Samyang 35 mm f/1,4 ED AS UMC AE Nikon F lens test

For testing purposes, the editorial staff received a Nikon lens version with a Nikon mount from the Fotoframe company. I was also able to see a sample of the new Samyang 24 mm f/1.4 ED UMC AE ultra-wide-angle lens in the same place. This lens went on sale in the first quarter of 2012. I couldn’t take any pictures with it, unfortunately.

Features

Mount: Canon, Nikon, Minolta/Sony A, Pentax, Samsung NX, Panasonic/Olympus Micro 4/3

Image size: 135 36×24 mm

Lens construction: 12 elements in 10 groups

Focal length: 35mm

Relative aperture maximum aperture : 1,4

Minimum aperture: 22

Angle of view: for format 24×36-63.2° for cropped format 1.5-43.3° for cropped format 1.6-40.8° diagonally

Minimal focus distance: 0.3 meters

Number of aperture blades: 8

Hood type: Included

Light filter diameter: 77 mm

Dimensions: diameter – 83 mm, length – 111.5 mm

Weight: 712g

Price: 20,600 Dollars.

In recent years there has been a growing interest in lenses with fixed focal lengths. Despite the fact that a variety of zooms form the basis of the range of most manufacturers, demand for such optics is constantly growing. More and more photographers are realizing that the only way to get good quality images is with these lenses. Including out-of-focus lenses, both used and new, shouldn’t be discounted. We will take a look at one of such optics today.

Korean company Samyang Optics Co., Ltd. Been around since 1972. has been producing lenses under its own brand since 2008, but its products are well known to many photographers under other names because it has long been producing optics to order for other firms. World-renowned brands Vivitar, Phoenix, Bower, Walimex, and several others sold lenses made by Samyang. The company currently only produces non autofocus lenses with fairly good performance. The lack of autofocus does not mean that these lenses have only mechanical attachment to the camera-they differ from older optics in that they communicate with the electronics of today’s digital cameras necessary for full performance. It allows you to work normally with exposure automatics and – the most important thing for non-autofocus lenses – to use the autofocus sensor to confirm the accuracy of manual focusing.

Design and ergonomics

The lens is quite massive, combined with the camera, creating a weight that allows you to not worry too much about shooting fluctuations, especially since the high aperture ratio sometimes allows you to work with fairly short shutter speeds. The focus ring is wide and has a very fine, longitudinal groove, making it easy to work with even gloves on. The ring travel is smooth and extremely smooth, without the slightest backlash that is sometimes common with autofocus lenses. Aiming precision is ensured by a sufficiently large ring rotation angle, which is almost never intercepted in the main distance range, so the responsiveness for a non-autofocus lens is quite good. Subfocusing on specific details of the image is easy, the lens is very sensitive to the slightest movement of the ring. This peculiarity makes you take pictures with care, but in any case, photographers who are spoilt by autofocus have to get used to adjusting sharpness manually and controlling it constantly.

The quality of the focusing screen is very important. Many amateur cameras have a small field of viewfinder image, and rangefinder mode helps a lot when the camera tells you when to focus. It works smoothly with the Samyang lens.

The lens has an aperture ring so it can be used on Nikon’s mechanical film cameras too. The focus distance is varied by moving the rear lens element, so the lens focus distance changes slightly, depending on the distance to the subject. It’s not too inconvenient, but when framing you have to take a step or two forward or backward to define the frame borders precisely. It’s much easier to keep the lens dust-proof with this arrangement. The optical design is quite complex with 12 elements in 10 groups, including one aspherical and two highly refractive. The lens barrel now has a full-fledged depth of field scale, which is now purely symbolic on AF lenses. The front lens is quite convex and almost not recessed in the frame, so it is better to immediately install a protective filter and always use the hood included in the kit. The lens is fastened tightly to the camera without backlash after connection.

Nikon D90 was chosen for the shoot. Although the lens is designed for both full matrix and film cameras, the prevalence of APS-S format cameras is noticeably higher. With this format, the equivalent focal length is 52.5 mm, so it can be used as a high-aperture prime lens, making it an all-purpose lens. Of course, such testing does not show the “wide angle” capabilities of the lens, but most amateur and semi-professional camera owners will use it as a “half-pint” lens that allows to shoot in most genres.

First of all, the convenience, frame quality, and operability were evaluated for such a lens. I don’t have any complaints about the lens itself and the lens handling: the lens is catchy, focusing is convenient and the limited functions are dictated by the class of the lens itself. Some doubts are raised by the matte finish on the surfaces of the frame. Despite all the advantages of non-glare surfaces, all sorts of abrasions on glossy surfaces will be less noticeable, and not everyone likes the “vintage” look. However, it is possible to check the durability of the coverage only with prolonged use. More inconvenience was the necessity to constantly monitor the cleanliness of the front lens which is poorly protected by the lens barrel. Quick focus in fast-moving scenes is only possible at considerable distances. At short distances, fast focusing was rarely accurate.

Shooting distant scenes at different relative apertures showed very high image sharpness in the whole range, excluding the aperture value of f/1.4. With the diaphragm fully open, the drop in sharpness was quite noticeable both at the edges and in the center. Besides, miracles never happen: nobody has yet created a fast lens that retains high sharpness and contrast when the diaphragm is fully open. Images are beautiful at f/2.8 and retain their quality all the way up to f/11. In this respect the lens behaves the same as its classmates.

At medium distances, the sharpness figures visually remain the same, but pictures taken at apertures of f/5.6 and higher appear sharper due to the greater depth of field. I must say that fixed focal length lenses provide a greater real depth of field than zooms at the same settings. A cityscape at f/16 is quite sharp from 3 meters horizon to horizon with the lens set to infinity. If you take care to roughly aim at the objects of interest, you get a reasonably sharp image across the whole field.

Genre photography objects that maintain a constant position in space, not much of a problem, and shooting moving with sharpness, pre-positioned on the desired area, it becomes even faster than when shooting with autofocus. It was commonly used before the advent of autofocus cameras and is now all but forgotten. It achieves good results, but requires a little bit of skill.

You should use a tripod for macro photography, because it is very difficult to react to focus disruptions by changing the photographer’s position in space. At close range, even small movements of the camera become critical. In this case, cameras with fast autofocus sometimes fail to react as well.

Vignetting is imperceptible even at open apertures. Geometric distortion is minimal, and chromatic aberration is also completely undetectable. Against the light the lens works very well, but keep in mind that most cameras can not fully convey high-contrast images and losses will in any case be great.

Conclusions

The lens can be used successfully in a variety of situations, it is suitable for landscapes, genre photography, portraits, with some speed related restrictions. Excellent sharpness and good contrast across the whole image area. No color variations noticed. The image of the lens is “dry” and sharp. Its high aperture ratio and reasonable price make it quite an attractive buy.

Photo test

Photo 1. High quality of the lens. In spite of the low, almost backlit conditions, the contrast does not diminish. Sharpness is nearly uniform throughout the entire image f/8, 1/800 s, ISO 800 .

Photo 2. Good sharpness at medium distances and beautiful rendering of tones in the contrasting subject. Depth of field is deep f/8, 1/250s, ISO 800 .

Photo 3. Cityscape. Excellent image geometry and a superb depth of field, unachievable with zooms f/16, 1/640 sec, ISO 800 .

Photo 4. True color reproduction with rich saturated colors, and accurate exposure metering in light twilight. Took a couple of shots without adjusting the focus before taking the picture. The lens holds well at the preset distance f/5, 1/100th of a second, ISO 1600 .

The editorial team would like to thank the FotoFrame Company for loaning the lens for testing.