Samyang AF 135mm f/1.8 FE lens review (Full-frame & APS-C)
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- čas přidán 30. 07. 2024
- Samyang's last 135mm lens was pretty epic for its time. What can this new autofocus version do, apart from offer a slightly brighter aperture?
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my jaw actually dropped when you panned over to those image corners at f1.8 - incredible performance for a lens half the price of the GM!
Mine didn't! Samyang shows pretty steadily and solidly an amazing optical performance of their lenses.
i'd still take this with a pinch of salt as Samyang might have cherry picked this lens out of the bunch because of its " fantastic optical performance "
I'm ordering mine at the end of the month and will be putting it up with a Sony A1 and A7R4A il see how it perfomes on larger megapixel sensors
@@ItsEzlan Please try also with off camera flash, or at least with a flash. No model needed, just to..."nothing".
@@charruaporelmundo oh don't worry I shoot alot of portraits and headshots in a studio environment
@@ItsEzlan I love the optic ofthe lens, but with ofc time to time… make my camera a bit “loquita”, I must remove the batterie to bring-it back to life .
Christopher Frost is the only lens reviewer that encourage people to break out of jail.
Love the conclusion, Chris (break out of jail!) Looking forward to getting my hands on one and doing a head to head with 135GM.
Hey Dustin and Chris it would be great if you also compare with the old 135f2 and see how much has changed
Dustin, I can't wait for you to do a comparison and a in depth review. You always cover every base.
Wow...both of my favorite reviewers at one place. Eagerly waiting for your review Dustin
And again Samyang proves itself! Thank you wholeheartedly for making world-class lenses that are affordable by most rising photographers!
Note that firmware V1 of this lens would drain the battery even when the camera is switched off. V2 fixes this.
I have it for a week now and totally enjoy it. Razor sharp at 1.8, lightweight, fast auto focus, and incredible images: it's ability to isolate the subject even at long distance is quite remarkable. I also like bokeh, not clinically smooth, but somewhat warm vintage analog. And considering it cost twice as less as sony, it's a no brainer.
Only thing I didn’t like about this review is that I have a 135 GM in my kit bag and was hoping for some affirmation that it was worth it. We’ll done Samyang.
I have seen another review of this lens and they did test both the samyang and Sony GM versions on a moving subject and while they were both insanely sharp! The Sony GM did get 18 out of 20 photos in focus while the samyang got 16 out of 20 when shooting burst on moving subject... So yeah the GM is still better... But is it worth 2x what the samyang cost? From my point of view I would say yes, if photography is your profession. If you are like me... A hobbyist photographer that sometimes shoot weddings for friends and family then it is more worth getting the samyang.. However, when I did notice Samyang was going to release their 135mm AF lens I was already saving for that Sony 135 GM 😇
If you're using the A9 or A1 bodies the focusing system on the Samyang can't attain 20 & 30 FPS. On the slower bodies with 10 FPS there is no real advantage.
The GM is the faster and more accurate focusing lens. Also, I do think that the GM can better resist bumping the lens into something by accident..
The fps limit is arbitrarily imposed by Sony and has nothing to do with 3rd party lens makers.
I just wanted you to thank you for your stellar reviews Chris! Highest quality paired with consistency and just a pleasure to watch every time. :)
First Viltrox with the 13mm APSC-lens and now Samyang with this 135mm lens are showing what incredible performance they can achieve when they aren't restricting themselves by trying to keep the lens in the super-budget territory.
And you might argue this is budget territory still compared to the competition.
Still a very good price here though. I like the budget lenses from these brands, but it's become very interesting to see what they do in the 'Better priced than rivals' catagories.
@@deanjamescarroll I really enjoyed the samyang 24mm 1.8 until I sold it. It was razor sharp wide open, it was just the CA that was bothering me.
The low vignetting and fine corner performance is invaluable for night sky imaging.
Insane that I was able to pick this lens up for 650$ on Black Friday. INSANE optics on this one.
I've watched almost all your lens reviews and man this lens is good...even from its widest aparture, corner to corner, this lens is sharp af..
Damn. What a stellar lens! Amazing work Chris (as always!)
This review helped convince me to jump on an open-box version (all the new ones were sold out everywhere I looked) and I have to say it lives up to the hype. Absolutely love it. Thanks for the video
Samyang made incredible lenses since the 50 1.4 AF and XP series. They only had to invest on good autofocus. Honestly right now I can work with a full samyang setup on Sony, except for the 200-600
Great review Chris, this lens performs much better than expected. Thank you for posting this review in such a timely manor.
This is an amazing lens. I also own the manual focus 135mm F2 lens. Also super sharp but a beast to use outside of studio conditions and very heavy. This new lens has become my favorite portrait lens.
