0:10
hi I'm Dustin Abbott and I'm here today
0:12
to give you my review of the yo yend
0:14
56mm f1.4 da DSM WL Pro this is the
0:21
third entry in what yongo is calling
0:24
their Commander series and so it has
0:25
featured a 23mm 33 mm and 550 6 mm now
0:31
f1.4 lenses all of which are able to be
0:34
wirelessly controlled and will
0:36
eventually be available in Sony E which
0:38
I'm reviewing here today Nikon Z and
0:41
then Fuji X Mount now as we're going to
0:44
see this is an incredibly feature Rich
0:46
lens and it can be had for around
0:50
$270 and so that makes it a very
0:52
compelling option if you're looking for
0:54
a telephoto portrait prime lens for your
0:57
apsc camera so is this the 56mm lens to
1:00
buy well that's what we're going to
1:01
explore in today's review right after a
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we'll start by taking a look at the
1:56
build and feature set here this is a 56
1:59
mm lens and so on apsc cameras which all
2:03
of these platforms have a 1.5 times crop
2:05
factor it means that that is an 84 mm
2:08
full frame equivalent so obviously that
2:13
popular focal length for portraiture
2:16
because it is allows you to have a long
2:18
enough focal length and a fast enough
2:19
aperture to blur out backgrounds but
2:22
it's not so long that you can't use it
2:23
in a normal size room and so that makes
2:26
it a very useful lens now as noted the
2:28
full name name of the lens is a mouthful
2:31
yongo 56 mm f1.4 in this case it's s or
2:35
for Sony da DSM WL and pro so again to
2:39
break down what all that means s stands
2:41
for Sony or Sony emount platform here it
2:46
da stands for the fact that it is apsc
2:49
for whatever reason that's their
2:50
designation DSM refers to digital
2:52
stepping motor which is the Focus motor
2:54
WL refers to the fact that it can be
2:57
wirelessly controlled and pro is what
2:59
they have applied to their kind of line
3:01
of lenses that have a little bit more
3:03
upscale build and have some additional
3:05
features over the cheaper
3:07
lenses now as noted it is very featur
3:10
rich and we'll get to that in a moment
3:11
but that does come at a little bit of
3:13
cost in it being a little bit heavier
3:15
it's also got a like aluminum alloy
3:17
casing so we've got Metals rather than
3:20
Plastics and that even lightweight
3:22
Metals do tend to weigh a little bit
3:24
more than Plastics and so this lens
3:28
368 G or 13.1 o to give you some
3:32
perspective sigma's 56 mm f1.4 it weighs
3:37
280 G and so it is considerably lighter
3:41
almost 90 G lighter but the Fuji 56 mm
3:44
f1.2 WRR a little bit faster maximum
3:48
apture but a more similar feature set it
3:51
actually weighs considerably more it's
3:53
445 or 45 G and so I mean this lens I
3:58
think probably sits at about where it
4:00
should but obviously if you're looking
4:01
for the lightest possible 56 mm f1.4
4:04
there are lighter options in this the
4:06
dimensions of all of these Commander
4:08
series lenses are identical uh 69 mm in
4:12
diameter or 2.7 in and 87 mm or 3.4 in
4:17
in length all of them share a common 58
4:21
size and one thing that is unique when
4:23
you look at the front of the lens that
4:25
is still very rare is they actually have
4:27
the Wi-Fi logo on there and that is a
4:29
reminder that this lens is Wi-Fi
4:31
compatible to allow you to have that
4:33
remote control now outside of the remote
4:36
control obviously if you're not
4:37
interested in that just in the features
4:38
that are on the lens itself we do have a
4:41
robust approach to aperture control
4:43
apertur ring and so you can have it
4:45
click and when clicked it's got the 1/3
4:47
stop to T and then a more rigid um stop
4:51
in between F-16 and then automatic mode
4:54
which you can switch into if you don't
4:55
like aperture Rings um it also has a
4:58
dclick mode which will allow you to
5:00
quickly and smoothly rack through those
5:02
aperture options now I will note when
5:05
doing aperture racking you can see
5:07
there's some visible steps even though
5:09
it you can declick it it still is is
5:12
pretty obvious when you're making moves
5:14
so I'm not sure how valuable that is
5:15
going to be for aperture racking for me
5:17
myself I I found that to be quite
5:19
obvious whereas there are other lenses
