What Nd Filter Size For Samyang 35mm 1.4

Box and contents

The Sony A580 and A900 were used for this review. For a better understanding of terms and methods used in this review, become here.

The usual center, mid-department and corner crops are located at the very bottom of the page.

Introduction.

The relatively inexpensive Rokinon 35mm F/1.4 UMC aspherical lens was introduced in 2010, and is bachelor for nigh major camera mounts, including Sony alpha. It may also be constitute labeled walimex, Falcon, Opteka, Pro Optic, Vivitar, Bowers and Samyang. I'm told Samyang of South Korea is the original manufacturer. The lens says "made in Korea."

Found on the outside of the lens is a plastic discontinuity band and plastic manual focusing ring, no focus concord or limiter buttons. Build materials of the trunk seems to be a mix of metal and plastic. Build quality is by and large good, with a good fit and end. Additionally, the plastic filter ring at the front that surrounds the front element is sparse, and bends easily with finger pressure level. Make sure you don't strip the threads when mounting a filter. The lens trunk has an appealing black spatter pigment finish. Rokinon claims the use of ane aspherical, and 2 "high refractive" elements in the blueprint of the lens.

Employ. Brand certain y'all select "enable" for "release W/O lens" on your camera, otherwise, the camera thinks no lens has been mounted, and won't release the shutter. This is a manual lens only, significant there is no communication with the camera (on a Sony model), yous must use manual focus, and choose an aperture. Exposure metering is ok, but you'll demand to check your LCD after each shot and adjust for all-time results. Also, white balance metering may modify as yous cease down the aperture; I've noticed it's warmer at larger apertures, from F/1.iv-2.8, and cools off at F/five.6 and smaller, so check you LCD if you're shooting in Jpegs; with Raw it'southward no large deal. The aperture settings are marked in one finish increments between F/1.4-2, and F/16-22, everything in between is in one-half stops. Information technology is possible to use an in-between aperture, you'll take to carefully plough the ring and set information technology between marked stops, although I don't know why you'd desire to do that. The viewfinder is very dark when the aperture is set smaller than F/v.half dozen.

Don't set the lens down on the mountain side without a cap when the focus is set to infinity, if yous practise the rear chemical element will affect the surface and the lens will wobble around and fall over.

Note; bright daytime apply at F/1.4 will often outcome in having to utilise a shutter speed of i/8000 at ISO 100. Most consumer grade cameras don't take that shutter speed, (the pro bodied Sony A700/A850/A900 do) so yous'll need to employ a neutral density filter to bring down the low-cal value and become the proper exposure.

The aperture blades course a nice circle between F/1.4-2, however, from F/4-22 the hole increasingly becomes octagonal.

EXIF data reads 0mm for focal length, and F/1 for aperture. The alive view screen will read F-- with no aperture.

In the box is the lens, front end and rear caps, plastic petal blazon hood, a stinky black simulated velvet carrying pouch and owner's manual.

Focusing. Manual focusing simply. The focusing ring is damped perfectly in my opinion, and is pretty easy to turn with i finger. Focus ring travel is over 1/3 of a plough form shut-up to infinity, which is a practiced amount of travel, only precise focusing (at less than infinity distances) at F/one.4-2 requires practice (and luck) every bit you can't see the difference in the viewfinder, even with an "M" focusing screen. My copy delivered proper focus when prepare at the infinity hard end marking.

Side shot

Back side, no contacts

Flimsy plastic filter threads

Samyang X-ray view

Full general information and specifications .

Lens	Rokinon 35mm F/one.4 AS UMC for Sony
Box contents	Front cap, rear cap, hood, carrying handbag and users manual.
Price	Approximately $499
Build quality	Ok to good.
Additional information	Introduced in tardily 2010. May also be marketed under the names; Falcon, Bowers, Samyang, Opteka, Pro Optic, Walimex, Vivitar.
Specifications below
Optical configuration	12 elements in x groups
Angle of view	63.2˚ full frame, 43.3˚ APS-C=1.5x
Aperture	8 blades, slightly curved
Full frame and APS-C	Made for full frame, but works fine on APS-C cameras, with equivalent coverage of about 52mm.
Depth of field and focus scales?	Yes, DOF, discontinuity index marks and focus altitude scale.
Minimum focus, image aeroplane to discipline	About 12" (305mm)
Minimum focus, end of lens barrel to discipline	About 7.25" (184mm)
Hard stop at infinity focus?	Yes, and my copy focuses properly at the hard stop.
Length changes when focusing?	No.
Focus ring turns in AF?	N/A
Filter size	77mm.
Filter ring rotates?	No
Distance encoder?	No
Max magnification	Nearly 0.20x or 1:v
Min. F/finish	F/22
Sony teleconverter compatible?	No
Length changes when zooming?	N/A
Dimensions WxL (my measurements)	iii.27" x 4.37" 83mm x 111mm.
Maximum extended length (my measurements)	4.37" (111mm)
Weight bare (my scale)	23.5oz (667g) bare.

Optical qualities summary.

Lens flare/ghosting. Virtually average control. At large apertures I see some multi-colored rings that may ruin the epitome, but stopping down results in mostly isolated colored blobs when the sunday is close to, or within the shot, see examples below.

Light fall-off. large amounts on full frame at F/1.4, simply brightens up at F/2. Meet samples below.

Colour fringing (CA). Lateral color fringing control is way higher up average. I encounter just a tiny bit of magenta and green at the edges of the image. You lot see small-scale amounts of centric colour fringing, but it clears up by F/4.

