p.3 #1 · Samyang 85mm 1.4 FE - Current owners still happy with the lens?
zeitlos wrote:
I have a question for you guys that also have this lens. A friend of mine ordered a copy to test it against his Sony 85 1.8. He will return the Samyang 85 1.4 AF because he is disappointed with regard to its sharpness (in comparison to his 85 1.8 Sony). He did some testing and found out that between 0-2 meters the sharpness isn't that good. After 2 meter it's no issue anymore. He says (and I absolutely share his opinion) that distances between 0-2 meter are crucial for a portrait lens. So if this is a problem for the lens it may not be first choice for portraits.
I'm just curious about your experiences regarding sharpness. I'm not talking about AF-failures, just what the lens is capable of achieving if it comes to sharpness. Any thoughts/pictures/experiences you can share?
I'm a bit surprised since I had the Sony 85 1.8 as well (yes, it was sharp) and the Batis 85 1.8 (yes, it was sharp). But now I have the Samyang and I couldn't make out "sharpness" as a drawback of this lens so far. But I will have to do some testing in this range (0-2m)....Show more →
That was totally my experience when I tested side by side sigma 35 and samyang 35 1.4: the samyang was sharper at infinity at any aperture, but the sigma was sharper in portrait distances (up to full body covering half frame).
Sadly, I didn’t compare samyang 85 and Sony 85 1.8 side by side. I owned the Sony before, sold it and then bought the samyang. I had my resolution tests done so I compared them (not in the same day), and I found that the samyang showed at infinity more resolution all the way to the corners at 1.4 than the Sony at 1.8. And in every aperture the samyang was better.
Maybe at close distances the samyang is not as sharp (same as happens with the samyang 35), and maybe it’s also about focus accuracy, I don’t know. But what I can tell you is that sharpness isn’t everything, and the samyang is more than sharp enough. The difference in rendering is a world to me. I was never happy with the rendering of my Sony: to harsh por portrait, cold lifeless colors and people just looking ugly. The samyang makes more beautiful pictures, less clinical.
And maybe the thing is that the samyang has less contrast so it’s more flattering for portraits at wide apertures , with enough resolution but not making that apparent every pore with so much contrast as the Sony.
I remember one day taking portrait studio shots with the Sony 85 and my canon 70-200 f4 (both at f8). After a few shots, I realised that I liked the canon zoom much better: the skin looked better, the colors we’re better. I stopped using the Sony 85 and continued with the canon. Now with the samyang, I really love the rendering.
The drawback of the samyang is the ghosting. Even with the lens hood, when there’s a light from the side (even street lights a night), the picture loses all the contrast, and the whole picture is a yellow mess, with horrible ghosting. For backlit and those kind of difficult situations, the Zeiss batis is he best with a huge margin.
Then one last good thing for the samyang: really low purple fringing and ca, as good as the batis or better, whereas he Sony was pretty bad (while not as bad as he canon 85 1.8)
As you can see, I’ve tried a lot of 85 and so far he sammy is my favourite. I haven’t tried the GM though, and the sigma is awesome but too big and bulky for me.
p.3 #2 · Samyang 85mm 1.4 FE - Current owners still happy with the lens?
Thanks for your comprehensive feedback! I second every single word you just wrote!
I'm still convinced that the Sony 85 1.8 is a very good lens. Have no doubts about it. However, as you said, portraits are something special and don't ask for perfect sharpness etc. (even though my Samyang is sharp in my opinion). I simply find the rendering of the Samyang 85 stunning. I switched from Pentax to Sony. My favorite portrait lens there was the Pentax FA 77 1.8 Limited. No matter what I did, the portraits where always awesome, lovely etc. It wasn't the sharpest (clearly, being more than 20 years of age...) but still sharp enough. and with a bit of too much post processing it could even be too sharp at times...
The Samyang 85 1.4 AF is the first lens I really adore for Sony. And I do have the Zeiss 50 1.4, the Batis 135 2.8. etc. All those lenses are surely great, but they lack the soul the Samyang offers in its results.
And yes, I support your finding that the Samyang might "lack" (is this really the right term here?) a bit of contrast. At least when you compare it to the Batis 85 1.8 for instance. The Pentax FA77 1.8, however, was much "worse". But it was the perfect portrait lens. So connect the dots... A no-brainer if it came to shooting great portraits.
And yes, the main reason, that made me sell the Sony 85 1.8 were its colors. Top cold, not what I want to see from a lens that is meant to portray people. I'm really sensitive if it comes to colors.
p.3 #3 · Samyang 85mm 1.4 FE - Current owners still happy with the lens?
Fred Miranda wrote:
The main issue I'm having is with EyeAF, especially at close distance and low light. I will try firmware 4.
This problem has never resolved for me even with v4 firmware, sorry to say. The eye-AF will, near MFD and in less than ideal lighting, sometimes confirm focus but the eyes will not be in focus. I try to make sure I am just slightly further back than MFD to avoid the problem.
p.3 #4 · Samyang 85mm 1.4 FE - Current owners still happy with the lens?
Fred Miranda wrote:
I'm getting 50/50 AF accuracy on the A7R4 with firmware 3 with this new copy. When it hits focus it's tack sharp wide open.
I remember getting about 80% accuracy with my previous copy on the A7R3. This one is also well centered but I'm not very happy with focus accuracy. Debating updating the firmware or returning it...Samyang states that firmware 4 only improved AF for the Sony A9 so I'm not sure it will help much...