5:21
where I can smoothly do that and if I'm
5:23
careful I can avoid any of those kind of
5:25
visible steps as the aperture changes so
5:28
unfortunately it's not this linear
5:30
moving throughout the aperture it still
5:32
kind of Moves In stops along the way so
5:35
you know take that for what it for for
5:36
what it's worth it does have a function
5:40
button on the side and obviously that
5:41
can be programmed to whatever function
5:43
you have set in the camera and then also
5:45
it has a custom switch with two
5:48
different positions on it so that will
5:50
allow you to select something like AF MF
5:52
but also it can be used as a part of the
5:54
wireless control and they have a process
5:57
by which you can enable wireless control
5:59
control and uh kind of a cycle of
6:01
setting that up and once you have done
6:03
that you can then use that to switch
6:04
into the time when you want to use the
6:06
lens wirelessly it does have nine
6:09
aperture blades in theory they're
6:12
rounded but in practicality they're not
6:14
very round as you can see and as the
6:15
aperture stops down you can very clearly
6:18
see the aperture blades and so it
6:20
doesn't do a great job if the purpose
6:22
was to have that keep circular looking
6:26
specular highlights it doesn't do that
6:28
very well like all of these lenses it
6:31
does have a port down here near the
6:33
Mount but not on the mount for uh where
6:36
there's a USBC Port that's hidden behind
6:38
that it has a gasket to keep weather
6:41
sealing unfortunately that gasket as
6:43
with all of these is very difficult to
6:46
get out you're going to need something
6:48
either have very long fingernails or use
6:49
something small like a flat bladed
6:52
screwdriver with a small head to pry
6:54
that open and be careful because that
6:55
gasket comes completely out and you're
6:57
going to want to stick it back in there
6:59
after you've done things like firm more
7:00
updates and so you don't uh expose it to
7:04
losing the weather ceiling because it
7:05
does have some weather ceiling at least
7:07
in the form of a gasket here and then it
7:10
does have a flooring coating on the
7:12
front element so again for a lens that's
7:14
at this price tag it's pretty great to
7:17
have any form of weather ceiling and
7:19
definitely flooring coating on there as
7:21
noted it does have a metal body and the
7:24
lens actually feels pretty upscale in
7:26
terms of the overall construction the
7:29
manual focus ring is located near the
7:31
front the damping is fairly light on it
7:33
but it did Focus fine when I used it
7:35
manually no real problem there minimum
7:38
Focus distance here is 50 cm and that
7:41
gives you a 0.11 times magnification
7:45
I'll note that both the Fuji and sigma
7:46
lenses that I've mentioned allow you to
7:48
get a higher level of magnification
7:50
0.14 times however this is enough to be
7:54
useful as you can see here does a pretty
7:59
so overall this is a really compelling
8:02
package uh there really isn't anything
8:04
that I have seen on apsc at this focal
8:06
link that has a more comprehensive
8:09
package of features and options there
8:11
and so kudos to AO for giving us a lot
8:14
of value for the money when it comes to
8:16
the overall features so let's talk about
8:19
autofocus autofocus comes via that DSM
8:22
or digital stepping motor and again I've
8:24
never figured out what the difference
8:25
between a digital stepping motor and a
8:26
typical stepping motor is but you know
8:28
that's that's part the Y no thing what
8:31
matters is that autofocus for Stills is
8:33
quite good and you can see here that
8:34
Focus transitions back and forth they
8:37
are really Snappy and no issues with
8:39
that focus is very quiet it's confident
8:42
it's accurate and I found whether
8:44
shooting indoors or Outdoors that Focus
8:46
just quickly locked on and did so
8:48
accurately it was fast enough that even
8:51
at f1.4 I was able to pick up uh bird in
8:54
flight and you know lock on and get
8:56
accurately focused so no problem there
8:58
uh whether was human or animal subjects
9:00
it didn't matter I got good eye
9:02
detection and and so again that worked
9:05
really really well and so overall uh
9:07
Focus speed Focus sound and focus
9:10
