Review

Samyang AF 35mm f1.8 FE Review and Sample Photos /  by Jan

Why the Samyang AF 35mm f1.8, don’t you have a 35mm lens already?

I absolutely love and adore my Sony Zeiss 35mm f1.4 lens, even if I come across a bit negative in my review here. But it has the right amount of character, and beautiful f1.4 bokeh, while still being sharp enough and having great contrast and flare resistance to create very professional looking images. But it does weight 630g. And due to some unrelated back problems I was having, I needed to down size without losing too much image quality.

So the battery grips came off the cameras and I lost a battery. 313 grams saved per camera. I bought a Godox V350 to replace my V860iii and V1. 284 grams saved. A good start. And with the plethora of small 35mm lenses around, it being the lens I take with to 98% of my shoots, this would be a great place to save some more weight.

Ok, but why the Samyang?

The options, for me, boiled down to the Sony 35mm f1.8, the Samyang 35mm f1.8 and the Sigma 35mm f2 DG DN. The Sigma is the heaviest out of the three, and as much as I would love to love the tiny i-series, I just don’t love the way Sigma lenses render images. They all (especially my 24-70mm) render such a flat and sterile image. Which I don’t mind when photographing events, but it really gets in the way for me, when taking portraits. Between the Sony and Samyang I didn’t see much of a difference, and personally I feel like the Sony is incredibly overpriced, so I just went for the affordable Samyang.

First impressions

My first impressions were:

• It’s tiny and lightweight (420 grams lighter than my Sony Zeiss)

• Doesn’t have a very high build quality

• But I like the images

What do I like?

While it’s not a definitive replacement to my Sony Zeiss, it is a great gap till my back is feeling better again.

It’s cheap!

It is also nice to have a cheap lens on the camera that I don’t care that much about. The Sony Zeiss isn’t necessarily expensive but it is a lens where you might need to go through a copy or two or three until you find a good one. And mine’s great. So I am a bit protective about it. But with the Samyang, I will gladly ‘throw’ around the lens at weddings and events, and get some dynamic action shots, and not care too much about it. It’s also great to just throw the lens into a camera bag, to have just in case. It’s so small and light, you’d almost forget it’s there.

AF is pretty good

I must admit, I have more keepers with my Sony Zeiss and there is a difference in AF tracking. But I was surprised how snappy and good this lens’ AF still is. I wouldn’t use it for anything too important or critical, but for the portrait shoots that I mostly do with this lens, where if needs be, I can re-create a moment or situation easily, it is perfectly usable. And having said that, I have used this lens for several weddings as well and it’s not let me down.

IQ and rendering is good enough

I really like the way the photos are rendered. The flare isn’t too distracting and it doesn’t wash out too easily. The contrast and colours a good. The colours are a little muted but are neutral enough so that they do fit in well with the rest of my lenses with just a little bit of extra time in Lightroom. I don’t get that amazing 3D rendering, but it’s much more life like than the Sigma.

Everything is good enough to very good.

What’s not to like?

Not every lens can be perfect, and neither is this one. Even for the price.

Sharpness and Bokeh

The only thing that lets it down a little bit in the image quality department is the sharpness and the bokeh in certain situations. Now, I’m no sharpness guy. I’ve never bothered looking at a sharpness chart ever and truly think it’s a much overhyped topic. But this lens could use with just a little bit more resolution. But again, it’s good enough.

The bokeh is great in most cases, a little bit swirly and old-school, which I like, but in some cases it gets really muddy and gross. At least to my eye. Here are some examples (2nd photo, trees in the background):

You could smooth out the worst offenders in post, and maybe it’s just me being picky but I don’t like this look a lot.

Custom Modes

Does anyone actually use these? A dedicated aperture ring would have been way more useful.