Bokeh . harsh at F/i.4, just smooths out when stopped downwardly, see examples beneath.

Color. seems slightly warmer (more yellow/orange) than Sony lenses.

Shut up filter. N/A

Coma. None.

Regular filters crusade no additional light fall-off on APS-C or full frame cameras.

Filter size. 77mm. Sony uses this size on the CZ 24-70mm F/ii.viii, 70-200mm F/two.8 G, CZ 135mm F/i.eight, 11-18mm F/4.5-v.six, and the lxx-400mm Grand.

Distortion. balmy to moderate barrel distortion.

Baloney example straight below.

Minor butt distortion

Baloney is not a problem with this lens.

Bokeh samples.

F/one.4	F/2

F/two.8	F/4

Bokeh looks a little harsh at F/1.4, but does polish out nicely at F/2. The octagonal discontinuity shape shows up when stopped down past F/4.

Light fall-off samples .

F/1.4	F/two

Light fall-off is somewhat heavy at F/1.4, but improves greatly at F/2.

Allow's check out the macro capabilities of this lens.

Below, check out the cropped image (322kb) of the postage. The sample shot was taken with the Sony A 580 sixteen.2MP photographic camera . The subject is a standard US postage, 0.87"x ane.0" or 22mm x 25mm. Also, note the macro shot was taken equally close to the field of study as focusing allowed; in this example a short 7.5" (184mm), measured from the front of the lens barrel to the subject area.

This lens has an approximate reproduction size of 0.20x (ane:5) which is about average for today'due south wide bending prime lenses. The postage stamp shot looks ok, but lacks dissimilarity, (actually information technology sucks). In that location was petty difference betwixt F/4-8. As a side notation; the "1996" on the bottom left of the stamp measures a mere 1mm wide.

Equally close as yous can get, F/5.6.

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Full frame results using the Sony A900 below.

Check out the differences when using a motion-picture show or full frame camera below. I'm only pointing out the noticeable problems as compared to the APS-C bodies, and so if I don't testify it here, the results are not significantly dissimilar enough to warrant posting an additional set of images in this section.

Light fall-off

F/1.4	F/two

F/2.8	F/iv

I see heavy light fall-off at F/1.iv. However, by closing the aperture but ane end, the frame lightens upward tremendously. There's enough lite fall-off at F/1.4 to possibly mess up your machine-exposure system, make sure you don't over betrayal the middle area.

Total paradigm below illustrating low-cal fall-off from A900 .

F/one.4, ISO 100, i/3200sec.

Here's a total scene that shows actual-use low-cal fall-off with the lens wide open up. Nighttime corners are not really noticeable, just exist careful when using F/ane.four, make sure the centers are not over-exposed, as they are slightly in this shot! Information for the image is; F/1.4, 3200sec, ISO 100.

Flare and Ghosting.

Ghosting with lower left corner arc and multi colored blob, F/5.6.	Modest rainbow, F/v.vi.

When the sun is in the image, there are multi-colored (or rainbow) blobs visible, simply severity depends on bending and discontinuity. At F/ane.4-2, y'all'll see some big rings opposite the sun. When the lord's day is out of the prototype in that location are even so small-scale ghosting problems, and then use your hand as a calorie-free block, which works better than the included hood.

Full frame distortion .

Moderate barrel distortion on A900

Full frame coverage shows moderate barrel baloney, with a unproblematic signature, and can exist mostly corrected with distortion repair sliders.

Existent-earth close focus shot .

Item from center of image.

This close focus shot at F/1.4 looks good, and doesn't show a lack of contrast like the stamp shot does. I meet a smooth, de-focused background, but this isn't bokeh, it'due south just out of focus, forth with a wide discontinuity.

Coma samples .

F/1.four	F/two

This lens produces no coma! I find this very surprising equally fifty-fifty the newest lenses from Sony of this type have much more than yous see hither. Coma takes the form of weird, smeared blobs at points of calorie-free in the corners of the image, especially in broad angle lenses. The Christmas tree lights here show zip of any consequence, although I practise find the corners are very abrupt at F/i.4! 100% crops from the far corners. Exposure differences are from calorie-free fall-off.

Decision .

The Rokinon 35mm F/ane.four was unveiled in 2010 with much fanfare, and as of mid 2011, is bachelor for the Sony "α" mount.

Optically speaking, the Rokinon 35mm F/1.4 is first-class, with very high sharpness at near all apertures, low distortion, minimal light fall-off at F/2, and no coma, fifty-fifty in the far corners at F/1.4! Probably the biggest drawback for most people is the fact that it's a transmission only lens, meaning in that location is no communication betwixt the lens and camera (Sony models), then if you aren't familiar with using full manual controls, you might want to skip this lens until your skills improve.

The Rokinon 35mm F/1.four is all-time used on a full frame camera, therefore, I can't recommend information technology for APS-C models. Why? The Sony DT 35mm F/1.8 SAM is sharper in the centers at all apertures, and stopped down a trivial will match the mid-sections and corners of the Rokinon. Additionally, the Sony is very minor and low-cal-weight, with total auto focusing and metering, and costs less than one-half of the Rokinon. I've been bragging up the Sony 35/1.8 SAM since it was introduced, and you lot tin can see why past checking out the comp at the bottom of the review!

I didn't have the Sony 35/1.4 G on hand for this review, but I'k pretty sure the Rokinon is much sharper all effectually at F/ane.four-2.