Samyang V-AF 75mm T1.9 Definitive Review | Hybrid Cine/Photo Short Telephoto

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Hi, I'm Dustin Abbott, and I'm here today to give you my definitive video review of the third in the Samyang V-A-F series
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The Samyang V-A-F lens is a unique hybrid series of lenses that are designed for both Sini applications, video purposes, but then also to be used as typical stills photography lenses
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including all of the typical features that we might look for and a photography-based lens
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I found the idea of the series really, really intriguing, and I'm excited to get to the 75-millimeter
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the third in this series that I'm reviewing, because it is, along with the 45-millimeter
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one of the kind of hidden gems to me in terms of Sam Yang's tiny series
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and the optics there that have been co-opted and repackaged here in this lens
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So 75-millimeter, as looked at a little bit, differently, more from a video perspective, has a little bit of a different kind of take to it than what I saw with it looking at it more as a primary as a photography focal length when I did the review of the Samying AF 75 millimeter F1.8 back in 2020. And so I'm interested to dive into this and to share my thoughts of how this focal length works as a video-centric lens that also happens to still be very, very good for photography. I'll give you some conclusions and we're going to dive into all this together right after a
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Let's start by diving into some of the build and handling and some of the common features of these lenses
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that are designed as often Cini lenses are to have a commonality of design in terms of the size
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the weight, the balance, and some other features here as well. And that's something I think that Samying has really executed exceptionally well in this series
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First of all, these are all designated not by their F-stop, which measures the maximum size of the aperture opening
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but rather by the T-stop, which is the T-1.9. So our maximum F-stop here is F-1.8, but as light passes through the optical path
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the various elements, glass elements that make up the optical design, there's a little bit of loss of light
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results in a transmission of light transmission measured at T1.9. That's actually quite an efficient
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figure, which means you've lost very minimal amounts of light as light has passed through the
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optical path. But very importantly, when it comes to these lenses, it's at all of them
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and there will be a total of five in the series, a 20 millimeter, a 24 millimeter, 35 millimeter
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45 millimeter, and 75 millimeter. All of them have a T-stop rating of T-1.9, which means that you
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can swap them out and without changing any settings you're going to get identical light transmission
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through them, which is very, very important for that commonality. Also common is the size in every detail
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They are all 72.2 millimeters or 2.84 inches in diameter and 72.1 millimeters are 2.84 inches in
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overall length. There is a filter thread here of 58 millimeters. All of them weigh 280 grams or 9.6 ounces
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Now, the unique design here is that they actually, rather than having the typical place to bayonet on a lens hood at the front
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instead there is a metal design here, which is kind of reinforced to support a metal accessory mount here at the front
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And that up to includes having electronic contacts. And so information could be passed through the lens to a front mounted accessory
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Now, at this point, there's only one accessory that has been launched, and that is a manual focus accessory
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and it is designed, it's actually really quite a clever design, in that while the focus ring here is already excellent
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we have a 300 degree rotation, linear focus, and you can set it up in the lens station to where it remembers where focus was
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And so it's really designed to work well for video purposes, along with photography
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But one thing that you never get with a lens like this that has a focus by wire manual focus ring
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which is true of basically all mirrorless lenses that have auto focus, is a simple fact that you don't have either hard stops at infinity or minimum focus
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nor do you have a distance scale that shows you repeatable distance markings
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So somehow, I'm not even quite sure how they've done it, but Samying has this manual focus accessory that you can purchase that can go on any of these lenses
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It's very easy to just mount on, and then you tighten down the tension knob
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But once you put it on, it eliminates both of those problems. And so it gives you hard stops at minimum focus and infinity
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It also gives you a repeatable distance scale throughout that and distance markings in both metric and then imperial measurements
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So it's very, very useful, and already you could get really nice focus pools
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but you can get even nicer focus pools by using that manual focus accessory. And I will note also that it retains the tally lamp
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and so that's one of the features we'll get to in just a second, but it retains the tally lamp, and so you can front monitor
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when you're actually in recording mode. and then also it is a compatible with the standardized 95 millimeter mat box
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and so you can add other accessories via that. So a really unique design, and I'm really interested in seeing what else they come out with in the future
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Some people have thought maybe an electronic, you know, variable neutral density type filter
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or, you know, maybe something you go anamorphic. I don't know exactly what they have for us in the future