Summary

As I’ve written this line a few times now, this lens can be summarized as ‘good enough’. It was never intended to be an amazing lens, and for the price, everything is just good enough. Now, I am really picky when it comes to my lenses and the way the images look, especially when it comes to my 35mm lenses. It’s my favourite and most used lens, so the look of it is critical to me and my brand. I wouldn’t use this lens for the rest of my life, but that I haven’t immediately replaced it and am not counting the days to go back to my Sony Zeiss 35mm is a huge compliment to it. I’m in no rush to going back, and for a threehundred-something Euro lens, that’s not bad. That’s really not bad at all!

I do also have the Samyang AF 75mm f1.8 lens and often couple these lenses up together on two bodies, and they’ve been great! I will write a review on that lens soon in the future.

Would I recommend it?

If you want the best of the best, why are you even looking at this lens? If you’re looking for something small and compact or if you’re looking for the very cheapest AF lens, absolutely, go ahead and buy this thing!

Check out my other gear reviews here.

Sigma 24-70mm f2.8 DG DN Art FE Review with Sample Images and Portraits /  by Jan

This lens is what I call my ‘Professional Lens’.

What does that mean? Does that mean I photograph with amateur lenses as well? No, not at all, but this is the lens I chose when I want to have the most professional result.

I have owned this lens for a year and a half now, and taken 21k photos with it. This is my long term review on this lens from a professional photographer’s perspective.

So let me explain why I call this my professional lens.

What I do

I do a lot of different types of photography. From wedding photography to couples and family shoots, to events, corporate gigs and even some product photography and real estate photography.

But I’d say what I do the most are portraits. And usually, for those photo shoots, my trusty Sony Zeiss 35mm f1.4 ZA Distagon or my Sony Zeiss 55mm f1.8 ZA Sonnar would be my go tos. That would depend on the amount of people I’m photographing, the environment and my general mood that day.

Sample Photos

So these shoots would have been shot with the Sony Zeiss 35mm 1.4 ZA:
Example 1
Example 2 - three of them are taken with the 70-180mm

These were taken with the Sony Zeiss 55mm 1.8 ZA:
Example 1 - the forest shots
Example 2 - the outdoor shots

And these were taken with the Sigma 24-70mm 2.8 Dg DN Art:
Example 1
Example 2

These lenses are some of my favourites ever, and I love the way they render. They really do have that 3D look to them, that I don’t see from all fast primes in these focal lengths (especially the Sigma primes often look flat and boring to me), and I do love Sony Zeiss swirly bokeh and strong character.

But, this character isn’t always appropriate. For weddings and couple shoots yes! But for corporate headshots, less so.

Sigma 24-70mm 2.8 DG DN Art Characteristics

So I use this Sigma 24-70mm f2.8 DG DN lens for all my corporate gigs and occasions where I need a clean, realistic depiction of the subject I’m photographing. And that’s the fantastic thing about this lens. For me, it will never blow me away with the way it renders, but it is so consistent and unsurprising (that’s a compliment). With my other lenses, in tough conditions, the characterful bokeh becomes, let’s say, a little too characterful at times. Or the 55mm suffers more from flaring which isn’t always pleasant. No such thing here with the Sigma 24-70mm DG DN. It’s always sharp, from close focus to infinity. It always handles the background well. It handles flaring really well. It’s good in all focal lengths, with no massively noticeable drop off to either end. And the AF is the best of any lens I own.

In daylight, the autofocus is on par with the 35mm, 55mm, and the Tamron 70-180mm. But in difficult and dark lighting conditions, it absolutely obliterates the 35mm & 55mm. I have yet to use the 70-180mm indoors.

The close focus ability is also fantastic. While not being a true macro, it can focus close enough for my needs and has prevented me from needing to buy a dedicated macro lens for product photography or for close ups of wedding rings etc. I really appreciate this feature a lot!

I also appreciate:

• the fantastic quality of the lens hood and that the hood can only be removed by pressing a release button

• the build quality in general

• and the price!

Close focus

It’s not just handy for product photography, but for babies too!

What would I like to change?

