Samyang

Samyang may have started out with specialised low-cost manual focus prime lenses, but now it’s moving into mainstream photography with a series of autofocus lenses for top camera brands.

The latest is the AF 85mm f/1.4 EF for Canon full frame DSLRs. It will fit Canon’s APS-C models, where it offers an equivalent focal length of 136mm.

85mm prime lenses are popular with portrait photographers because they allow a comfortable shooting distance and natural-looking features, while a fast maximum aperture is helpful for shooting in low light and creating attractive background blur.

The Samyang AF 85mm f/1.4 EF achieves both, but as well as being less expensive than Canon’s own offerings, it’s also unusually small and light for an 85mm f/1.4, which should make it easier to carry round and use over extended periods – it weighs just 485g and is only 72mm long (not including the lens hood).

It doesn’t have an image stabiliser, but it does have autofocus via what Samyang describes as an “upgraded” dual LSM motor.

The optical construction includes 9 elements in 7 groups and uses “hybrid” aspherical glass. You also get Ultra Multi Coating to eliminate ghosting and flare and weather sealing to cope with hostile shooting environments. The minimum focus distance is 90cm.

Canon makes an EF 85mm f1.8 USM that’s a little cheaper than the Samyang but half a stop slower and not one of its L-series lenses. The next step up from Canon is the new EF 85mm F1.4L IS USM, which has built in image stabilisation, but is much larger and costs way more at about £1,379.00/$1,599. If f/1.4 isn’t fast enough, you can get Canon’s massive EF 85mm f1.2 L II USM (not stabilised) for £1,729.00/$1,849.

More information: Samyang website

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Owners of Sony full-frame mirrorless cameras aren’t doing too badly for affordable prime lenses. Sony makes its own budget full frame lenses (not yet tested, mind), but Samyang has joined in now with some intriguing alternatives.

It already makes an interesting 35mm f2.8 AF FE pancake lens, but this 24mm f/2.8 FE lens offers a wider angle of view and the same maximum aperture for the same price.

“Tiny but wide” is Samyang’s tagline for this new lens. It’s just 37mm long when mounted (without the lens hood) and weighs only 93g. It’s designed to be compact, light and easy to carry round all day long. With a minimum focus distance of 24cm, it can even shoot moderate close-ups, as well as tackling the usual wide-angle lens subjects like landscape, interiors and travel shots.

It offers “fast, quiet and accurate” autofocus and a decent-sounding optical configuration consisting of seven elements in seven groups, including no fewer than three aspherical lenses and two high-refractive lenses to counter chromatic aberration. Samyang’s proprietary Ultra Mini Coating is used to combat light dispersion.

You can pay a little more for some larger and heavier Sigma prime lenses or a lot more for some prestigious Zeiss wide-angle primes, but for those with more modest budgets this Samyang could be perfect. Small prime lenses like these are the perfect antidote to the big, heavy zooms made for Sony’s full frame mirrorless cameras.

The Samyang 24mm f/2.8 FE will cost £279.99 in the UK and will be available from July 2018.

More information: Samyang website

Samyang has announced a fast 50mm prime lens for full frame Canon DSLRs. The Samyang XP 50mm f/1.2 is the third lens in Samyang’s premium XP series, which has the motto “Excellence in Performance” and already includes the XP 14mm f/2.4 and 85mm f/1.2.

The 50mm f/1.2 is a manual focus lens, so it’s going to need a certain amount of focusing care and skill to make the most of its potential for shallow depth of field effects at wide lens apertures. With lenses this fast, a focus error of just a couple of millimetres can make all the difference between eyelashes being in or out of focus and optical viewfinders are not designed for this kind of pinpoint focus accuracy, so manual focusing in live view mode is likely to be the answer.

Samyang has designed the XP 50mm F1.2 with optical quality firmly in mind, for resolution in excess of 50 megapixels for stills photography, and 8K for video. Samyang says it’s optimised for portraiture, with sharp detail rendition, low light capability, shallow depth of field and beautiful bokeh from its 9-bladed diaphragm. The optical design includes 11 elements in 8 groups and incorporates aspherical and high-refractive lens elements to minimise distortion and aberrations.

As always with Samyang lenses, the pricing is very keen. The XP 50mm F1.2 will go on sale in March 2018 at £799.00. That’s little more than half the price Canon’s own 50mm f1.2L USM, which uses a less complex optical design but does have autofocus.