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but certainly it's an intriguing design because it's designed to have that electronic context
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Now, the trade-off here is that it's not set up to take a lens hood
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and also it means that the front cap here is kind of unique and that it pops over the top
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but it's designed such a way there is a cutout to where you can see, and you want to position that to where you can see what the lens designation is
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if you own multiple of these lenses, because they all literally look identical. And so it's nice to be able to see from the side, which actual lens you're reaching from
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As noted, there is tallow lamps. There's a tally lamp on the side and one on the front
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Those have the ability to kind of tell you when video recording is actually taking place or when you're in standby mode
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And yes, for those of you that have asked if you are in an environment where you don't want something like that kind of reflected, you don't want the tallow lamp on
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If you use the San Yang lens station, you can turn that into setting to turning the tallow lamps off
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It's worth getting the lens station, which costs you around 30 or 40 bucks because it allows you do a lot of things
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There's a lot of extra things that you can program into this lens in terms of the behavior
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And also it allows you to do on-the-fly firmware updates, which is very simple and easy to do
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And I've got a video here that tells you how to do that. So I strongly recommend getting the lens station if you're going to use these lenses
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There is a custom switch there on the side, which allows you to control the function of the ring
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And so I have mine set up that in the first mode, it functions as an aperture ring, allows you to do aperture
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more on that in just a moment. And in the second mode I have it set up to where it automatically goes right into manual focus mode and functions as a manual focus ring So it kind of functions as an AFMF switch there as well There also a focus hold button here on the side which can be programmed to a variety of functions
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And again, the behavior of that custom switch can be tweaked in the lens station
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There are six weather sealing points throughout the lens, all of these lenses, and so they are
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thoroughly weather sealed and designed for use and inclement weather. There is a nine-bladed aperture. Now, the aperture will function a little bit differently
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whether you are in stills or sinny mode. In stills mode, it functions more like where there's some steps
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even though it's all again, it's aperture by wire, but you have a little bit more of a stepping action
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to allow you to hit the F stops, and of course that's going to show up in camera
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what your actual F stop value is. But if you're in video mode
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it actually switches to something more approximating a clickless aperture, where you can get a little bit smoother
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move throughout the aperture. So the aperture iris blades will close, and open smoothly without stops, and so it allows you to do aperture racking just a little bit closer to what a true Sini, you know, everything manual lens would allow you to do
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Not quite as good, but again, not far off there as well. So it's a really interesting hybrid approach to the control of the aperture
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Now, in this case, we have our furthest minimum focus distance as the longest focal length
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You can only focus as closely as 69 centimeters, and your maximum magnification is just 0.13 times
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It's not exceptional, obviously, and it's about average for an 85 millimeter lens
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which obviously this is the closest to behaving similar to that. Overall, I really like the design of these lenses
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They are larger and heavier than what the tiny series they're replacing
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but if you hold both in hand, the build quality just cannot compare
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The build quality of the VAAF lenses is just so much nicer
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and I love the standardized size. It means if you're going to a gimbal, or even if you have a larger drone
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you can do hot swapping and they balance identically. And so it's a really, really useful feature
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They also have that shared diameter. So if you're using gearing or something similar
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all of that is going to work just fine with that. So let's talk about autofocus here for a moment
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Focus comes via a linear STM focus motor. And so focus overall is fast
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And for stills work, it's nice and snappy. I would say that focus speed is just a hair slower
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than the shorter focal links, which is not unusual. It's a little bit more demanding on the focus system
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but at the same time, focus speed is good. I was actually pleasantly surprised when I tracked basketball action with the lens
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I just wanted to see how it would behave, and I actually found that it kept up fairly well for stills
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I also found that when I was tracking kind of a smooth or linear action
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and in this case I was doing some footage for Ryan for the recent e-bike review that I did
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and as he approached on the bike, it had no problem keeping up with that action and as I turned him pan following him
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Again, focus followed just fine on that. What I found that it didn't do is that it didn't react kind of quickly to abrupt focus changes
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So example in this video of Nala, you can see that as she kind of springs towards the camera, she quickly comes out of focus
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It is designed for smooth focus transitions and not for abrupt or fast focus transitions
