Samyang’s new AF 24mm F1.8 FE astrophotography lens features a “go to Infinity focus” button

Samyang has officially announced the new Samyang AF 24mm F1.8 FE lens for Sony E mount full-frame mirrorless. It’s the latest addition to their “Tiny Series” lens lineup and as the name suggests, it offers a 24mm field of view with a wide f/1.8 aperture. It weights only 230g and measures only 71mm from front to back, but this is an autofocus lens, not manual.

The lens features a new “Custom Mode” with an LED indicator designed for photography. The “Custom Mode” can be activated through a new Focus Hold button, which allows you to directly focus the lens straight to infinity – and you can tune it to make sure it hits that mark consistently, every time.

When you’re not focused at your predefined Custom Mode focal length, the indicator LED is red, letting you instantly see that your focus isn’t where you want it to be. Once you tap the button, the focus shifts to the predefined setting and the LED turns green to confirm the correct focus distance.

This is a pretty awesome feature for astrophotographers, where it can often be difficult or impossible to focus your lens accurately towards the night sky, especially if you’ve got the camera low down to the ground and can’t easily see the LCD. Very handy for landscape photographers, too, who are also often shooting at infinity with the camera in awkward positions that make it difficult to see the LCD properly.

The wide f/1.8 aperture will also be a very welcome feature for astrophotographers, as well as the weather sealing to protect against dust, light rain, snow and that night time humidity. The lens features a matt finish with laser engraved markings for a more tactile feeling in the dark with a fast and quiet autofocus when you want to use it in the daytime. The button on the side can also act as a focus hold when using autofocus modes, too.

The Samyang AF 24mm F1.8 FE is available to pre-order in the UK from various retailers for £459 and is expected to start shipping soon. I haven’t seen an official US price yet, although I expect it would be somewhere around the $500 mark and I imagine it’ll pop up on the B&H website at any moment. For now, you can find out more on the Samyang website.