Sirui Sniper AF 33mm F1.2 Review | Modern Build, Vintage Aesthetic

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Hi, I'm Dustin Abbott and I'm here today to give you my individual review of the Steel
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Eyes Sniper 33mm f1.2. This is an autofocusing lens, it is a part of a series of lenses that debuted with a
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23mm, then this 33mm, and finally a 56mm f1.2. I have taken a look at the series as a whole if you want to check out the kind of overview
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and how they all work together. And I've also released previously the review of the 23mm with the 56mm review to follow
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This lens and the series of lenses, they debut at a quality price under $350 US dollars and
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available for even less with some discounts. And you can also get them as a series in a case, all prepared to kind of coordinate together
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They have identical builds, they're set up to where you can easily swap on a gimbal or
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something similar, and they have a similar color tone throughout so that the footage
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or the photos are going to match nicely. So some nice thoughts when it comes to using them as a series
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In a nutshell, this is a lens that is very nicely built, it uses premium materials, it
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has average autofocus for stills and below average autofocus for video. It has extremely nice bokeh and it does soften up when it stops down, but it also has a lot
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of chromatic aberration and it has low contrast at large apertures. It's a modern lens when it comes to the build and the design, but the optics are kind of
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a retro aesthetic, and that is both good and bad depending on what you're looking for in
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the lens. What we'll do in today's review is that I will go through and give you the broad strokes
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and then those of you that want a deeper dive into optical performance can look at that
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at the end of the review. And there of course is a shortcut to that in the timestamp below
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ready to check out. So 33mm when applied to the various APS-C crop factors that it's applied for, it's available
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in a Nikon Z mount, Sony E mount, and then also Fuji X mount, but it is only an APS-C lens
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So in all these cases, I've tested it on Fuji here, you apply that 1.5x crop factor, you
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have essentially a 50mm equivalent lens. Obviously a very, very popular focal length for a lot of reasons
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Now with this series, they have three different, very distinctive looks that you can opt from
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There is the black that has carbon fiber, real carbon fiber accents here
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There is the silver look that has aluminum alloy accents, and then there is the white
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look that has a ceramic-based paint as a part of the design
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The lens is 72mm in diameter by 92mm in length, that's 2.8 by 3.6 inches, and it weighs in
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at right under 400 grams or 14 ounces. I give really high marks to this series as a whole when it comes to the design
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This is actually unique. This is rare in the market. There are so many lenses out there, and a lot of them look, you know, fairly similar
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But that's not really true of this Sniper series. There is a distinct look to them, an aesthetic that is all series, and so I appreciate that
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I appreciate the quality materials that are here. The focus ring is a little bit on the light side, but it works okay, although I will note
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there is 360 degrees of intended rotation. On Fuji, if you try to get down to minimum focus, a lot of times it's additional rotation
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to get it all the way there. It's just kind of a fuzzy quirk, which is probably not the case on other platforms
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Very nice materials, as noted, but outside of that, there's not really a lot of features
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There's no AF-MF switch, there's no aperture ring. On Fuji, that tends to be missed because some of the competitors will have it
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It does have a USB-C port on the metal lens mount, and that is great because it allows
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you to do firmware updates and to make sure that the lens stays current, and also, you
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know, maybe we'll see an improvement to the autofocus performance via firmware in the future
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It does come with this pedal-shaped lens hood. This is made out of plastic. Nothing particularly special, though I do appreciate the fact that we have got a glitch
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surface that makes it easier to mount and unmount. Inside, there are 11 aperture blades, and I do appreciate that because it helps to maintain
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a nice, circular shape as you stop the lens down. The lens is a maximum aperture of f1.2, so a lot of potential for stopping down, so a
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high blade count is welcome in this, and a little bit more of a better touch that is included
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Not so positive is the minimum focus distance. It is 40 centimeters, and as you can see, the resulting magnification is quite low
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0.10 times. You can still create a lot of background blur, but that has much more to do with the f1.2
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aperture than what it does to the ability to focus close. You're not going to mistake this for a macro lens in any way, shape, or form
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So, overall, it is a little bit on the larger and heavier side compared to some competitors
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However, it doesn't have a lot going on in terms of features, other than a price, which
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is quite reasonable, particularly for an autofocusing f1.2 lens. Now, on the note of autofocus, this has an STM, or a stepping focus motor
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You can see from the focus pull test that focus speed is not bad
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I would say it's slightly below average, but of course, average has improved over time
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and I'm used to really, really fast autofocus at this point. So, slightly before average, but I think adequate and speed for a lot of different applications