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Now you can tweak that behavior a little bit by changing settings
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within the camera. But overall, Samying has tuned these to allow for smooth focus rather than
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our focus pools rather than abrupt ones. Again, this is a long focal or a long rotation here
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300 degrees of rotation. And so as a byproduct, they're tuning that for smooth. Now, I will know
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when it comes to doing focus pools, why they're really, really great, obviously. And you can see
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from this shot that doing manual focus pools is quite a joy on these lenses. The exception to the rule is if you
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want to do a really, really long focus pool. So all along this fence, you can see that if I'm
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doing fairly close from minimum focus to infinity, 300 degrees is too much to get in one wrist
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rotation. And so you have kind of multiple interruptions where I need to kind of break my wrist
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just trying to do it by hand. In that case, I actually preferred the auto focus pools because
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they're still nice and smooth, but they allow you to get there without any kind of interruptions
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from the manual adjustment of the wrist as a part of that
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So overall, the focus pulls are nice and smooth, though you may have noticed there is the most severe amount of focus breathing
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with this longer focal length. It has nearly 12% focus breathing, and then also, of course, it has the narrowest depth of field
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due to the longer focaling. As a byproduct, I just find that focus changes are more noticeable
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for several reasons with this particular lens. So it's not as useful for doing kind of the focus pools because even though it's, it is quite smooth in the focus pools, you can see more visible changes on screen
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And so it's a little bit more abrupt feeling as a byproduct of that
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Not as nice as either the 24 or the 35 millimeter lenses for making those kind of focus changes
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So this is a lens that I've reached for a lot already for my channel for doing shots like this right here where it's tracking my face
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and I see it being very useful when you want to get tighter framing, you know, perhaps of dialogue with subjects on camera
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But it's not going to be as useful for kind of making big focus pull changes unless you, you know, don't mind that more abrupt, you know, focus breathing as a part of it
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Very positive is eye stickiness. Even with an animal subject here with Nala, you can see I'm moving around and it stayed really well on the eye
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And as noted, for other video purposes, it's going to work really really. well on a gimbal because of that size, weight, balance, those things that make it easy to put on
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a variety of gimbals because it is lightweight. And again, the balance point is really easy to
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adjust forward. Overall, mostly all positives when it comes to the autofocus performance here
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Not going to be as snappy as some of the recent kind of like Sony GM type products, but it's
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designed for smoothness, particularly in video. And it's fast enough for stills for basically
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every application that I saw, and I got good results when shooting like portraits for stills
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or, you know, people photos, it had good eye stickiness, and it had good performance in terms of
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auto focus. So let's talk about the optics here, which, as noted, this is what I consider
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to what would be one of Sam Yang's hidden gyms in terms of the optical performance. First of all
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there is a standardized color that goes all across these. They all go to a certain color index
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and so you can get consistent color, no matter which one of these lenses that you're using. That is
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a huge thing if you're doing video work extremely important. But beyond that, the color is just
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really, really nice. In video footage and instills, I really like the overall color rendition
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and more on that in just a moment. And as we're going to see, this lens has a really nice
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combination of sharpness and bouquet. It really is a joy to use, and images look really
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great. Let's dive in and let's break down why. So let's start by taking a look at vignette
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and distortion. As you can see, there is a very minimal amount of a pen cushion distortion that is
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here, nothing too much there, and a bit of vignette in the corner, again, relatively minor
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As you can see here on the right side, I was able to get essentially a perfect correction
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with very little effort. I'll show you the numbers. There's only a minus one that is dialed in
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to correct for the distortion because it's very minimal. You could very easily just leave it
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uncorrected without an issue. And then as far as the vignette goes, I dial in a plus 32 and
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slid the midpoint over, so just a little over one stop of vignette in the corner. Again, nothing
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significant at all. Now of the three lenses that I have tested as a part of the VAF series
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the 75 millimeter suffers the least with any kind of longitudinal chromatic aberration. So
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fringing before or after the plane of focus You can see there very little fringing here In this image here our focus here You can see contrast is strong from right off And as we look towards the transition to defocus you see very little fringing around the specular highlights
