I have to admit I'm still so tempted by this lens. I feel like compared to the Sony 85mm f/1.8, this lens transitions from in focus to out of focus in a much nicer way.
A bit of an older thread here, but I love the 85 especially at 1.4. Here are a couple of images of some little guys that aren't too easy to focus on. Hopefully posting these photos works! I believe all at F1.4.
pulper11 wrote:
A bit of an older thread here, but I love the 85 especially at 1.4. Here are a couple of images of some little guys that aren't too easy to focus on. Hopefully posting these photos works! I believe all at F1.4.
pulper11 wrote:
A bit of an older thread here, but I love the 85 especially at 1.4. Here are a couple of images of some little guys that aren't too easy to focus on. Hopefully posting these photos works! I believe all at F1.4.
Bob_S wrote:
Dude, that's amazing. I know this lens and I know it's not the snappiest to AF, looks like some of those shots were close to or at MFD too.
Well done. Nice colours and sharpness with that beautiful oof rendering.
Thanks Bob! I really appreciate that!
The images were taken with the Sony A9. Regarding the image of the squirrel, it's not quite at MFD but getting close. After cropping it's 3844x3075. Definitely some cropping but this guy did take up a decent amount of the screen.
As an aside, the eye af seemed to work pretty well with the squirrels when they were closer (ie they filled more of the frame). With the chipmunk I did not find that the eye-af worked at all. Now, I'm still very much learning this new system (recently came from Canon to Sony) and I've only tried once with the chipmunks. I'll see how it works next time.
As far as AF goes, coming from the Canon 7d mark 1 this is a big improvement, even if the Samyang lens isn't considered great. However I have not tried another sony lens (other than the Samyang 18 mm) so I don't have much to compare with in the Sony realm. I'm waiting now on the Tamron 70-180.
Taking the images at F1.4 really shows you what's in focus and what isn't. The chipmunks nose is very close to his eyes, but i have several images where his nose is in focus and the eyes are not. I could stop down but I prefer this look right now.
I really do enjoy how the background is rendered with this lens. The background where these images were taken is actually pretty busy, but you'd never know it.
I picked up one of these a few months ago, selling my FE 85/1.8 in its place, and I've been extremely happy with it. Really love the rendering, bokeh and sharpness. Surprisingly sharp wide open, especially given that I'm shooting on an A7R IV. AF has been excellent for me as well. I know that their QC and overall build quality is in-line with the price they charge, but the optics are not too far off of the GM.
Jman13 wrote:
I picked up one of these a few months ago, selling my FE 85/1.8 in its place, and I've been extremely happy with it. Really love the rendering, bokeh and sharpness. Surprisingly sharp wide open, especially given that I'm shooting on an A7R IV. AF has been excellent for me as well. I know that their QC and overall build quality is in-line with the price they charge, but the optics are not too far off of the GM.
Frogfish wrote:
Excellent series highlighting what a great portrait lens this is !
Absolutely! I switched from Pentax to Sony a while ago. I liked a lot but never really found a lens that I could really fall in love with. At Pentax I had at least two or three lenses that were really magical. Now I finally have one that I really love for Sony: the Samyang 85 1.4 AF. So much character.
Something I noticed about this lens is that I do have to fool around with the colors with it more than i did with my Canon equipment. Here is an image I took today. I've posted a link here for the image before color, sharpening etc.
it would appear to me to be a white balance issue but i tried all the different options and they didn't come close to the color i remembered.
Now here is a link to the image after some color work along with exposure changes. I probably over saturated a little, but other than that these colors are more like what I saw I believe.
Any advice on this? I don't mind doing the color work but perhaps i'm missing a setting in the A9 or something. Any tips/comments would be appreciated.
pulper11 wrote:
Something I noticed about this lens is that I do have to full around with the colors with it more than i did with my Canon equipment. Here is an image I took today. I've posted a link here for the image before color, sharpening etc.
it would appear to me to be a white balance issue but i tried all the different options and they didn't come close to the color i remembered.
Now here is a link to the image after some color work along with exposure changes. I probably over saturated a little, but other than that these colors are more like what I saw I believe.
Any advice on this? I don't mind doing the color work but perhaps i'm missing a setting in the A9 or something. Any tips/comments would be appreciated. ...Show more →
I think it’s a bit subjective of what looks better. For me personally, I like the original image better than the retouched one. I would just add some more contrast and doubt I would push the saturation any.
One thing I noticed when moving to Sony is the colors aren’t as vibrant/saturated SOOC but I personally like that better as I color grade everything anyway.
Thanks Photosbydlee. Now that I look at it after your post, I think you're right. On Flickr, I switched it to a version in between the two versions above and I think closer to the original. Thanks for your reply!
pulper11 wrote:
Thanks Photosbydlee. Now that I look at it after your post, I think you're right. On Flickr, I switched it to a version in between the two versions above and I think closer to the original. Thanks for your reply!