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Overall focus noise is fairly low. If you put your ear next to it, or if you're filming, you can hear some light clicks and
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whirs, but what you will hear is, if you're at a larger aperture, in between holding down
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either depressing the shutter or half-pressing it down, the aperture blades actually close
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down and then not in use, and they open up whenever you're actually focusing for the photo
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And so, as a byproduct, you will hear a little bit of clicking noise as those aperture blades
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close and open back up. And so, that's actually the primary sound that you hear during focus
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I actually found that the quality of focus is generally good. Now, as you're going to see, this lens is really low contrast right over here
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As a byproduct, it can be a little bit hard to tell that images are well focused until
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you really look in at a pixel level and distinguish that, even though something is not amazingly
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sharp, it is absolutely in focus. But as I did that, I realized that focus actually was actually quite good
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You can see here that it's tracking the eye of my dead-eyed model there quite well
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No issues there, and as I move around, the box is getting locked in on the eye
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So, all of those are good results, and I would say that for stills, I had no complaints about autofocus
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I was able to shoot everything that I wanted without any kind of issue. When it comes to the video AF side of things, this actually is the best of the series, but
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unfortunately, that's not saying a lot, because this is not a great series when it comes to
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video AF. As you can see from the focus tools, the focus tools are not fast, and they're not always
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particularly confident. There are some setting issues, but you can see the positive is that it is a smooth transition
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without visible steps. We did see some visible stepping on the 23mm, and the 56mm is a whole other can of worms
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which we'll get to later. But overall, it's not bad. Also, I found that when I did the hand test, it was the most reactive of the three lenses
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and that. But you do see that there is some hesitation before focus transitions are made
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There's a little bit of lag there before actual focus shift begins to take place
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On a positive note, focus breathing was quite low, and what I will say about the focus tools
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is they're slow and they're deliberate, but they're smooth enough that combined with the
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low focus breathing, they have a slightly cinematic look to them, which is not bad
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At the same time, though, this is certainly not a top video choice, and the focus is also
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not reactive enough. If your goal is to capture fast action, you need to look elsewhere
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When it comes to the image quality, I'll give you a quick overview of performance, and then
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if you want to hang around for the deep dive, you're welcome to do so. This lens has 12 elements in 11 groups, including one EV element, one HR element
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This is a lens with what I would call an extreme dual personality
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Wide open, it has very high chromatic aberrations, and so as a byproduct, it is quite dreamy
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wide open, without a lot of contrast, and so sharpness at wide apertures is not great
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Bokeh, on the other hand, is extremely nice. Much softer and creamier than what you're going to see from some competing lenses, and
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so very good in that regard. The lens will sharpen up when it is stopped down, and starting at about F4 to F5.6, it
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gets sharp enough that I would say that I was satisfied with the sharpness results
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They're more typical and modern looking, whereas the lens has kind of a vintage look
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to it, wide open. Positive things for various aspects of that is that it does have low distortion, almost
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no distortion. It has fairly low vignette, no ISI there, but chromatic aberrations, particularly of
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the longitudinal type, are really, really obvious and persistent, probably even to F2
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and a little bit beyond, and so they don't clear up particularly fast
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So that would be one of the negative issues there. The lens also does exhibit quite a lot of flare artifacts, a variety of things
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Some of them can be artistic, and if you use them wisely, you might look like them, but
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very, very likely, most people will be put off by them. And so, in an overall conclusion, I would say that the 33mm is maybe my least favorite
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of the series. There are too many aberrations, the contrast is just a little bit too low, and the autofocus
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is not amazingly sophisticated. I think it's good enough for photos, and good enough for most people, but not a great option
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for video. The lens is competitively priced for an autofocusing F1.2 lens, and I would say that it fits best
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for those that really like more of a vintage kind of look
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You like lower contrast, maybe find it flattering for portraits or for your general purpose
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shot, and you prefer kind of the look of images rather than pixel peeping at a detail
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And so, if you like the ability to have different kinds of looks wide open, and then a different
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look when stopped down, the lens might suit your purposes there. For me, I would say that on Fuji, the 33mm F1.4 Fujinon lens is worth the extra money
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or as a compromise, the Viltrox Pro AF 27mm F1.2 just does a lot of things really, really