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So this is certainly not an issue for this particular lens. Likewise, there is very little to be seen when it comes to lateral chromatic aberrations that come near the edge of the frame
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And so you can see that in all of these transitions from black to white, there is no real observable fringing from on either side
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So that makes for a lens that has very little in terms of chromatic aberrations
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So how does that play out in terms of sharpness in contrast? Here is the test chart, and this is being shot on the 50 megapixel Sony Alpha 1
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and I'll show you the results at 200% magnification here, so you can really clearly see how the lens is performing
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So in the center of the frame, from wide open, the lens is very sharp. You can see a lot of detail
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You can see good contrast there. you know, there's very good delineation of the writing here
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Everything looks really solid. If we look towards the midframe, we can see that also the midframe result is quite good
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not off the chart's good, but very strong, lots of detail, good contrast there
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And if we look down towards the very edge of the frame, we can see that starting on this side, it's looking quite good
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Could you have a little bit more contrast, but you can also see the contrast and the overall kind of acuity of rendering those fine details
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is starting to slip towards the very corner of the frame. You can see even if you look at the black here
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compared to the black here, that you're losing contrast as you get towards the edge of the frame
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Now, I always like to put that in context in a real-world image. So here I have a nice flat wall to shoot here
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And so you can see in the center of the frame, good detail, good contrast, and you can see that as I pan over towards this side
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things are still looking quite good. And as I get off towards the corners
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you can see that detail is still fairly good, but contrast has diminished
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and you've just lost a little bit. Looking at the other side, we see a fairly consistent result
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with what we see on the other side, and a good centering is so a good centering here
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same with the top left corner and the top right corner that they all basically look the same
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So that points to a good centering of this particular lens. Looking at a more three-dimensional object here of Nala
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you can see that we have very good detail here. A lot of the fine fur details are delineated nicely
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And I'll see a nice transition towards defocus, which we'll talk more about in a moment
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Here I've managed to get a fairly flat landscape image, which is a little harder to do when you have a
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like a telephototype lens. And so as you can see here in the center of the frame
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everything looks very good. As we pan towards the edge, you can see that that contrast is diminishing
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And so in a real world kind of way, you can just see it, there's a different look at the edge of the frame than what there is in the
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center of the frame panning the other direction, we can see a similar result here where again
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there is a nice amount of detail there, but the contrast is certainly lower. Now from F1.8 to F2
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there is no real like magical leap ahead. You can see that there is more contrast at F2 than what
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there is at F1.8. And so that is, if you're just looking for a bit more of a contrast boost for
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your shot, that minor stop down is. not going to cost you much in terms of depth of field and other things and does give you a bit
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of a contrast boost. So in certain applications, certainly worth doing. From F2 to F2.8, there is a little
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bit more of a jump forward. You can now see if you look kind of at the moir pattern here, that
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contrast in the center of the frame is now really, really high. You can see all in these dark areas
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even in the text, that at F2.8, you're getting lots of contrast. That's also true in the
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mid frame here which looks really really strong in the corners in like the figure here is looking
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quite good and you can see that we're starting to gain more contrast into the corner it's looking
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blacker down here but at the same time we're it's still not 100% in the corners yet you definitely see
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a further jump from f2.8 to f4 where there's more contrast here and you can also see now that the
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contrast is sticking further and further out into the corner we're getting blacker and blacker levels
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better contrast as we get towards the edge of the frame. A bit more still from F4 to F5.6
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where now we have really strong results, even right towards the corners. We pop over to the other side
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and you can see that it's looking good even at the other edge as well. Very clear writing on the text there
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so everything is resolving quite nicely here. Now, if we jump back to a real-world image at 100%
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this particular image shows the challenge of a longer focal length. So we've obviously got lots of nice detail here, off to the edge of the frame here at F5.6, detail is good
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However, if I look towards this part of the image, it's still good, obviously
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but we are being impacted some by some depth of field issues
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where it's not as sharp on this side of the frame, it's because it's not on the same plane of focus
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If we move to an image like this, where I'm shooting from a longer away perspective
