Samyang AF 85mm F1.4 Autofocus Lens for Sony FE

Product Information

The 85mm f/1.4 lens is a classic focal length, long considered the ideal for portraiture, along with landscapes, close up sports and low light photography. Lenses slightly longer than the standard for a format have also traditionally been the pinnacle of optical quality within a range. Samyang have been building an enviable reputation for quality lenses, first in manual focus, more recently moving successfully into AF and now also encompassing the full frame mirrorless Sony cameras. Let's have a closer look, using the 24MP Sony Alpha A7 III body. Not quite as extreme! The good news with telephoto glass is that it is fairly easy to avoid pointing them into direct sun because of the more narrow angle of view. Furthermore, if you position it properly, these aberrations can be used to artistic effect. I would summarize this performance as being fairly typical but certain not impressive. Stopped down to F11, the results are similarly complicated. The Tamron produces more of a pattern with shafts of light, while the AF85 remains more localized though slightly more intense. It seems like the Samyang retains a bit more contrast across the image. This is also one area of serious advantage over the Sigma DN lens, which has both a LOT of pincushion distortion and much heavier vignette. The AF 85mm F1.4 FE is inspired by the optical vision of the MF 85mm F1.4 AS IF UMC, which has been loved for its beautiful out-of-focus images since its launch in 2008: however, this new lens develops the original’s existing strengths with a much more advanced optical design, newly optimized for mirrorless cameras. This lens of great value and charm with high resolution encapsulates Samyang’s universally respected 40-year optical technology in your photographs.

The amount of distortion present is not enough to create any real issues, and can have the unintended benefit of making subjects look slightly slimmer in a portrait lens. This is not a meaningful issue. The vignette is also not significant for a portrait lens. I manually corrected it with a +33 value (low end of moderate) but with an 11 on the Midpoint scale (which means the shading, while mild, extends fairly far into the frame. The vignette seems quite linear in nature, so I actually haven’t found it objectionable in any kind of real world situation even without correction. Globalement le Sigma 85mm F1.4 DG DN Art survole la compétition et ne coute que 300 euros de plus que le nouveau Samyang 5 Sample of Photos /Exemples de Photos The Sigma 85mm F1.4 DG DN Art is the smallest and 2nd in term of weight after the Samyang, 10% smaller than the Sony FE85mm F1.4 GM and 25% lighter I will note that I’ve used the AF85 for a few of my YouTube segments and it did a much better job than the AF 35mm in not pulsing in and out of focus, however. I just selected a zone, and when I was in that zone the autofocus was actually quite stable (basically flawless after the Firmware 3.0 update for the a7R3). MPB puts photo and video kit into more hands, more sustainably. Every month, visual storytellers sell more than 20,000 cameras and lenses to MPB. Choose used and get affordable access to kit that doesn’t cost the earth.

This well-balanced and clearly well-made lens weighs in at a very reasonable 509g. Measuring 83.4mm in diameter and 99.5mm long, it is also fairly compact and certainly suits the camera body in terms of handling. There is a provided round, bayonet-fit lens hood that clips cleanly into place and shows no sign of easily being shifted in use. Within the bayonet mount for the hood is a standard 72mm filter thread. Thanks to various seals within the lens body, its weather sealing offers protection against light rain, snow and dust. It is commendable that Samyang at least offers some degree of explanation of the term “weather sealing”, something which is not always the case.

Chromatic aberration is the lens' inability to focus on the sensor or film all colours of visible light at the same point. Severe chromatic aberration gives a noticeable fringing or a halo effect around sharp edges within the picture. It can be cured in software. Samyang describe this lens as a 'Portrait lens', which may explain some of the characteristics of its optical performance. At f/1.4 sharpness in the centre of the frame is only fairly good, and towards the edges, 'dreamy' would be a good way of describing the clarity here. This is all well and good for flattering a portrait subject, but not for much else. Stopping the lens down improves clarity across the frame, but the sharpness towards the edges still lags way behind that of the centre until around f/8. Peak sharpness across the frame is achieved between f/8 and f/11.Manual focus isn't for everyone, but if you have the patience (and work more with subjects that sit still, like mountains and buildings) they can be highly rewarding and good fun to use. Many of Samyang's manual-focus primes have had no electronics at all, thus requiring the aperture to be set manually via the control ring. While this does limit the modes you can use, and cause a dark viewfinder image at narrow apertures, it can be an enjoyably tactile experience that feels like "pure" photography.