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well, and would probably be my top budget pick there. Now, if you want more information, you can either look at the description down below
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and catch my full text review or the image gallery there. There's buying links there
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And if you want more information, stay tuned right after this, and we'll do our deep dive
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into the optical performance of the lens. Our examination of the 33mm starts with a definite win when it comes to gamut and distortion
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You can see the distortion is pretty close to non-existent. Those lines are straight enough that they really need no actual correction
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And also, vignette, while present, is really quite low for an F1.2 lens
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Now, there is actually a correction profile available in Lightroom already, which surprised
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me, but if you turn that off and just look at the manual correction, you can see I've
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dialed in a minus one to correct what little bit of pincushion distortion was there, and
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the vignette is about two stops, a plus 53, and then sliding the midpoint over
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For an F1.2 lens, this is low vignette, and obviously that's a really desirable distortion
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level there. Now, unfortunately, our next test is much less rosy. You can see that there are very significant levels of longitudinal chromatic aberrations
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so both fringing before and major fringing after the point of focus
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That is going to show up in real-world results. You can see here that contrast is definitely reduced due to fringing in various places
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and then also in bokeh highlights, you're going to see that fringing
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Likewise here, you can see that as we transition away from the point of focus, so before you've
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got some of the, you know, the magenta fringing is a little bit lighter, so it's obviously
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present, and then as you transition away, there's definitely a lot of that green-blue
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fringing that is present. Now, lateral chromatic aberrations are a simple and non-issue
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You can see that even if correction is turned off, we have very little in terms of any kind
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of fringing on either side of the black and white transitions there, so no problem there
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Now, taking a look at our resolution and contrast, obviously this is a tremendous torture test
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for a lens like this, in that 40 megapixels on APS-C is an extremely dense pixel resolution
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and I examine these, and I do these reviews, I examine at 200% magnification, so any and
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all flaws will be on display, and there are definitely some flaws here
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You can see that there is very low contrast, and thus the inability to really sharply define
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the details here in the text, the various textures that are there, the mid-frame also
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is continuing that trend. You can just see as we kind of pan down over these various builds, it's almost like a smear
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of Vaseline over it. Going into the corners, you can see that that low contrast is there, and then you can see
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the detail drops off even further towards the edge of the frame
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That low contrast does affect real-world images. Now, this is actually a stopgap to F2 for depth of field, so you can see that while
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it is accurately focused on the first face here, overall contrast makes it seem like
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the image is not really holding focus. Now, I'll also note that some people prefer that lower contrast in that it just is a little
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more flattering to any kind of skin imperfections. We can see here from one of my test shots when I was doing the testing for autofocus
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that, again, focus is accurate here, but you can also see that because of that lower contrast
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it can be a little bit hard to tell. At the same time, also, you can see looking ahead that the bokeh is really nice from the lens
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Another shot. Here, we can see that it doesn't look like it's in focus
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Now, if you go into a pixel level, you can see that it actually is accurately focused
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on the iris of Nala there, but because, you know, it's focused outwards at the field and
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then also contrast is low, it's hard to see without going into a pixel level if anything
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is actually in focus. Stopping down a little bit to f1.6 does slightly improve contrast
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You can see here we're actually focused on the far eye there. You can see that in the textures of the fur around the eyes, there's just nothing that's
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really, really crisp that is there. Now, stopping down to f1.4 on the right, you can see that contrast does improve a little
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bit, but not enough to make kind of a massive difference when it comes to our textures
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In the mid-frame, there's a little bit darker. You can see that so that contrast has improved the shadows, but not necessarily enough to
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where the details are really visible and present. Likewise, down here into the corners
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Again, it's mostly that the dark areas have become a little bit darker, but not that the
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ability to resolve the fine details has improved yet. Now, price-wise, it may be an unfair comparison, but the lens that I have on hand, well, not
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on hand, but that I've tested at the same resolution level, that is exactly a 33-millimeter
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lens, is Huion X-Staff 33-millimeter f1.4. And so you can see that on that 40-megapixel sensor, it is a radical difference in terms
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of the performance at f1.4. This is both lenses at f1.4 in the mid-frame and then down into the corner
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And so the Shure Eye lens is definitely at a disadvantage when it comes to the ability
