at a staggeringly affordable price. The studio is located on the third floor of Leigh Spinners Mill, a Grade II* listed double cotton spinning mill. Abandoned but intact for many years, the two joined mills are now a Heritage Building, being increasingly populated by small businesses and community assets. The focusing ring is generously wide and has a ridged, rubberised grip band. As this is a manual focus lens only, there's a distance scale that runs from the closest distance of 30cm to infinity, with a handy depth of field scale for f/2.8, f/5.6, f/11, f/16 and f/22. There's also a small white dot that appears to be an infrared focus index.When shooting directly into the sun, or with bright lights in the frame at night, I found the lens to be pretty resistant to flare and ghosting. It’s also very keen on giving 18-ray sunstars around point light sources, which become well defined at apertures as large as f/4. Some photographers will value this highly, especially for landscape work. Samyang AF 35mm F1.4 FE II: Our Verdict

I thought about switching to Fuji (because of size, weight, handling) and their 23mm 1.4, which was tighter in FOV than the Samyang (compared on a tripod) and produced the look of 2.0-2.2, or the Sigma stopped down even further. For environmental portraits, that‘s unfortunately not enough for my taste. As this is a relatively wide lens, out-of-focus areas are not as extreme as on a more telephoto optic, so having a widest setting of f/1.4 is very useful. However, the character of out-of-focus areas (bokeh) is still an important consideration for those using this lens for its wider apertures, and here the quality is very good. Resolution chart That's fantastic, thanks Jayce, we appreciate the time you've set aside to chat about this. Finally, what would be your own inspirations, who has influenced you, especially in portraiture? Weight: At 650g (22.9 oz.) plus 34g lens hood the Samyang’s weight is comparable to the Sony f1.4 (630g + 30g). The Sony f1.8 is only 280g (9.9 oz.) + 16g lens hood while the Sigma is the heaviest lens here at 1081g (38.1 oz.) plus 57g lens hood. But then it has a 0.5 stop larger focal ratio. [0] This Nikon-mount version works great with every Nikon camera made since 1977, digital and 35mm, auto and manual focus. (the lens of course is manual-focus only, and works great on AF and digital SLRs.)Since f/22 is a stop smaller than any of Nikon's other f/1.4 lenses provide, you may have to set it to f/16 or larger to clear the aperture-ring feeler pin on most Nikon SLRs when mounting it to a camera.