I would love for all of my lenses to have aperture rings! I currently have five lenses with a Sony FE mount and only two of my lenses have an aperture ring. I know all (or most?) of the GM lenses do have them but it would be nice if all Sony FE mount lenses had them. I would also gladly lose the ‘AFL’ button. I have no clue how this button is supposed to be of any use to me. I’d love for it to have a use but there’s no practical purpose I can think of.

My only niggle with the image quality otherwise is the vignetting wide open at 24mm. I don’t mind vignetting at all, my 35mm has tons of it but the vignetting here is very difficult to correct. It doesn’t penetrate the image much, only really in the far corners, but it is very abrupt. There’s not a lot of transition area. It looks like the image circle of the lens is just not big enough at this extreme.

Vignetting

Here is a great example of the vignetting at 24mm, wide open, uncorrected in Lightroom.

Then there is the Lightroom lens profile. It tends to over-correct for vignetting, leaving me with brighter corners. I need to then manually adjust the photos by eye, if I want to get rid of the vignette.

Talking about the focal length in general. 24-70mm is a very popular, and by now, a traditional focal length. Coming from Fujifilm though with it’s 16-55mm f2.8 (eq. 24-82.5mm) lens, or looking at Tamron’s 35-150mm f2.0-2.8 lens, or Canon’s 28-70mm f2.0, I wonder if this limitation of it’s focal range and aperture is really reflective of the current technology available. The Canon is hugely expensive but the Tamron is actually really affordable (the Samyang version even more so), so I wonder also if an improvement in this regard would really warrant a huge price increase.

But I would love it if they increased the focal length to 85mm or 100mm even, and if they increased the aperture on the wide end to f2.0, I could see myself leaving the Sony Zeiss 35mm at home for certain shoots.

The extended focal length, while retaining f2.8 and the great image quality would be the most interesting to me.

So, would I recommend this lens?

If you’re doing corporate work, yes! This lens, in combination with any of the A7 Sony cameras will deliver a high-end result that your clients will love. From corporate events to headshots to product photography to corporate environmental photos, this lens will do it all! Predictable, albeit, a little sterile and boring.

However, if you just need a zoom lens for weddings or non-corporate events, like club photography or concert photography, I would probably just grab one of the more compact f2.8 lenses like the Sigma 28-70mm or the Tamron 28-75mm. They’re cheaper, lighter and would fit in a bit better with my primes in regards to the look of the images.

Sony Zeiss 35mm f1.4 ZA Distagon Review /  by Jan

Up until the end of last year I was a Fujifilm photographer. I absolutely loved and adored the system but just outgrew it. If I wasn’t shooting in daylight, the photos would always turn out disappointing. Even after investing in f1.2 and f1.4 lenses.

I had a lot of different lenses over the years;

Fujifilm:
18mm f2
23mm f2
35mm f1.4
35mm f2
56mm f1.2
18-55mm f2.8-4.0
16-55mm f2.8
50-140mm f2.8

Samyang:
12mm f2.0
21mm f1.4
35mm f1.2
85mm f1.4

My favourite one by far was the Samyang 21mm f1.4. I loved the focal length, the image quality and look and how compact it was. It was my most used lens (review here).

So when I moved from Fujifilm over to Sony, my priority was to get a ±35mm lens that I absolutely loved and adored. It had to be perfect and not just ok. It would, after all, be the most important lens in my line up.

The amazing thing about the Sony FE mount is the abundance of lens options. That is the #1 reason I moved to Sony. I honestly don’t like the cameras at all, but having an option of over 10 autofocus 35mm lenses, four alone coming from Sony directly, was absolutely incredible to me!

What did I want? Well, I wanted a 35mm lens with an f1.4 aperture. Coming from a crop sensor, I just wanted all that bokeh for once! I’ve always yearned for a full frame 35mm f1.4 lens! So, filtering out the slower f2.0-2.8 lenses, and setting aside the very tasty, but manual focus Voigtlander lenses, I ended up with a shortlist of the following three lenses:

  • Sony 35mm f1.4 GM

  • Sony Zeiss 35mm f1.4 ZA

  • Sigma 35mm f1.4 DG DN

Now, I also own a Sigma 24-70mm f2.8, a lens I really appreciate and use a lot. It’s my workhorse lens. It does everything really well, is versatile because of its zoom range and is so predictable and dependable. I use this lens a lot for more corporate gigs, and/or photo shoots where it’s more important to capture the moment than creating a beautiful image.

