{"id":26463,"date":"2018-05-10T07:42:59","date_gmt":"2018-05-09T23:42:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/?p=26463"},"modified":"2018-05-28T21:00:05","modified_gmt":"2018-05-28T13:00:05","slug":"samyang-af-35mm-f-2-8-fe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2018\/05\/10\/samyang-af-35mm-f-2-8-fe\/","title":{"rendered":"Samyang AF 35mm f2.8 FE"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the ‘wow’ factors of the Sony Alpha mirrorless cameras when they were first announced in Oct 2013 was their relative compactness compared to full-frame DSLRs. Among other things, the absence of a mechanical optical mirror system in the body, meant that its sizes could be smaller. The lenses though are an entirely different matter, as it’s that much harder to get round the laws of physics: you basically need more glass to cover a 35mm sensor compared to a micro four-third sensor.<\/p>\n

That’s not to say there aren’t any small or pancake lenses for the Sony Alpha FE mount – there are. But putting aside the relatively wide primes for 35mm and less, both the zoom and prime-type FE mount lenses are routinely larger than their m4\/3 counterparts.<\/p>\n

The first lens I acquired for the A73 was a 35mm prime, on account that the m4\/3 equivalent – the Olympus 17mm f1.8 – was my favorite out of home lens. There’s a couple of native 35mm options for the FE mount that support AF. Specifically, the Sony FE 35mm f1.4, FE 35mm f2.8, and the Samyang 35mm f2.8 – what I went with. This isn’t of course counting the non-native lenses that you can also use with the appropriate adapter, nor manual-focus lenses. Of the three, the Samyang was by far the cheapest, and also roughly the same pancake-size as Sony’s FE 35mm f2.8. The Samyang from most accounts isn’t optically as good as either of the native options, but it\u2019s hard to beat from at least a price point of view. The lens was bought for a very affordable price of USD265\/SGD352 from Amazon, with local street prices for it at SGD499 – and that’s from stores that offer limited seller-only instead of manufacturer or local authorised reseller warranties. Heck – the lens actually arrived before I got the body itself!<\/p>\n

\"\"
The Samyang 35mm f2.8, and slightly discounted from the usual USD275 price on Amazon.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
The Samyang comes with an oh-so-cute protected case.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
The Samyang mounted on the A73. The lens weighs just 85.6g – even lighter than the 120g for the Olympus 17mm f1.8.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I’m pretty happy with this one. Not a scientific test of course, but AF is responsive, brisk, and center sharpness when wide-open is entirely adequate for my use. Pictures!<\/p>\n

\"\"
1\/100s, f4, ISO1000, flash-fired.\u00a0 Compositions like these are fairly straight-forward. I slightly increase the aperture to increase the depth of field even though both are against the headboard of the bed.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
1\/60s, f3.5, ISO250, flash-fired. There’s a very pleasant warmth in the flash-fired shots with the Godox TT685s.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
1\/125s, f4, ISO1600, flash-fired. I normally avoid taking portrait pictures of our kids in 35mm focal length, but this one’s still pretty OK as long Hannah’s kept out of edges of the frame.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
1\/125s, f5, ISO3200 @ Starbucks Nex. There’s pretty harsh directed lighting right above our table, and there’s only so much that Lightroom can do.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
1\/125s, f2.8, ISO2500. You can’t really see this in the reduced sized version of this picture, but the A73 nailed eye-focusing in this shot.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I reckon I might upgrade from this lens to a f1.4 equivalent at some point, as the two stop light difference will provide a lot of advantage in my typical shooting envelope. The prices for f1.4 options aside though, I’ll be giving up the pancake-sized and portability of the lens though. In any case, the next lens in this series of posts will be the Sony FE 50mm f1.8.<\/p>\n

The posts in this series:<\/p>\n

Samyang 35mm f2.8 FE<\/p>\n

Sony FE 50mm f1.8<\/a><\/p>\n

Sony FE 24-105mm f4.0<\/a><\/p>\n

Sony FE 16-35mm f4.0<\/a><\/p>\n

Sony FE 85mm f1.8<\/a><\/p>\n

Tamron 70-200mm f2.8<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the ‘wow’ factors of the Sony Alpha mirrorless cameras when they were first announced in Oct 2013 was their relative compactness compared to full-frame DSLRs. Among other things, the absence of a mechanical optical mirror system in the<\/p>\n

Read More Samyang AF 35mm f2.8 FE<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26469,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[610,608],"class_list":["post-26463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-photography-cameras","tag-samyang-35mm-f2-8","tag-sony-a7-iii","wpcat-13-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/blog-2018-children-A7_01368-starbucks-nex-brunch.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}