accuracy all good for Stills on the
9:12
video side of things I found that video
9:15
pulls were largely good there's not
9:17
really any kind of visible stepping I
9:19
did see just a little bit of a micro
9:21
adjustment sometimes at the end of the
9:24
uh the focus transition but overall that
9:27
was pretty good there is some more
9:29
obvious Focus breathing than what I saw
9:31
on either the 23 or 33mm lenses not
9:34
surprising with this having a longer uh
9:37
focal length and I will note here on
9:39
Sony that because this is a third party
9:41
lens there will be no Focus breathing
9:43
compensation that's reserved only for
9:45
Sony lenses and so don't depend on that
9:48
to smooth out some of that focused
9:50
breathing you can see here from my hand
9:52
tested it mostly went well transitions
9:55
are not jarring they're relatively
9:57
smooth however I needed I needed to
9:59
pause an extra beat before I moved my
10:02
hand or put it back in place because it
10:04
wasn't always as responsive as what I
10:07
would liked and transitioning to my hand
10:09
but I did find in other video clips that
10:12
video W was largely good and it also
10:14
stayed stable when I was just shooting
10:18
uh static shots where I wanted Focus to
10:20
be stable throughout that so overall
10:22
autofocus works really quite well here
10:25
so let's talk about the Optics and I'll
10:27
give you my overview here and then the
10:29
Deep dive breakdown as always is going
10:30
to be at the end of the video Optical
10:32
design here's 10 elements in nine groups
10:35
five of those as you can see from this
10:36
diagram our various exotic elements you
10:39
can also see that the MTF is quite
10:41
consistently good there's a little bit
10:42
of Dipping up and down but it stays
10:44
relatively flat across there it's not as
10:48
sharp not at a high high level across as
10:50
what say for example the VTR 56 mimet
10:54
f1.7 uh air series lens is but that lens
10:57
is is quite exceptional in that regard
11:00
but overall this sharpness is is pretty
11:02
close to all of the you know top
11:04
competing lenses that it would come up
11:06
against I would say that there is one
11:08
kind of significant Optical flaw that I
11:10
can point to and that is when you're
11:11
shooting at wide apertures there
11:13
definitely is some fringing particularly
11:15
in high contrast situations going back
11:17
to the shot of a bird in Flight if I go
11:19
into uh just a full pixel level you can
11:22
see definitely there's some fringing
11:23
around the edges of the bird and I also
11:26
found that in other shots shooting for
11:28
example here down towards the beach in
11:31
Myrtle Beach you can see there is some
11:32
fringing again if we punch into 100%
11:34
magnification and that definitely showed
11:36
up on my chart test as well some OB
11:39
obvious uh Loca or longitudinal
11:41
chromatic aberration there's a tiny bit
11:44
of lateral style chromatic aberration
11:46
but nothing that's going to be any kind
11:48
of real issue there now for those of you
11:50
that are interested in fullframe
11:51
coverage it isn't much more than the
11:53
apsc image Circle so I wouldn't
11:55
recommend it for that purpose you can
11:57
see there's some hard mechanical
11:58
vignette over basically everything
12:00
outside of the apsc image Circle when it
12:03
comes to Distortion and vignette there
12:06
is some moderate pin cushion Distortion
12:08
I needed a plus 10 to correct for that
12:10
it did correct in a linear fashion and
12:12
so won't be any kind of problem and of
12:14
course the correction profile for jpegs
12:16
and videos will happen in camera and
12:19
will help to offset that vignette is
12:21
really quite minimal only a plus 32 to
12:24
correct for the vignette at least here
12:25
on Sony expect as is often the case
12:27
it'll be a bit higher on either Nikon or
12:31
Fuji mounts but here on Sony it is quite
12:33
minimal my chart test results showed
12:36
very good results at
12:38
f1.4 uh consistent across the frame good
12:41
performance and as I look back and
12:42
compared to some of the other lenses 56
12:45
millim lenses I've tested this is a good
12:47
performance in some ways it looks a
12:49
little bit better in the real world but
12:50
this is testing at 26 megapixels which
12:52