Having said that, I’m just not a big fan of Sigma. On paper, they are the best option. Always around the same quality as a GM lens, but much cheaper, and I love that most of the DG DN lenses have an aperture ring, the AFL button and the AF/MF switch. I love that and I wish all my lenses had that! But when it comes to the images, I always find the Sigmas to look a little boring. No matter the focal length. They are the best lens on paper but uninspiring in the real world.

My attention then turned to the two Sony’s. I’ve always been a fan of Zeiss and Voigtlander lenses. I love how these companies manage to make a new interpretation of old designs. They keep a vintage look but with modern quality.

I couldn’t find many sample images that had been taken with the Zeiss and here in Cork city with very limited camera shops, there wasn’t a way for me to try or rent one before buying one. I eventually stumbled across one on eBay for about €650 I believe. I thought, “F*** it, if I don’t like it, I’ll just sell it again and get something else.” I was a little bit worried that the images might have too much of a vintage look.

I got the lens, and man, was it big! Much bigger than I was used to from my Fujifilm days. It’s basically as big as the Sigma 24-70mm! Sadly, it wasn’t great a copy either. The lens hood is a two-piece metal and plastic construction that is glued together. It had separated and was in two pieces. The glue had hardened and wasn’t sticky anymore.

The aperture ring was also very sloppy, you could barely feel the individual 1/3 stop aperture clicks. As was the aperture de-clicking switch. That switch literally just slid from one side to the other. There was no discernible click at all. It had purely become a slider. I was very disappointed. Then I discovered that this lens also had the dreaded de-centered lens elements. So the corners on one side were sharp at infinity and the other side was blurry. Not a great first impression.

De-Clicking Aperture

Not only is the aperture ‘click’ switch sloppy, but it’s also not properly aligned with the markings.

A 100% close up comparing the best corner with the worst corner when focusing to infinity. Probably not the worst, and I’m not sure if I would have really noticed it in actual photos but not something I wanted to risk having.
The left two corners were worse, in particular the top left. Both right hand corners were ok in my first copy.

De-centered lens elements on my first copy of this lens:

But…

But, and it’s a big but, I absolutely loved the images that came out of this lens! They were absolutely gorgeous! I didn’t want to send this lens back, I didn’t want to let it go but I had to be an adult and do the right thing. Luckily eBay was great and I got a full refund.

You see, for me, and if you read all my other lens reviews, I don’t really care about the technical details or capabilities of a lens, except for focal length and to a certain degree, the f-stop and AF performance (although less so now with the Sony system). Sharpness, distortion, sun stars, vignetting, etc. don’t really bother me at all. For me it’s really important how the lens renders the image, the colours are very important, micro-contrast and bokeh; not just the amount and the way the bokeh looks, but also at the transitions of the in focus areas and how they transition out of focus.
When I wrote the review for the Fujifilm 56mm f1.2 for instance, I wrote how clinical and boring it looked. At one of my shoots involving the Lord Mayor of Cork, I photographed the event with the 56mm and the Samyang 21mm f1.4. Besides the difference in focal length which is obvious to see, you can spot which photo had been taken by which lens so easily because of their rendering! See the photos here. I much more preferred the rendering of the 21mm over the 56mm. Which is why I eventually got rid of the 56mm.

Shortly after returning the first, bad copy of the Sony Zeiss 35mm f1.4, I got a much better copy from an actual photo store and have been shooting with it for the last year. The aperture ring is still not as tight as I’d like it to be, same with the switch (which I wish they had just done without since I never use it), but this new copy is way better than the last. All the glass elements are centred correctly, but the lens hood did fall apart again, about 4 months later. I glued it back together. It’s not a great construction at all though, the Sigma one is miles better. The Zeiss one has actually come off a few times during weddings or events I was shooting, while the camera was dangling at my side on a harness.

