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

Product Information

Yes, there's a stop, but it's miscalibrated, so you always need to focus manually at infinity. Beware.

It’s been just over a year now since I first bought the Samyang AF 35mm f/1.4 FE lens to accompany my (then) new Sony A7 III body. 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. 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. Enabling enhanced focusing accuracy, the Canon EF and Nikon F mount version of the lens features built-in electronics that activate the focus assist and confirmation lamps in the viewfinder. But that’s not all. The other mount options of the lens require you to set the aperture manually, using the aperture ring on the lens body. With no communication to the camera, the aperture can’t be displayed in the camera’s viewfinder or LCD, and you can’t set the aperture from the camera. The ‘AE’ (Auto Exposure) edition of the lens for Canon and Nikon enables camera-based aperture control, as well as use of the lens in all PASM shooting modes. Lens-based EXIF data is also saved in images. However, one of the biggest downsides is something that afflicts all current Samyang lenses: it is manual focus only. While this may not appeal to all photographers, what will is the high optical quality. FeaturesIt’s substantially heavier than the smaller f/1.8 and f/2.8 35mm lenses out there (ie: 85g-150g / 0.18-0.33lbs), however, that comes with the territory with owning a lens with very bright aperture capabilities. I 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. Since I use LR correction of lateral CA is corrected by profile and I can’t turn the correction off. It isn’t corrected that well though and some CA is still visible. Vignetting Matthew Richards is a photographer and journalist who has spent years using and reviewing all manner of photo gear. He is Digital Camera World's principal lens reviewer – and has tested more primes and zooms than most people have had hot dinners!

The lens handles nicely on recent Sony full-frame bodies such as the A7R IV. Image credit: Andy Westlake With your photographic styles in mind, ePHOTOzine is currently running a Portrait competition and Holdan has kindly donated a Samyang AF 85mm f/1.4 II lens as the prize. What advice and thoughts about portrait photography would you offer to those entering the competition? Since the optics move on their own inside the barrel, once you attach a filter, the optics and their focus and aperture mechanisms are completely shielded from outside abuse. When shooting wide-open, sharpness across the whole frame is very respectable for an f/1.4 lens. Narrowing the aperture by a single stop to f/2 brings superb center-sharpness and the edges and corners follow suit at f/2.8. Sharpness remains excellent right through to the narrowest aperture of f/16, the lens doing well to limit narrow-aperture softening from diffraction.To be more precise about the comparison between the Samyang and the Sony (which I could only test once in a store now): from everything I‘ve seen, it seems like the amount of perceived blur is more or less the same when the Samyang is at sth. between 1.8-2.0 and the Sony wide open, which is a bit weird, since the Samyang seems to be noticeably wider in FOV. The Nikon 35/1.4 AI-s sells for the same price used as this Samyang sells new. The Nikon has far better mechanical quality than any of the other SLR lenses, but if f/1.4 performance is critical, it's not as contrasty and not at sharp at f/1.4 as the Samyang J’ai eu quelques comportements erratiques lors de mes tests avec un AF qui faisait la mise au point complètement décalée. Un arrêt du boitier (A7RIV) et ejection de la batterie a permis de résoudre ce problème. Un problème de jeunesse qui sera certainement résolu par une mise a jour firmware 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.

I have noticed that in Adobe Lightroom the Samyang AF 35mm f/1.4 FE shows up as a Rokinon lens, which as I mentioned at the beginning of the article is the brand under which the lens is sold in many other Western countries. This makes for simpler cleaning maintenance and gives you everything available within reach – ie, the one single oversized focus grip.The Samyang AF 35/1.4 FE is the most affordable in the croweded field of fast 35mm AF E-mount lenses. I this review I try to answer the question if it is a smart buy. Samyang AF 35/1.4 FE Review EXIF: Sony A7R III + Samyang AF 35mm F1.4 FE II (1/3200 sec, f/1.4, ISO 200) (Image credit: Matthew Richards) Lab results 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