The Sigma 85mm F1.4 DG DN Art is the worst in term of distortion and vignetting , Samyang are in the middle and the best is the Sony GM La qualité de construction du Sigma 85mm F1.4 DG DN Art fait jeu égal avec le Sony FE85mm F1.4 GM et est au dessus des Samyang et Sony FE85mm F1.8 Weighing in at a solid, but not over-heavy 568g this chunky Samyang lens has all the quality of construction that we have come to expect. It inspires confidence from the start that it will give good, long service. It is weather resistant and is claimed to be splashproof and dustproof, a feature that is rapidly becoming virtually essential in our variable climate. There’s something very pleasing about this Series II lens. It strikes a very nice balance between a quality build while also being compact and lightweight. I like the general profile and look of the lens and appreciate the growing functionality that Samyang is building into these new lenses. They don’t have quite the level of robustness that either a Sony GM or the recent Sigma DN prime lenses do, but this is compensated for by reduced size and weight. I’m happy with the general trend of Samyang design. Autofocus Performancenot corrected corrected F1.4 CA /AC F1.4 crop 100% CA / AC LoCA / AC longitudinales crop 100% F16. Flare – Sunstars – Flare effets d’étoiles F16. Flare – Sunstars – Flare effets d’étoiles crop 100% centre crop 100% corner Coma full view 2.3 Bokeh / Color rendition – Bokeh / Rendu des Couleurs I would like to see Samyang continue to refine the autofocus through firmware update (and I believe they will), but for the primary task of shooting portraits, this lens already does great. Eye AF works very well, and, while I don’t believe the autofocus to be fast enough for sports action, it is fast and quiet enough for event work, portraiture, and the kinds of general purpose shooting it was designed for. All in all, I think the AF85 does what it needs to, and I look forward to shooting with it more in the future. Sony shooters now have a reasonable F1.4 alternative to the excellent Sony FE 85mm F1.8 lens! The Samyang FE 85mm lens boasts a weather-sealed design and there's a UMC Super multi-layer coating to help reduce flare and ghosting. It has a minimum focusing distance of 0.90m (2.95ft) and a maximum reproduction ratio of 0.11x. We test lenses using both real world sample images and lab tests. Our lab tests are carried out scientifically in controlled conditions using the Imatest testing suite, which consists of custom charts and analysis software that measures resolution in line widths/picture height, a measurement widely used in lens and camera testing. We find the combination of lab and real-word testing works best, as each reveals different qualities and characteristics. Chromatic aberrations, typically seen as purple or blue fringes along contrasty edges, were not too much of a problem in our test shots, as shown in the examples below.

Why buy the best Samyang lenses (also called Rokinon lenses in the US)? The selling point for these third-party optics, available for all contemporary camera systems, is that they're a good deal affordable than most other lenses, especially the manufacturers' own. Samyang also makes lenses on focal lengths that other manufacturers don't, giving them a real USP in a crowded field. Optical construction is 11 elements in 8 groups, including 4 HR (High Refractive Index) and 1 ED (Extra Low Dispersion) elements. UMC coating is Samyang's own version of Ultra Multicoating. There are 9 blades in the diaphragm, to assist in producing smooth bokeh; the quality and gradation of the out of focus areas in an image. The Samyang AF 85mm f/1.4 FE ships with a soft drawstring bag and a large plastic circular-shaped lens hood. It accepts 77mm filters. The aluminum body, designed with precision by mechanical engineering specialists, has only three spaces in its basic design. Weather sealing covers even these small spaces to effectively protect the lens from dust and rain. This protective design enables users to capture the moment outdoors in any environment, providing the dependability you need to keep shooting.The scale on the left side is an indication of actual image resolution. The taller the column, the better the lens performance. Simple. Le Sigma 85mm F1.4 DG DN Art est le pire en terme de distorsion et de vignettage , le Samyang est au milieu, le meilleur étant le Sony GM