Lens Hood Repairs

The two red dots on the lens body and lens hood don’t align either. But this times it’s my fault. Sorta. For not gluing the lens hood together perfectly.
Then again, this isn’t a fault that should have occured in the first place.

I’m kinda straying into the next chapter already.

What do I not like about the lens?

Vignetting. I love a lens that vignettes a bit but this lens vignettes a lot at f1.4. So much so, that when I correct the vignetting in the lens corrections module in Lightroom, I then have to underexposure the photo again on the exposure slider to correct for that. Usually by about half a stop. I’ve never come across a lens that vignettes so much. Well, to be fair, it doesn’t get very dark in the corners like some lenses, it’s just that the vignetting seems to travel so far into the centre of the image. The Sigma 24-70mm f2.8 vignettes heavier at 24mm in the corners, but the vignetting starts very far into the corner and then transitions heavily.

Sharpness. I don’t mind it at all, I’ve heard it’s not the sharpest lens. For me it’s perfectly acceptable though and I have never noticed it not being sharp enough.

Chromatic Abberations. I use this lens a lot for portraits in the sunlight. The amount of different colours this lens can create in high-contrast scenarios is incredible. Usually it’s purple fringing, but it can be green, it can be cyan, it can be magenta. In the out of focus areas you’ll often see green fringing, like in the following photo. I really dislike CA and LoCA, I don’t mind other defects on lenses, like vignetting or distortion but CA is probably the thing that annoys me most. So, I wish it didn’t have that.

Which brings me to the next issue; size. I touched on this above, but I really don’t understand why this lens is so big. Usually, big lenses are designed to be ultra-corrected. They’re that big to not have any vignetting or because they are apochramatic or ultra-sharp or ultra-light sensitive or have macro capabilities. This lens doesn’t do any of that. I don’t mind it’s size too much in a professional environment, ie. using it for a professional shoot. But, I would never take it with me for personal occasion. It’s more that I’m just confused why it’s so big.

Bokeh. In general, the bokeh has been my cup of tea. It’s not ultra-smooth, it’s more characterful. It does show a touch of swirl at closer focusing distances and does have very obvious highlights, similar to the Planar lenses. I do like the style of it, for portraits and weddings. I wouldn’t really use it too much for my more corporate work. I have had two times where the bokeh looked dreadful (but only two times so far). Maybe dreadful is too extreme but the wedding photo below is the only time I was properly disappointed in this lens. The bokeh can be a bit harsher, and with the strong summer sun hitting down at an awkward angle, it made the bokeh look like something from a cheap, manual lens. This was the only time where I preferred the look of the Sigma 24-70mm over this lens.
For full transparency, I did accidentality have the ‘Electronic First Curtain Shutter’ active, which could explain part of the problem.

An unedited photo:

An edited photo from the same wedding, at a similar time of day, in a similar position, looking in the same direction. This time taken with the Sigma 24-70mm f2.8. Still a busy background but much nicer looking, in my opinion.

That all sounds extremely negative. Is there anything I like about this lens?

I know! This all sounds terrible. Why am I wasting my time with this lens, and with repairing the lens hood and ordering two copies?

Well, it’s a weird one. I have never had a lens that I loved so much, yet had so many individual, little complaints about. So what do I love about it? Well, as I touched on a little already in the intro; I just absolutely adore the images it produces! They are so life like, I hate using the terminology of 3D pop, but it really is there. The photos from my Sigma look so flat in comparison. You can take any photo with this lens and it looks amazing. It’s not just down to being able to blur the sh*t out of the background, it’s just the rendering that’s unreal!

The micro-contrast from the Zeiss, in combination with the sharpness of the Sony sensor, mean that for the very first time, I’m actually dialling back the clarity in Lightroom by about -15 to even -20. This is great for the clients I’m photographing, as it makes it very forgiving on the skin. So keep that in mind when you’re looking at these photos that they’re all lacking a little bit of that micro-contrast.

