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Samyang releases full frame 35mm f/2.8 FE lens for Sony that competes with Zeiss at half the price

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Samyang have added another lens to their slowly growing autofocus lineup. They’ve announced a new 35mm f/2.8 FE lens for full frame Sony mirrorless cameras. And, on paper, it looks like it might be able to compete with the Zeiss 35mm f/2.8, but at well under half the price.

Adding to the 14mm f/2.8 FE and 50mm f/1.4 FE, this brings the Samyang autofocus range up to three lenses. Samyang’s range of manual focus lenses has been rather impressive. So, it’s not much of a surprise that they seem to be putting the effort into their autofocus lenses. They’re playing it smart, too. Slowly building up the autofocus lineup, rather than trying to rush a complete range out of the door all at once.

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Samyang to add Nikon and Canon to their autofocus lens lineup but probably not Fuji or MFT

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Samyang brought autofocus into their range of lenses not too long ago with two new Sony E mount lenses. The 14mm f/2.8 and 50mm f/1.4. Now, in a recent interview with Focus Numerique, Samyang head of product planning, Jeong Min Shin says that more are to come.

In the interview, he talked about some of the decisions and compromises that had to be made with the new Sony lenses. But he also suggested that Nikon and Canon autofocus lenses may not be too far away. The story for Fuji and micro four thirds, however, may be another matter.

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Samyang kicks off its new Premium line of lenses with an 85mm f/1.2 and 14mm f/2.4

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Samyang have today announced two new lenses to start their Premium range. An 85mm f/1.2 and 14mm f/2.4. These new lenses, Samyang say, offer “unprecedented resolving power”, built for 50MP stills and up to 8K video productions. Also known as Rokinon, Samyang has become quite a formidable competitor lately.

Both of the new lenses are full frame manual focus lenses. This may disappoint some folks who were hoping for autofocus. Though, personally, I don’t see it as a problem. Lenses as wide as 14mm are typically manually focused anyway. When everything a few inches past your lens is in focus anyway, it’s not an issue. For the 85mm.. Well, given the notoriously slow AF on Canon’s 85mm f/1.2, you might as well manual focus anyway.

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Samyang drops two new 20mm lenses for photography and video

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Following on from the 135mm T2.2 Xeen, 50mm f/1.4AF and 35mm f/1.2 APS-C, Samyang have announced their third new lens in as many weeks. This time it’s actually a pair of lenses. The 28mm f/1.8 ED AS UMC for photography, and the 20mm T1.9 ED AS UMC cine lens.

Internally, both lenses have the same makup of 13 elements in 12 groups with 2 aspherical elements. Their differences are primarily on the exterior. This affects both their appearance as well as their weight, glightly.

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9 Lenses with very special bokeh

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I have played with photography a little bit since I was a boy, first with an old Olympus 35mm film point-and-shoot, then with a GameBoy camera and later a pretty terrible mobile phone. At age 18 I got my first DSLR and instantly fell in love with out-of-focus backgrounds, and now almost 10 years later I still have a passion for bokeh.

Most new lenses aim to have bokeh that is very smooth. Some people really like this, and in most lens comparisons and reviews, the smoother bokeh is considered the winner. And while I do like the smoother bokeh from some lenses, sometimes I find it can be a bit boring to me. An example of this is the Sigma Art 35mm f1.4, a lens that is very highly regarded, and I have absolutely nothing against it, it’s just not to my taste.

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Samyang’s new lens doesn’t have autofocus – It’s a 135mm T2.2 cinema lens

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Samyang recently put out a teaser to build up some hype for five new lenses it was about to release.  There was much speculation abound about what these lenses were. Particularly, was Samyang finally dipping its toes into the world of autofocus?

It turns out that the answer is an emphatic no, not quite yet. They have now officially announced the first of those five new lenses, though, the Samyang 135mm T/2.2 Xeen Cinema Lens.

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Samyang muscle their way into the autofocus market with two new 50mm f/1.4 and 14mm f/2.8 lenses

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In a press release today, Samyang Optics (also sold under the names Rokinon and Bower) have announced two new lenses designed for Sony full frame mirrorless cameras, marking their debut into the autofocus lens market.

Having thus far limited themselves to manual focus lenses, today brings us the Samyang 50mm f/1.4 AS IF UMCAF and Samyang 14mm f/2.8 UMCAF autofocus lenses, offering both “standard” and very wide angle views.

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Rokinon Adds a 50mm f/1.2 and a 21mm f/1.4 Lenses (for all but Nikon)

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And so Rokinon’s Quest to dominate the prime market continues. The company released 2 news lenses today: a 50mm f/1.2 and 21mm f/1.4.

This is not a surprise as rumors about the 50mm f/1.2 have been roaming the blogosphere for a while now, but the release date has been pulled in a few days (and no, they did not kill it). Rumors or not,the pace in which Rokinon (AKA Samyang, AKA Bower, AKA Walimex) releases lenses is quite impressive.

Interestingly, the lenses are not released for Nikon mounts. Hit the jump for more specs.

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