This (50/50) should not be happening and I’m interested to know if v4 helps here. I’m really in the camp that their copy variation is a huge problem. You shouldn’t have to try four or five copies to get a good one. That being said, I fully believe that those who experience next to no problems got a good copy right off the bat and it does function very well. But the QC issues are causing this type of varying experience user to user and make it difficult to have trust in buying what should ideally be an excellent performing lens.
p.3 #5 · Samyang 85mm 1.4 FE - Current owners still happy with the lens?
abadger wrote:
This (50/50) should not be happening and I’m interested to know if v4 helps here. I’m really in the camp that their copy variation is a huge problem. You shouldn’t have to try four or five copies to get a good one. That being said, I fully believe that those who experience next to no problems got a good copy right off the bat and it does function very well. But the QC issues are causing this type of varying experience user to user and make it difficult to have trust in buying what should ideally be an excellent performing lens....Show more →
What puzzles me is that if the software is the same, what's the copy variation? focusing motor variation? It should not happen.
This copy I have is perfectly centered and sharp at any distance. I will update to v4 when the dock comes and post my thoughts.
p.3 #6 · Samyang 85mm 1.4 FE - Current owners still happy with the lens?
I just had three copies that I “tested”.
Two used, and one new.
One of the used copies was a bit soft wide open, but the other seemed as about as sharp, accurate and quiet as the new.
Used were Samyang branded, and the new, Rokinon.
Decided to keep the new one.
All updated to same v4 FW by me.
p.3 #7 · Samyang 85mm 1.4 FE - Current owners still happy with the lens?
Fred Miranda wrote:
What puzzles me is that if the software is the same, what's the copy variation? focusing motor variation? It should not happen.
This copy I have is perfectly centered and sharp at any distance. I will update to v4 when the dock comes and post my thoughts.
Yes I don’t understand this at all either unless there is something in the software that is sensitive to some element being off in some way that is not otherwise noticeable. But you see people’s varying experiences with it. What could account for that?
p.3 #8 · Samyang 85mm 1.4 FE - Current owners still happy with the lens?
abadger wrote:
Yes I don’t understand this at all either unless there is something in the software that is sensitive to some element being off in some way that is not otherwise noticeable. But you see people’s varying experiences with it. What could account for that?
Samyang says it has “DLSM” motors, if they’re piezo then they depend on predictable friction with a surface, if that is off, then they may work erratically.
p.3 #9 · Samyang 85mm 1.4 FE - Current owners still happy with the lens?
Personally, my copy of Samyang works perfectly on the A9. No issues with focus. Gorgeous rendering, better than the any 85mm I have used (including canon and nikons). I have limited experience with Sony 85 GM but I think Samyang has better rendering. My copy also works great as far as AF with Nikon z7 with an adapter. It’s obviously slower than A9 but I never missed a shot because of the lens.
p.3 #10 · Samyang 85mm 1.4 FE - Current owners still happy with the lens?
This is what I mean when I say the lens has horrible ghosting with side lights Sin título by Juanma Herrera, en Flickr
Then I started using speedlight and went to a darker area. Really difficult to focus here and a lot of misses (the Eos R focus much better in low light). Still I got some nice ones
p.3 #11 · Samyang 85mm 1.4 FE - Current owners still happy with the lens?
tl;dr: if your lens is stuck opening/closing the aperture very quickly every time you turn on the camera and is no longer working, try playing with the camera until it takes one image - maybe that'll fix it, it did for me.
One weird thing that happened to mine randomly was that the aperture blades were stuck quickly opening and closing ("rattling"), seemed like they didn't open all the way and so the lens kept trying. It kept happening every time I turned on the camera for about 10 seconds and then lens gave up and showed the "F--" error instead of aperture.
I'm not sure if this is what fixed it, but as I was about to send the lens in for repair, I was recording a video of the problem and I managed to take a single image somehow and the lens worked again. I usually couldn't take images, don't remember what I did (maybe switched camera to MF?) but it worked right after.
p.3 #12 · Samyang 85mm 1.4 FE - Current owners still happy with the lens?
numbertwo wrote:
This is what I mean when I say the lens has horrible ghosting with side lights
Then I started using speedlight and went to a darker area. Really difficult to focus here and a lot of misses (the Eos R focus much better in low light). Still I got some nice ones
And here some samples from today (it’s everything sooc, sent to my phone and uploaded to Flickr, last holiday day today )
I actually like this kind of ghosting in some circumstances:
p.3 #14 · Samyang 85mm 1.4 FE - Current owners still happy with the lens?
I just bought the lens. I am really happy with it : optical quailities, rendering and AF. I had lots of issues with Samyang 35 1.4 auto focus accuracy (I tried several of them). But to me, that 85 1.4 is working much better regarding AF accuracy.
p.3 #15 · Samyang 85mm 1.4 FE - Current owners still happy with the lens?
This lens is still spot on for me, works flawlessly. I've never had it miss more than once or twice on a shoot, if any. From this past weekend's shoot.
p.3 #16 · Samyang 85mm 1.4 FE - Current owners still happy with the lens?
A couple jpegs from a rainy day in SF, even the birds were too cold to move. Not really how the lens is usually used but it's fun to take it to the streets.
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