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we can see that, again, at F5.6, this image shows, really, really nice detail all throughout this building
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You can see the figures walking here. Everything is really nicely delineated into the trees, all of this brickwork, and then looking
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off towards the future, or the future, off towards the distance there
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You can see that that detail carries on nicely throughout the frame there
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And so this kind of image, it really depends on the depth of field. One more here
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We have quite a flat plane of focus here, and so you can see that contrast looks really
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strong and so in the middle of the frame everything looks great as I pan towards the side it isn't as
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a hundred percent sharp as the center of the frame but it is not lagging as far behind and that is because
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it's less impacted by the depth of field so this is a this is a very nicely sharp lens when stopped
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down but the longer focal length means that you're going to have to be a little bit more careful about depth of field with it now our minimum aperture is f22 but as per usual on high resolution bodies
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you can see that diffraction has robbed a fair bit of contrast
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from the image even compared to wide open, which was the lowest contrast point before
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You can see that diffraction has negatively impacted the image. Though again, I will say in this case
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it's not as extreme as what I see on some lenses. And in fact, towards the edge of the frame
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F-22 actually looks better than wide open, which isn't always the case
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So I might go as far as F-16 in some shots here, but typically F-11 is going to be about the limit
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I typically recommend for going before. you start to have lose some you know quality of image so the maximum magnification of 0.1 3 times
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is nothing to write home about however there is some positive to take away number one we can see
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that up close performance is really quite good good contrast in detail a nice flat plan of focus
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and we can see that you know that detail holds up pretty well even towards the edge of the frame
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a little bit reduced contrast over here but by and large i mean this looks really really crisp
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that's a nice looking result another real standout about this whole series is
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of course the very good color and color accuracy. And so here, you know, we can see nice detail
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but it really has captured colors in a very nice way. It was, you know, it was beautiful lighting
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at the moment, but this has captured it without being garish, another shot in this similar
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scene here. And you can just see that overall the color saturation levels, just kind of the
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overall look of the image is really, really nice. And the colors look really rich. Likewise
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here, obviously, a moodyer scene. This is an image, though, I really really. really, really love. And it's just kind of captured this scene in a really pleasing kind of way
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and helps to recreate, you know, what I saw there in an accurate way. Again, here with, you know
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very very late evening lighting And so this is spring And so you know the sun is starting to stay up later and later But this just shows a lot of you know nice lighting and a good capture of the various colors that are here
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And again, doing it without becoming garish, but with nice saturation and, you know, accurate color balance levels
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Likewise, here's some bright, you know, spring greens coming up. But you can see that on our subject, you know, there's a nice detail
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Again, contrast isn't off the charts, but it looks good here. So good rendered detail there
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And then if we look at the overall color and the bouquet quality
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the bocha quality from the lens is really quite nice, which we'll explore here
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So first quick look at geometry once again. We can see that there is some deformation towards the edge of the frame
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Nice circular shapes in the center of the frame, stopping on down to F2.8
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Still not perfect geometry towards the edge of the frame. And then by F4, you can start to see a little bit of the aperture blade shape
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but we are the closest probably at this point to having, circular, specular highlights
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all across the frame. Where this lens really does shine, though, you know, here for
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example, this is an image with a, I think it's about F3.2, and so
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still the quality of the blur behind, not just the specular highlights
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which look fine here, but the overall transition towards defocus, the out-of-focus areas are rendered quite
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pleasingly, the shot being wide open here, and if you look along this transition
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this is a stone wall, it's not a soft kind of defocus thing, but we can see that it's handled
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nicely and everything kind of just blurs away in a nice creamy fashion
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Here, up close, we obviously have the ability to, number one, get nice detail and contrast
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Like I said, the lens performs quite well up close, so we can see that in the plane of focus
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contrast and detail looks good. But then the background is really blurred out in a really creamy fashion
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Another similar type shot here. For an F1.8 maximum aperture lens, this really is very, very nice
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and it's always been one of the strengths of the lens is that really nice combination of the sharp