I purchased this lens based on the stellar reviews... it was my primary lens on safari in Africa. Excellent performance. It worked even better in low light conditions... razor sharp in a smoky hut with the door half closed and no artificial light.
It’s so sharpe, the corner performance is fantastic, I’m impressed
I'm a long time lurker on your channel, but thought I'd just say... Wow. Corner sharpness at 1.8 was just unexpected. I thought we might see some softness, but nope!!! Thanks for the review as always. Am tempted to get this myself.
A pleasant surprise at the end of the video! Thoroughly enjoyed this review of Samyang AF 135mm!
I bought an EF mount manual Samyang 135mm lens a few years ago after a great review from Christopher. I have 25 lenses and out of all of them it is the only 100% perfect optical quality lens. Absolutely perfect image. Head and shoulders above all the others!
Wow I was waiting for you to test this lens for a long time
There is no one who makes quality review videos like you. You are unbeatable in this regard.
Amazing! Thank you for this review. I cannot wait to see it's Astrophotography performance.
I bought this lens instantly when i saw the test results! Incredible value for money, very pleased with my purchase, excellent video.
Great review as always!!
Been waiting for this one!
Really a great lens ! Let us see more portraits . Nice review , thank you .
You made me fall in love with This lens 😍❤️
I’m actually very surprised that Samyang kept this lens very quiet. As Sonys 135 is one of there absolute best performing lens right next to the 400 2.8. I use to have the Sigma 135 but it was so heavy and a burden to carry on wedding days and long shoots. This lens will be a perfect replacement and I have really missed this focal length. I’m hoping that the low light auto focus is still decent in continuous auto focus as well but this should be a very exciting lens for all Sony users
Awesome! Wish they would make it for the rf mount
Your reviews are the best on the internet. Thanks, sincerely.
So far I am more then happy with the lens. One thing not mentioned in the review there is issue with power drain even when the camera is off. You need docking station to be able to install new firmware to fix it. Otherwise for the money it's really great lens.
Thanks for another excellently useful review, Chris! If this ever comes out in Z mount, I'm getting a Z camera and one of these instantly!
At $1000, samyang probably didn't need to pack science-fiction grade optics into this lens for it to sell like hotcakes, but they did it anyways. Great review as always!
Sorry to disappoint you but ''science-fiction grade optics'' are not really what Samyang/Sigma/Tamron/Laowa and others really specialize in... That you can leave to Voigtlander, Zeiss, Hasselblad, PhaseOne and Leica. The most you will get out of these cheaper lenses is either faster aperture or sharpness. Best case scenario you get both fast aperture and sharpness, which with this Samyang lens you do get both! As for image quality, you won't see Hasselblad, Zeiss or Voigtlander level of glass engineering in a $1,000 135mm lens, that's physically and financially impossible to achieve, even if Samyang was a non-profit org/company. Sony GM lenses are built based on Zeiss engineering standards which Sony adopted from Zeiss during their Sony-Zeiss partnership contract that lasted from 2009 to 2019, so for the E-mount, if you care about image quality, your best (and only) options are to save up money for either the 135mm GM or 135mm Batis.
@@nogerboher5266 bro just take photos 😭
@@travishartnett2307 Don't have to tell me twice 😁 I life off it🤪
@@nogerboher5266Did you even watch this video and listen to its conclusions?
This is "the" review I have been expecting for a long time. A lot of online reviews showed portraits, but they were not strict enough to draw a conclusion to its optical performance. By comparing to your previous review on 135GM, I have decided to purchase Samyang 135 when I see a discount (hopefully in June, end of financial year sales as I am in Australia).
What's your experience?
Am looking to get a 135 for the e mount.
@@OkwyUgonweze Bought now when I found a discount. Top optical quality with nothing I could criticize. The focusing speed isn't top speed like 135GM, but since I don't use it for birding, its focusing is just good enough for human portraits or landscape.
@@serena-yu thanks .
@@OkwyUgonweze It actually appeared better than Chris's tests in chromatic aberration, because I used night stars as an infinity target than a close up target for chromatic aberration. The total CA was about 2 pixels on A7Riv, i.e. about 6µm. It's also very sharp too with a couple pixels of coma maximum. Optically, it's among the top quality of all full frame lenses, definitely on par with 135GM.
That focus breathing is just… wow!
Wow, what a great portrait lens!
Thank you, Christopher, for your marvellous reviews which are always a pleasure to watch and - language-wise - to listen to! Your praising of this lens means that it must indeed be 100%plus! I wonder how you would rate it against the Zeiss Batis 135mm 2.8 which I own, but hardly use. Cheers
Samuel
I got the Samyang 135mm f1.8 recently and I am absolutely in love with it :)
wow i was not expecting this review hope it delivers as the original did
Congrats on the baby :)
Impressive performance! Would love it, if Samyang get some of their AF lenses out for Nikon and Canon mirrorless. Would be interesting to see, how well the AF would perform on my Z9. Another brilliant review Chris, thank you very much
I did not expect that I would be amassing a Samyang/Rokinon collection, but here we are. This lens is absolutely next on my list unless sigma releases a 70-200 before I get to buy this.
Wow! Amazing quality
Greetings. I was waiting for this test, and this lens . 😁
The pitch you made for people to go out and buy this lens was one of the most funny ones I've heard in a long time, cheers mate! I'm on a Canon EOS R, I'll likely be getting the Sigma as I have a set of Sigma lenses already.
Thanks Christopher! super usefull
Great one. Good to know. Take it on my list to buy.
I will be picking one of these up soon, been waiting for a review of it. I wouldn’t mind seeing the 100mm stf lens tested, I own it and think it’s phenomenal, would be interesting to see you test that one.
What an incredible lens. 135mm isn't my favorite focal length but holy crap this is good :o
I bought my copy of this lens on release and I regret NOTHING! however I did notice one downside with the lens...when in firmware v1.0 it will drain battery power from the camera it is mounted on even when the camera is powered off! This was solved with firmware update to v2.0... It can also be solved by removing the battery from the camera when not in use or removing the lens from the camera body. To update your Samyang AF lenses firmware.. You will need a lens station from samyang, it's fairly low cost and I did get one sent to me at no extra cost when I preordered this lens. If you already have a lens station you will need to uninstall the lens manager software if you have an old version of the software and reinstall the newest version (can be found on samyangs homepage).... I also noticed one more thing that is really not a big deal for me... But did anyone else that has this lens notice it is difficult to fit it in the lens bag that comes with it? 😅 of course I have a lens bag so I'm not really bothered by this but still found it a bit funny to see samyang send a standard sized bad for a big lens like this one 😂 anyway... I would like to nominate this lens for lens of the year (when it comes to bang for buck among Prime lenses)... It's my Best Buy so far this year 👍👍👍👍
hi whats ur current feedback of this lens? hows it af? and sharpness of human portraits at 1.8. TIA
This is shockingly amazing!
Chris, please do more vintage L lenses; i would love to see a review on the 28-70 f2.8L and the 28-80 f2.8-4L!
I love your reviews! I am not a full time professional but I do some work on the side (family, seniors, portraits). Do you think the autofocus on the Samyang (Eye AF) can handle a child at play or do I have save for the GM?
That's a remarkably good performance for this lens! Christopher, next time you're talking to Samyang, please suggest to them that they make a version for the Canon RF mount. Cheers. Great video as usual, by the way. :-)
I had the EF version of this lens when it came out and it rendered some of the most dreamy portraits I've ever shot. It was hard to use with the 5D Mark 3 but it would be easy with my R5.
Every time Sony gets an awesome 3rd party lens, I die a little inside clutching my canon mirrorless gear :(
1st world problems aside, this is getting obnoxious for me as a canon user. The 800mm and the good enough read out time on the R6 is all that’s keeping me in the system
canon has awesome ef gear that is cheap. i personally shot canon DSLRs before but am now deep into sony fe.
Same here smh.
@@richrollin4867 Yeah it sucks...I have Samyangs RF 85 1.4
Canon is great of you wanna be on a budget and adapt old lenses on the RF body. But if you want legit modern good stuff, Sony and it's first and third party ecosystem is where it's at.
Wow. Samyang knocked it out of the park with this one. Great review!
thanks for the review
This one is simply incredible.
I have the 135 f2 previous manual version of the lens .
how about PQ between them at the same f stops ?
Is it worth stepping to the 1.8 ?
Generally ia m extremely pleased with the F2 but an upgrade if the final result makes is worth it
would be very good news
Wow. Better even than I expected and I expected a lot. Why would they be so quiet about it?
Wonderful review as usual One thing I'm always curious about, is why people care so much about corner sharpness at open apertures of portrait lenses (other than from a purely technical standpoint). Surely the corners will always be blurry anyway in the photos taken?
When doing portrait photography, yes. But your subject won't always be dead centre in the frame, and also, portrait photography is not all these lenses are used for
Will you be testing Samyang's new 50mm f1.4? that looks like a very promising lens but I heard some bad comments about it's autofocus accuracy.
Wow just wow, an amazing performance, maybe best optic in terms of price to performance ratio ever.
I bought Sam Yang 24 F1.8 it’s so good definitely buying this 135
Waiting for your review of Samyang 50 mm f1.4 II!
Can't wait for the Fuji version. The manual Samyang 135mm has been my main concert workhorse for years across Nikon and Fuji systems, and the AF version looks pretty much just as good but like with the AF version of the 12mm F2 they seem to have gotten rid of the magenta cast.
Also having dust/weather seals on the AF lenses does not hurt either 😇
This is a full frame lens. It may get a Z mount version (very unlikely since Nikon doesn't seem willing to open its AF protocol), but won't be on Fuji X mount.
@@serena-yu Dude, the manual Samyang 135mm F2 is a full frame lens too. Samyang has already ported tons of full frame lenses to Fuji, the 85mm, 50mm, the 14mm, the 135 and the list goes on. Viltrox does it too with their 85.
@@Vinterloft wow, I have never heard about that. It sounds nice though
If only I had the money for this lens. Or a Sony. Or a FF camera XD I'm gonna keep my fingers crossed we start to see some AF lenses for Fuji from Samyang soon. I would love their 35mm f1.2 and 85mm for mirrorless camera's in an AF body on Fuji :D
I own a Zeiss 135mm f/1.8 (a mount) and wishing someone can do a comparison with these newer lenses on a la-ea5 equipped sony mirrorless!!
Any idea if the autofocus performance is much worse on the A7RII? I know you use that camera in your older reviews until you upgraded to the A7RIII. My boss has been telling me to go with a used 135mm gmaster for the autofocus but that's still $500 more than this lens.
A glowing review :) pictures certainly were sharp. Great for low light on a Sony A7IV
They also make an f2.0 which is much cheaper. Maybe that's great too? (I see you have reviewed that too)
Love ur vids
Thank you for review!
A reminder though for potential buyers, if your Sony body is as old as my a7m2, the AF could work WORSE!
I once had a lot AF issues with a Samyang 35mm f1.4 AF, which turned out to work great on another a7m3..
Your enthusiasm for this particular lens among the many you've tested is quite remarkable. Can you recommend a full-frame wide-angle lens with similar acclaim?
Oh good! I just broke out yesterday... I guess I’ll have to get this! 😂 Thank you for consistently putting out great concise reviews, without the glorification and overall Overly opinionated BS like other channels. Keep up the great work, you rock!
I find the Rokinon version on Amazon in Canada. Will this be the same lens?
It is several hundred dollars cheaper than the Samyang coming from the U.S.
Dear Christopher 😊 please can you test out the zeiss batis 135mm 2.8 ? Thank you
I have the old manual focus Rokinon 135mm F2 and that lens has amazing colors and background obliterating bokeh. A lot of folks (myself included) use it for astro photography (where lack of AF isn't such a big deal). I wonder how this news lens compares (for example, does it use the same optical formula and coatings).
How do you mount it on a tripod ? Do you use a tripod collar ? I shoot with an A6400 and got the manual 135mm f2 recently. Love it for handheld stills.. Still looking for mounting options.
Excellent review! Eventhough i use fuji. Still great to see Value for Money.
Hope they'll bring them at some point to the RF mount as well
A question, is the focus ring setting a default setting on aperture when AF is used or is the lenstation required for this customisation?
daaaaamn those corners at 1.8. ridiculous sharp.
Is this lens also great for astrophotography or would You prefer the old 135 f1.8? Is the focus motor here precise enough?
Yup..this is gonna be the next purchase..135 is just.. Awesome
The Sigma 135mm f.18 is one of the best lenses I ever had in my hand.
What's sharper - crazy sharp, ridiculously sharp, unbelievably sharp?
Razor sharp.
Stunning lens. Samyang bring it to RF please.
Wow. What a lens
this is one of the best lens for its price to performance ratio. hope I can get one soon
Hi Christopher, I like how you always test the full frame lenses like this on APS-C sensors too. But would you also consider testing various speedboosters? They are a way to mount Full Frame lenses on APS-C bodies and achieve an extra stop of light from the light that would otherwise fall outside of the sensor area. I would love to see the results on quality of these speedboosters on your test charts.
Never heard of a speedbooster before :O are they any good??
I am wondering if the corner sharpness test is meaningless. The front element is curved so optically wouldn't the corners be focusing a bit closer than the center? So say if you had a curved dish that just exactly matches the focus on every point, then it'd be tack sharp all throughout?
As a Korean, I was surprised by the last greeting. haha Thank you for the good review.
How is coma for rendering stars on deep sky photography?
Do you think optical performance is equivalent or better than the older manual focus Samyang 135mm f2? That one was nearly apochromatic as well.
I have used the f/2 version. This 135mm f1.8 is more apochromatic than the f2 ED, from the looks Christopher has shown, also from the photo of tree branches against a bright sky shown by Sony alpha blog.
Well I think Samyang should give it back to you! Great review as always and I only wish I had a spare £800!
Look forward your review on Samyang AF 50mm f/1.2 FE
Great review, but I would have loved some night shots to assess coma smearing. This looks like a perfect lens for nebulae.
Almost unbelievable!