Samyang AF 45mm F1.8 Autofocus Lens for Sony FE

This lens is an absolute gem. Great price and has a unique character, the rendering is beautiful like lenses of old before everyone became so focused on image sharpness that photos lost that character. Yes the lens is still sharp but its not to sharp. The autofocus once updated to latest firmware is spot on, not as fast as Sonys own lenses but still good enough. Images are sharp enough from wide open and the image quality is beautiful and characterful. Oh and the focal length makes it that perfect one lens to cover 35 and 50 by taking a few steps either way when composing your images. And oh my god is it light!!! Perfect walk around lens

Whats not to like about this lens? It's very affordable, built extremely well and most importantly takes great photos. The lens arrived with version 4 installed so I think earlier reviews around autofocus abilities have largely been resolved. It produces quite warm images that are razor sharp, especially when considering I have only taken photos in f1.4. I am so happy with this lens and am looking forward to taking more photos with it, especially in low light.The first test I did was at my childrens sports day where I managed to captue a large proportion of photos in focus, sometimes the focus completely missed and instead of getting the face it focused on the hair on the top of the head. However the images I did get in focus made me happy and were of a good quality. I am not a professional and therefore have fewer worries around not getting all the imagaes, I missed nothing of importance and managed to capture several good images from each event.Love the lens and would definitely consider buying another Samyang lens in the future.

This lens is crazy sharp especially in the centre even at f2.8. Heavy vinietting wide open however I almost always add it in post anyway.No diffraction visible at f16 on my Sony A7- I usually shoot landscapes at this aperture so it's an ideal lens for my work where I like foreground elements to be in focus.Small, lightweight, sharp and very wide.I had my Tamron 20mm f2.8 stolen and bought this as a replacement, I'm glad I did. AF is fast and accurate even in low light at f22.I don't bother with video as I have a phone with stabilised 4k but for landscape photography work this is a good one.

Using it on a Z6 via an adapter. It is really compact but also good optically right from f1.8. I was looking for a compact but decent lens for casual use - not a reprographic quality optic like a Milvus.Very pleased so far.Note it has no weather sealing but I can't remember taking any camera/lens sealed or not into the rain without protection.Build quality: this feels fine to me. The presence of a metal lens mount will no doubt please some but I have had ( for 11 years + ) plastic fantastic M43 Pan kit lenses which perform as well as when I got them. Only lens mount that I had that failed was a metal one.Looks to me like Samyang is on the path Sigma followed: from ordinary and maybe QC unreliable lenses in the early days to state of the art optics now. We shall see how long these AF Samyangs last.SY has produced a range of FF Sony lenses that are not a million miles away in size from the super compact M43 ones. This I like - for this "casual" photographer use case.One thing to note - common in most compact / inexpensive FF WA lenses is the presence of LOCA - colour fringing. The "Tiny" Samyang 24,35 and 45 have this as do the Sony FE 28/2 and their compact G lenses like the 40/2.5Inexpensive lenses tend to have more variation in optical performance than expensive ones. Check your copy out - you can always swap it if needed ( I haven't had to ).NB check "product support' AFTER you have bought this - Amazon says it will "cover" for 2 years. I have D/L and kept this in case of issues. The 3 year SY warranty probably doesn't apply since it seems Amazon is not an approved reseller.

Personal experience of this EF lens with a DSLR and SLR is that it is one of the best performers for Ultra wide angle at such a low price.The construction seems good, fitting is perfect and the autofocus works very well. The quality of glass seems great and the optical performance is excellent, it has some distortion which should be expected but it is an acceptable amount and will work for most landscape or astro photography.The biggest disadvantage is that it does not accept filters which means the very large front element can't be protected.For the price it is an excellent performing lens.