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and then also the soft in the bocquay region. Another one here shows off, again, beautiful color
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and here there's some bare branches that can be challenging, but again, I think that the lens has handled everything really quite nicely
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Here on a beach with shells, again, lots of hard edges there
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and so this is with a lens that does not have nice rendering, this scene could actually look quite rough
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particularly in this transition zone. I think that this lens is handling it nicely
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And here, a little bit further away, obviously we don't have near the amount of defocus
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This is probably the zone that is my least favorite. There's a little bit of extra outlining than what I would like in this kind of setting
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So that is probably of the images. It's my least favorite. Over on this side with less hard edges and a little bit more distance to the background, everything is just fine
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No complaints on that side. But in this particular transition over here where there's room for some of that outlining
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that's about the worst that I can point to you. but obviously if we step back and we look at the image at large
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it still looks nice, nice three-dimensional quality to the subject there, and a nice transition to defocus
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So we'll wrap it up with a quick series on flare. So here wide open and then stop down some at the scene
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This kind of lighting, you know, we've got a tiny little ghosting artifact there. No big deal here
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And you can see a little bit of a slightly prismatic effect coming off that
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I don't think that anybody's going to object to that. However, this lens does have some
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some rather unique flare artifacts. Now this particular one with the sun right out of the
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frame I actually quite like. It's a little bit of a vintage effect and this is a, it's a defect, yes
27:30
but it's one that I think has a lot of artistic value. And in here, I don't mind the outlining
27:36
It creates kind of a unique looking image. This is stopped down to F11. So with a longer lens like
27:43
this, longer focal length, it's rare that you get a really amazing sunbursts or sunstar effect
27:48
And I think that that's true here. That's only, you know, kind of ho-hum
27:52
We can see a little bit of flare artifacts there, a little bit of a prismatic effect where the sun comes into the frame
27:58
But what you'll really notice is that if I pan back and forth across the sun
28:02
with the sun right out of the frame, there are some interesting kind of flare effects
28:08
just kind of blooming effects. So this is certainly a lens that you're going to have to be careful with
28:12
at the very least in composition, because you can get some ugly stuff if you're not careful
28:17
And so as you can see with, you know, a few, a very minor exception when it comes to the flare resistance that has a little bit more
28:26
let's say, quirks than what some of the other lenses do. I really do love the VAF-75 millimeter T1.9
28:34
I have long reach for Samying's just AF 75 millimeter F1.8 as kind of my go-to lens for a lot of my YouTube
28:42
segments. It's just a great focal length for this kind of setting. And also it has really good
28:47
stickiness on my eye. It's been very reliable in terms of autofocus, and I just can trust it
28:53
Very quickly, I've turned to the VAA version instead for a number of reasons. First of all
28:59
it does give me the tally lamp, and so I can see, make sure that from monitoring, even from the
29:04
front, as I'm doing right now, that focus, or excuse me, that video recording is doing and that
29:08
it hasn't turned off for some reason or another. But then if I'm going to capture video like
29:13
B-roll type stuff, it's just a much better lens to use for the
29:17
that type of thing. And even for my stills work, the improved build quality, the improved
29:23
handling and features, it's got weather sealing, which the original didn't have, it just sets
29:28
it apart and makes it more of a go-to lens for me. I think that Sam Yang has done a really
29:33
amazing job of making the compromises necessary, but making it work for a lens that really does
29:39
work as a sine lens, but then also really does work as a photography lens. They're great for
29:45
photos, great for video. And you're getting a better build, better features, more mature
29:49
auto focus, that consistent color, the standardized size. There's a lot of things that really
29:54
sets the VAA lenses apart. The downside is that it comes at a price tag, whereas you can get
30:01
a lot of, say for example, the AF 75mm F1.8 for around 300 U.S. dollars, the VAAF version
30:08
is going to double that, about $650, $649 U.S. dollars is the list price for it
30:15
And so if you're just doing stills, you're probably just as well served with getting the, you know, smaller and lighter 75 millimeter F1.8
30:24
No, it doesn't have as many features. You know, you're not getting weather ceiling. You're not getting the focus hold button, though it does have the custom switch
30:31
And so it's not as good, but at the same time, if you're mostly just doing photography work, it works great
30:37
But if you are interested in doing CINY work, then I think that the VAAF series makes a lot of sense
30:43
And I think that they make even more sense if you want to buy multiple lenses and use them as a series
30:47
because they really work together well. And I'm really excited to see, to look at the upcoming 45 millimeter T.1.9 release and then the following 20 millimeter T.1.9
30:58
I think those lenses are going to be really intriguing. I love the optics of the original 45 millimeter lens
31:04
And I'm really interested in seeing what Samying does at the 20 millimeter focal link
31:08
This is a great series. And if you're willing to spend a little bit extra money, you're getting
31:13
a lot of performance that I think you're as the longer you use the lenses least this has been my experience
31:18
the longer that I use them the more I appreciate them because some of the subtleties of design
31:23
start to become apparent in more various situations I think Samming's done a really great job with these
31:28
lenses and I'm excited about their potential I'm Dustin Abbott if you look in the description down
31:33
below you can find links to my full text review also to my image gallery there are buying links there
31:38
if you'd like to purchase one for yourself also links to follow myself or Craig on social
31:43
to become a patron or to get channel merchandise. Please like and subscribe if you haven't already
31:49
Thanks for watching. Have a great day and let the light in

Samyang V-AF 75mm T1.9 Definitive Review | Hybrid Cine/Photo Short Telephoto

Dustin Abbott

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Samyang V-AF 75mm T1.9 Definitive Review | Hybrid Cine/Photo Short Telephoto

Dustin Abbott