Samyang sneakily shares its first teaser for a forthcoming 135mm F1.8 lens for Sony E-mount cameras

And you have the best AF money can buy which will also work with newer bodies *coughTamron* ;-)

There is still the Sigma for half the money (of the sony).

Sigma Art lenses don't have a hard stop already. Also, there is no hard requirement for software corrections just because a lens is designed for mirrorless. It's just a general trend that manufacturers make more use of software corrections. I don't mind this if this means a better balance of size, weight, image quality and price. At the end, the resulting image needs to meet my expectations. How they to it is secondary to me.

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I thought it was 40mm or maybe 45mm. The smallest lenses are generally around that focal length.

Depends on the particular mount's flange distance no?

AFAIK, Sammy lenses have no weather sealing, so thats a plus for the GM.

Also from hear-saying (hard to get real numbers on this one) there seems to be a much bigger sample-to-sample variation on the Sammy lenses vs the Sony GM lenses.

The Elephant in the room is of course the pricing vs the GM, but the resale value is also a value to be considered.

Buying good RF / GM / Olympus Pro lenses have (so far) been a good long term resale-investment, if you take good care of your glass.
- Not quite so convinced about the Sammy lenses here. (once you invested, your resale money could be more or less gone - hence "throwing money in the ocean")

BR Strobist

" AFAIK, Sammy lenses have no weather sealing, so thats a plus for the GM. " -Strobist

Might wanna look at some of their latest releases, the 45 & 75mm f1.8 weren't weather sealed but the 24 & 35 f1.8 look to be better sealed than Sigma's compact C lineup (which only features a seal at the mount).

They added the Custom switch on the 75 (can use the focus wheel for aperture), then sealing on the latter releases, than that focus recall button on the 24, they've literally been upping their game with every release IMO.

Does the 135GM allow the use of a TC?
There must be space at the back of the lens for it, I belive this will restrict the design for such a prime?

Their QC seems to have come leaps and bounds. Your comments are basically historical footnotes as regards the current offerings.

@TN Args These flawed Samyang prime lenses I bought and returned was 12 months ago. Is that "historic" now. Have they turned lens production around that fast?

Like I said. Test them against a good native lens if you get one. A fast lens isn't worth much if you have to shoot it at 5.6 for it to not be a soft blurry mess.

It might be useful to others if you shared what lens you're talking about specifically, just because they've made strides with things like AF or general IQ on recent lenses (let alone sample variance) doesn't mean that's suddenly gonna apply to their older ones...

The old 24/2.8 is gonna be borderline mediocre no matter what but that shouldn't reflect negatively on their 24/1.8 for instance, the newer f1.8s seem to have improved upon the AF of the older f1.4 series, etc.

My 24 2.8 is razer sharp and so is my 45 1.8 at pixel level

I just thought people might want to know some real world experience with the manufacturer instead of judging everything from a blurry shot from a teaser video.
My experience is hardly an outlier, just do some reading online yourself. Among the astrophotography reviews Samyang is synonymous with "You get what you pay for." They're great when you only have a few hundred bucks and you're not able to afford better glass, but they're usually the first thing people replace when they upgrade too.

From an unaffiliated national distributor...and the fact that it is very low for a lens maker.

Meantime, one more squeak from the Squeaky Wheel Dept, above.

@DaGurney -- that makes two of you 😂

I like to keep my filters small too (the price jump for 82mm is insane), but if you're getting a 135mm f/1.8 you know you're going to have to seal with paying some premiums.
Exactly why you should be asking "Do I really need 1.8 or is 2.8 good for my needs?"

Well, the only f2.8 option (Batis) is likely to be much more expensive even used, it might be possible to step down from 82 to 77mm without much vignetting tho, specially if not shooting wide open.

^ There's plenty of f2.8 primes at other focal lengths tho, so it's not just that... 135mm itself is more niche so it might very well be a combination of both factors, but the smallest f2.8 zooms out there (eg Tamron 70-180/2.8) are still heavier and larger than what a prime could be, so the prime would still offer something: a smaller alternative.

FWIW Sigma has 24/45/90 primes that are f2.8 or slower, Sony has 24/35/40/50 primes that are f2.5 or f2.8, Samyang has 18/24/35 f2.8 primes, and Tamron has 20/24/35 f2.8 primes despite making one of the most popular and accessible 28-75/2.8 zooms out there. Some just want a small 135mm w/AF for landscapes and for when the light is decent. ;)

Not counting macros (and the rare STF) in that shortlist since they're larger by necessity and usually 90-105mm.

I've been using the little Minolta 135mm F2.8 on the Sony LA-EA5. I also have the Canon EF 135mm F2.8 Soft Focus.

^ Is that the Maxxum or was there more than one version of their AF 135/2.8? I think I might've asked in the past but how's the AF on it? Good enough for landscapes or do you still need to fine tune it manually?

Sony adapter cost scared me away from trying any AF Minoltas when I was looking at vintage 135s but I might revisit that someday, the Canon FD I'm using is pretty well corrected and actually handles flares well but I'm tragic w/MF, heh.

Nevermind - got caught again replying to someone asking for a small fast telephoto prime.

What do I expect: A small f2.8 or f4 135mm lens. Is that too much to ask for :-) ? A small short tele that I can carry anywhere and use on small camera bodies. I am not a member of the bokeh/background seperation cult.

The lens is not *too big*. Samyang can't ignore physics and build a tiny 135/1.8. This is the lightest 135/1.8, it's quite an achievement. There is a demand for fast 135. In comparison, the demand for slow 135s is not there, people usually use zooms for that or buy the Batis as it is available at 600g, or go with an adapted Leica Tele Elmar at $200.

They don't have to ignore physics. Just design a slower one.

@Hubertus So I can eventually retire m4/3 when Olympus and Panasonic stop offering or developing new bodies.

I carry that Oly 75 + GX850 combo plus a tiny 42.5/1.7 alongside my FF gear often, when I want the AF. There's some small vintage 135mm lenses if AF isn't a concern tho (an adapter will bring it closer to 100mm in length but it'll still be lighter than the Batis or Fuji):

Canon FD 135/3.5 - 63 x 85 mm & 325g

I think what phou, myself and others often wish for is something like that but w/AF, the Batis itself could probably be a bit smaller since that series was generally larger than more recent FF primes at similar FLs. FWIW I imagine the new Samyang will be $750+ like the 50/1.4 II (old manual one is $550), so well under 1/2 the price of other FF options.

I haven’t found an 85/90 or 135 that can pull me away from the Olympus 45 1.2 and 75 1.8. Those 2 lenses so good for different reasons. The 45 bokeh is my absolute favourite, the only other lens that compares is the Milvus 85 1.4 but that has no af, which is a must for me wide open and tracking. Then the 75 is compact, sharp and an had nice rendering, A high quality 135 f2.8 or even 150 f3.5 in ff would be amazing.

@Impulses: The Sigma 90mm f/2.8 looks great for APS-C. It's just not quite as fast as the Olympus in equivalent terms (would need to be a 100mm f/2.4 for that).

And indeed, manual lenses on FF can be a good solution, too. There are a lot of fairly sharp manual 135mm lenses floating around, from f/3.5 up to f/2. Even these, although expensive, might still be compact and lightweight enough for many purposes, definitely more so than modern AF variants of the same focal length with f/2 or f/1.8.

" It's just not quite as fast as the Olympus in equivalent terms (would need to be a 100mm f/2.4 for that). " -Huber

Sure, it's nearly half a stop, but it's about as close as it gets overall... For those willing to trade some reach for speed there's also the similarly sized Samyang 75/1.8, which would be just about the same as using the Sigma 56/1.4 on M4/3 and a lot of people seem to prefer that as an in between FL...

Crop a 75/1.8 on 24MP APS-C to a 150mm equivalent view and you're left with a 150/3.6 equivalent and ~14MP (or ~17MP if you're only aiming for a 135mm EFL). ;)

I probably would've gone with the 56mm if I hadn't bought the Oly 75/1.8 as a refurb on a whim, but I'm glad I did and I really enjoy the 42.5 + 75 combo. I think it's silly a lot of M4/3 shooters pigeonhole a 150mm EFL as some super niche choice when 135mm lenses are still relatively popular but I digress.

What really makes the Oly 75/1.8 super enjoyable for me is having it on mounted on a small body ready to go, I guess that along w/how much I enjoy shooting concerts makes me pretty biased in it's favor and that's harder to replicate.

" There are a lot of fairly sharp manual 135mm lenses floating around, from f/3.5 up to f/2. Even these, although expensive, " -Huber

A ton of them are actually pretty affordable, I think that's part of what may be working against the development of more modern 135s. Even something like the Canon EF 135/2 is relatively affordable (specially used since it's been out so long), not like the Oly 75/1.8 is all that cheap, but that Canon FD 135/3.5 I mentioned ran me all of $60 and the adapter was like $30.

There's a bunch of affordable ones floating around from Canon, Minolta, Pentax, and even Olympus. Really if MF isn't an issue then there's a ton of options. It's just a shame there isn't anything like em w/AF. At least the SY should be cheaper.

No, I just wonder why dpreview do NOT mention Voigtländer Lenses !? I have the Voigtländer 35mm 2.0 APO Lanthar and the Voigtländer 65mm 2.0 Macro APO Lanthar which both are excellent Lenses, just as good as Sony GM Lenses ! So I think it is VERY strange that dpreview do not cover new Voigtländer Lenses !? The Voigtländer 35mm APO Lanthar came i 2021. What is more strange are that dpreview do not answer why they do not show new Voigtländer Lenses !

My guess would be, because they are obscure lenses that sell in tiny numbers, they aren't available in many places and are not really of interest to that many photographers being a manual focus lenses.

I don't think it's got anything at all to do with the quality of the lenses themselves.