The autofocus is also lightning quick for a lens this big, in the sun it’s as fast as my Sigma 24-70mm, but it loses it’s confidence a little in very dark situations (although this could be due to my older A7 III camera). But tracking is unbelievably good for such a large lens with an f1.4 aperture. Sony, ey? Aren’t they just amazing?

It’s difficult to really put my love for this lens in words, but put it this way, it never leaves my camera bag and it’s kinda forced me to do so many shoots with it this year. I ended up shooting so many more portraits with it and this wider focal length, whereas last year I would have used the Fujifilm XF 35mm f1.4 for (so a 50mm). That’s how much I adore the images of this lens. The depth and rendering you get from this lens is unbelievable.
Which is why I am just going to post a bucket load of sample images I have taken with it here. There are surprisingly few sample images on the internet of this lens, so I thought I’d post some to help people make up their own mind. It might be your cup of tea, or maybe you just drink coffee. Have a look below either way.
If this lens hadn’t blown me away this much, I probably would have, and came close to, buying the Sigma 35mm f1.4 DG DN. With it’s aperture ring, reliable AF, AF/MF, fantastic lens hood and at such a bargain of a price, this is the lens to buy when you’re looking at specifications and facts. When taking the artistry into the equation, and looking at the photos themselves, I personally prefer the Zeiss. Which actually is a bargain in itself, with used prices usually around €600-650.

Colours aren’t as vibrant as with the Batis range, and especially not like the Loxia lenses, but you’d have a hard time finding any other lens like that. The photos aren’t dull though. Not at all.

Sony Zeiss 35mm f1.4 ZA Distagon vs Sony Zeiss 55mm f1.8 ZA Sonnar

Another fantastic aspect of this lens, is that it creates a very similar look to the Zeiss 55mm f1.8. I really like having these two primes on me for events and weddings. I find using a 35mm and a 75/85mm combo, as would be traditional, is too extreme for me. The gap is just too large. So I’ve always enjoyed using a 28/35mm and a 50/55mm combo.

If we compare the following two images, which are very similar to each other, that I happened to take on two different days, it’s hard to tell which one is which on first glance. The give away is that the 55mm produces more swirl than the 35mm, has less vignetting, but also lacks that depth and 3D pop a bit.
Colours tend to be similar enough, and the bokeh in both lenses have that typical Zeiss look, not smooth but characterful, with the highlights appearing brighter than on other lenses. The bokeh always looks like blotches of oil paint, done by an artist, rather than someone using the sharpness slider in Photoshop to “de-focus” the background layer.

The biggest difference in these photos is that they’re not the exact same bench, so the background is a little different, though similar. I was also surprised how little difference there is in the amount of bokeh. Sure, I was closer to the family with the 35mm, but all in all, very similar as well. If only the 55mm had an aperture ring and visually, a better looking design. It’s so bland looking and looks like a budget lens. Oh what I would also do for all of my lenses to sport an aperture ring!

Sony Zeiss 35mm f1.4 ZA Distagon Sample Photo

Sony Zeiss 55mm f1.8 ZA Sonnar Sample Photo

Since this isn’t the fairest comparison, another way of comparing these two lenses is to check out these two photo shoots I did. I used both of these lenses for both shoots, having swapped lenses halfway through the shoot. Can you tell which lens I used for which photo when they are in a set? It’s much more difficult to tell here, I find.

Verdict

When you get a good copy, 10/10 would buy again! It’s my favourite lens for professional portraits, family shoots, couple shoots, weddings and engagements! Definitely still a strong contender, even with all the other options available in 2022/2023 if you like the look of the images this lens produces. If not, you’d probably be better with something else with a more modern look.

Enjoy the sample photos below!

UPDATE: See how it compares to the Samyang AF 35mm f1.8 lens with my review here.

Sample Images taken with the Sony Zeiss 35mm f1.4 ZA Distagon: