p.1 #1 · Samyang/Rokinon 135mm f/2 ED UMC officially announced!
Samyang just announced their new 135mm f/2 ED UMC lens. The new fast telephoto prime was designed for full-frame DSLRs and mirrorless cameras. A truly versatile lens for portraiture, this lens features an f/2.0 maximum aperture to help isolate subjects using selective focus techniques.
The optical design incorporates one extra-low dispersion element to minimize chromatic aberrations, and a UMC coating has been applied to control lens flare and ghosting for increased contrast and color accuracy. An inner focusing mechanism maintains the overall lens length during use, and a minimum focusing distance of 2.6' enables working with close-up subjects.
Full specifications:
Aperture Range: f/2.0 to f/22
One Extra-Low Dispersion Element
Ultra Multi-Coating
Manual Focus; Manual Aperture Ring
Minimum Focus Distance: 2.6'
Filter Thread Diameter: 77mm
Removable Lens Hood
Rounded 9-Blade Diaphragm
Mounts: Canon EF, Nikon F, Fujifilm X, Micro Four Thirds, Pentax K, Samsung NX, Sony A and Sony E
Pre-order from B&H Photo for $549 and $599 for the cine version:
p.1 #5 · Samyang/Rokinon 135mm f/2 ED UMC officially announced!
For my needs the Canon EF 135mm f/2L USM with electronic aperture control and good autofocus would be well worth the extra money over this manual focus manual aperture Samyang offering. My coverage of this focal length with my 70-200 f 2.8 L IS has kept me from evaluating the Canon 135 in the past, and probably will do so in the future.
p.1 #6 · Samyang/Rokinon 135mm f/2 ED UMC officially announced!
Roland W wrote:
For my needs the Canon EF 135mm f/2L USM with electronic aperture control and good autofocus would be well worth the extra money over this manual focus manual aperture Samyang offering. My coverage of this focal length with my 70-200 f 2.8 L IS has kept me from evaluating the Canon 135 in the past, and probably will do so in the future.
At the Samyang's release price I'd agree - but the Samyang will probably be selling for south of $400 within a year after its release.
p.1 #9 · Samyang/Rokinon 135mm f/2 ED UMC officially announced!
snapsy wrote:
At the Samyang's release price I'd agree - but the Samyang will probably be selling for south of $400 within a year after its release.
Yep, Compare the MSRP prices on the Rokinon website. Lenses listed at $599 retail for $380-$400. Given the official MSRP of $549, it should retail for around $350 very soon.
p.1 #10 · Samyang/Rokinon 135mm f/2 ED UMC officially announced!
I can see this hitting $399 pretty quickly. Dunno how much of a value it's going to be for the Canon crowd, though. Maybe for Nikon guys or the other mounts.
MF isn't as bad as you guys think Heck, I survived a while with almost exclusively MF on my A7 and it wasn't hard at all - it's actually sorta nice not having to worry about moving around AF points, etc.
All said and done, though, I sold my Canon 135L after getting the 70-200, so now that I have a used Nikon 80-200 AF-D incoming, I doubt I'll get this. Then again, 28.7oz looks pretty good vs the 45oz of the 80-200, and Samyang's Nikon version has focus confirmation support...
p.1 #12 · Samyang/Rokinon 135mm f/2 ED UMC officially announced!
I am glad to see this even though I have no interest in a MF lens. I have long dreamt of owning the Canon 135L. The more "comparable" lenses out there the better. What I really want is for Canon to update the 135L that forces used prices down. Then I could hopefully find a used copy at $500.
Specification
Manufacturer Samyang Optics
Model Samyang 135mm f/2.0 ED UMC Lens
Lens type Prime Telephoto lens - full frame compatible
Focal length 135mm
Maximum aperture f2.0
Min aperture f22
Angle of view 18.8 degrees (full frame) 11.7 degrees(APS-C)
Min focusing distance 0.8m
No. of diaphragm blades 9 (circular blades)
Focus type MF (Manual Focus only)
Lens construction 11 elements in 7 groups, 1 ED lens element.
Dimensions 82mm diameter, length 122 to 148mm (approx, dependent on mount)
Weight 830g (approx, dependent on mount)
Lens hood: Detachable
Filter Size: 77mm
Available mounts Canon EF, Nikon F (AE), Sony A, Sony E mount, Pentax K, Fujifilm X, Canon M, Samsung NX, Four Thirds and MFT
Only one ED and no aspherics (no floating elements as well) - it will certainly be no 135/2 APO contender, but may be very very good for the price. We'll see how it stacks up against the 135/2 AIS and the 135/2 APO Zeiss. Perhaps it will get to 90% of the APO for ~1/5 the price.
I loved the 135L in my Canon days, so I was surprised to see how much this Samyang was superior in all the side-by-side tests. Anyone preferring manual focus will definitely want this, especially the video guys with the cine version of this lens.
p.1 #20 · Samyang/Rokinon 135mm f/2 ED UMC officially announced!
I really don't get the preference for modern manual focus only lenses. When I lusted after fast primes but could not afford or justify Sony's fast and expensive lenses for A-mount, I really enjoyed using fast M42 primes via focus confirmation adapters on my Sony A700. I really marveled then at the engineering brilliance of the optics designers and engineers of the fifties and sixties and could not beleive that I was using cheap (and considered worthless by many) forty year old lenses on my modern digital cameras and was producing colorful and quite sharp images. Then, there was the overwhelming feeling of nostalgia that I experienced using these hand built and reliable all-metal and glass works of art and science from generations before me.
I had no problem getting completely in focus portraits and other images even when shooting wide open at 50mm f/1.4 or 135mm f/2.8 on my Sony A700 with M42 focus confirm adapters. When shooting wide open on split-prism Minolta film SLRs with similar fast lenses but without the aid of electronic focus confirmation my success rate was around 50%. But when shooting 50mm f/1.4 and Samyang 85mm f/1.4-2.0 lenses on my A700 without focus confirmation, my success rate was about 5%. Perhaps I have bad eyes, but I was bitterly angered by Samyang's obstinate refusal to place AF confirm chips on its otherwise fantastic lenses. Because of the lack of AF assist with my Samyang 85mm f/1.4, I only managed to get about 10 in focus images over the four to five years or so that I used the lens. Eventually the lens ended up sitting mostly unused till today even though I prefer its images compared to those shot with my Sigma EX 85mm f/1.4 AF lens.
Seeing Samyang announce another potentially killer lens but without a ROM chip to allow AF confirmation I am puzzled by why they keep on doing this to their customers and why so many people on sites like this give them a pass for failing to add $1 ROM chips on $500 lenses when those cheap ROM chips would make the usability of their lenses so much better for the vast majority of those seeking to purchase their low cost high quality optics.
I've heard folks claim that AF confirm does not work and that one needs an EVF in order to shoot fast primes wide open but this is completely contradicted by my own personal experience. I have bad eyes , used an APSC standard viewfinder with camera assisted AF confirmation and never had any problems getting my desired focus point in complete focus at f/1.4 or even f/1.2 and even at MFD using just the green dot AF signal and the view through the OVF viewfinder. On the other hand I did not find the Sony A99's EVF or RX-100 LCD making that much easier to obtain correct focus when trying to manual focus without a focus confirmation feature in use. Also, using focus magnification is not an answer because that only works when the subject is static and the camera is secured.
So this is all a long preamble to my saying Boo! To Samyang for again only providing aperture linkage and focus confirmation on its latest lens for Nikon cameras only!
cputeq wrote:
I can see this hitting $399 pretty quickly. Dunno how much of a value it's going to be for the Canon crowd, though. Maybe for Nikon guys or the other mounts.
MF isn't as bad as you guys think Heck, I survived a while with almost exclusively MF on my A7 and it wasn't hard at all - it's actually sorta nice not having to worry about moving around AF points, etc.
All said and done, though, I sold my Canon 135L after getting the 70-200, so now that I have a used Nikon 80-200 AF-D incoming, I doubt I'll get this. Then again, 28.7oz looks pretty good vs the 45oz of the 80-200, and Samyang's Nikon version has focus confirmation support...
Heck, I survived a while with almost exclusively MF on my A7 and it wasn't hard at all - it's actually sorta nice not having to worry about moving around AF points, etc.