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to have good resolution at a large aperture. Stopping down another stop to f2 there on the right, again, it does give us a little
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bit of boost in contrast. You can see the text is starting to resolve a little bit better, but we're still a far
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cry off from where that 2D lens was even at f1.4. Most of what we're seeing still is just a slight improvement of that contrast, but not enough
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to where it makes a radical difference yet. From f2 to f2.8 shows a similar level of improvement to where, again, it's starting to get better
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This is getting to where it might be an acceptable wide-open performance if you're, you know
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evaluating detail and contrast. Mid-frame is starting to look fairly competent now
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Corners are improving, but still not super sharp yet. Now, by f4, the corners are starting to sharpen up, and we're starting to look more like a
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modern lens in terms of the resolution and detail. By f5.6, we're now looking pretty competent there
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Resolution is looking nice and crisp, so you definitely have very much a dual personality
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of this lens where it is softer and dreamy wide-open, and then sharpens down and improves
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contrast at smaller apertures. Now, in many ways, sharpness and contrast peaks at f8, and then after that, diffraction
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is going to start softening the image. However, because the lens is fairly soft to begin with, I find that diffraction doesn't
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impact things quite as much as usual because the contrast is low at large apertures anyway
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and so I would say that you could probably use this lens throughout the zoom range, or
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shoot this lens throughout the after range without taking too big of a hit, as you can
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see here. I mean, it is reduced somewhat, but it's not terrible
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It's still very usable and actually better than what we saw at large apertures
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Now, despite, you know, the kind of dreamy look wide-open, this image is actually currently
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in my desktop background because I really liked it, and as you can see at a pixel level
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it actually looks quite good all across the frame. There's good detail that is involved there
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It's an intriguing image to me, and so it shows, again, that dual personality
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Now, what's also interesting to me is that at smaller apertures, when I compared this
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lens with the Sigma 18-50mm f2.8, a lens that I actually think is really competent for a
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zoom lens on this high-resolution sensor, I sort of instinctively preferred the images
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off of the prime lens when it came to various details. They were just a little bit crisper
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You can see in this zone here, it's just a little bit better, a little bit better contrast
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and also I found, like, the color rendition was just slightly better
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Here's another shot here, and if you actually pop in and look, now, obviously, this is not
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a shot of the same focal length. Looking in this zone, however, you can see, if you compare the two, that the kind of micro
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contrast, the contrast in that general area, is actually a little bit better, and thus
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the details are a little bit crisper, looking at the 33mm versus the zoom lens
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Now, up-close performance is, you know, at this, at f1.2, it's just about what you'd expect
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It's really not that fantastic. It kind of bears out, but the trade-off is that the lower contrast from this lens allows
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it to really have a very, very soft out-of-focus rendering. Sharper, higher contrast lenses, you know, which like the stigma approach, a lot of times
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the bokeh, I mean, is only okay from them because it does tend to have a little bit
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more outline, a little too much contrast in those areas. Now, of course, the downside here is if you have, like, specular highlights, it doesn't
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do so great in that. You can see just lots of fringing here, and, of course, fringing in the specular highlights
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The shape of them, the geometry is not too bad, and so, and you can see looking into
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the bokeh circles, there's none of those concentric rings or any kind of busyness like that, but
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that fringing is going to be a factor. But if you look beyond that, the ability to just kind of blur out backgrounds is really
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quite nice. So the strength of this lens is going to be in those that really prefer the ability to
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really blur out backgrounds and to have a more pleasing bokeh than what a lot of the
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more modern, more corrected lenses can produce. Now, flare resistance is also pretty vintage in its performance in that this lens will
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produce a lot of different flare artifacts. As you can see here, you can see there's, you know, there's some blobs of color here
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but if you see that larger aperture, you'll just get kind of flooded with light and also
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it will exhibit some flashing. And if we pan back and forth, you can see that there's just a wide variety of different
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flare effects that are quite vintage in the performance there. It can be used for artistic effect if you are very careful or if you like that look
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but for some people that are just looking for the ability to shoot into bright lights
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and outing the kind of flare artifacts, this is not going to be your lens
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So those of you that have stuck to the end, thanks for watching. Have a great day and let the light in

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Sirui Sniper AF 33mm F1.2 Review | Modern Build, Vintage Aesthetic

Dustin Abbott