is the maximum on Sony it's going to
12:55
look a little worse if you're shooting
12:56
on the Fuji 40 megapixel sensors but
12:59
that's always the case and so that is a
13:02
very very demanding platform and so
13:03
lenses tend to look a little bit softer
13:06
there uh out in the real world as noted
13:09
results look good in those high contrast
13:11
situations you can you know the fringing
13:13
will reduce the apparent sharpness a bit
13:15
if you're in lower contrast situations
13:18
it looks fantastic I do see some boost
13:21
to contrast by F2 as you can see here by
13:24
f2.8 even the corners are looking really
13:27
quite excellent and of course of course
13:29
that means that at landscape apertures
13:31
you can get really great detail all
13:33
across the frame no issues there at all
13:36
um good performance whether you're
13:38
shooting in the center the mid-frame or
13:39
off into the corners it'll stay very
13:42
similar to that through f8 at f11 you
13:44
start to see a little bit of softening
13:46
due to defraction and F at F-16 that
13:50
noticeable now boal quality is overall I
13:53
would say pretty good I don't love
13:55
specular highlights because they do have
13:56
some green fringing if you're shooting
13:58
at the wide apertures um I also note
14:02
that I haven't yet seen outside of the
14:04
Fuji 56 56 mm f1.2 typically these 56 mm
14:09
lenses are not as good as what fullframe
14:11
85 mm lenses are when it comes to the
14:14
Boke rendering you can see that quite
14:16
obviously in this comparison with
14:18
another 85 fullframe 85 millimeter lens
14:20
that just the background is much
14:22
smoother from the 885mm fullframe lens
14:25
but when I compare it to the bouquet
14:27
quality from other outside of that Fuji
14:29
which is much more expensive when I
14:31
compare it to the sigma or the vro I
14:33
would say that the Boke quality is is
14:35
pretty decent here likewise flare
14:37
resistance is pretty good you can see
14:39
for example in this time lapse as the
14:41
sun comes up it stays nice and stable in
14:44
the midday when I shot right into the
14:46
Sun and I put the Sun up into the corner
14:48
you can see a little bit of a flare
14:50
pattern coming down a ghosting pattern
14:52
that's coming down but for most ordinary
14:54
shots I found it to be just
14:57
fine I find that the colors from yangong
15:00
noo and their Optical glass they are
15:01
good but they're not great and again
15:03
this is a budget lens so it's about what
15:05
I would expect but images look good I
15:07
think that most people will be happy
15:08
with them so my conclusion is this the I
15:11
think Chief advantage of this particular
15:13
lens is that it does have a more robust
15:16
feature set than basically all of the
15:18
other 56 mm lenses and when you combine
15:21
that with the fact that you're getting a
15:23
really really competitive price tag of
15:27
$270 that means that you you're maybe
15:29
getting more bang for your buck when you
15:31
consider that both the autofocus and the
15:33
image quality performance is all quite
15:35
good as well now if you are looking for
15:39
the sharper lens I would say that the
15:41
sigma 56 mm f1.4 DM is a a little bit
15:46
sharper it also costs twice as much and
15:48
has fewer features the vro 56 mm f1.7
15:52
air it's only f1.7 but it's it's a
15:55
strong value because it's really good
15:57
optically if you don't really care about
15:58
the features and it's also lighter and
16:00
so if that's a priority then you can go
16:02
that way but if you're looking for kind
16:04
of the mid level in terms of price but
16:06
then being really quite set with the
16:08
features then Theo really stands its own
16:11
and has kind of a unique Niche there and
16:13
this whole series The 23mm 33 mm and 56
16:16
mm have all been uniformly really quite
16:19
great and so if you're looking for a
16:21
series of matching lenses it's an easy
16:23
recommendation for those if you want
16:26
more information you can check out my
16:27
full text review that's Linked In the
16:28
description down below there are buying
16:30
links there as well and now if you want
16:32
even more information dive into the
16:34
Optics together with me and let's do
16:36
that deep dive okay we'll start by
16:37
taking a look at the fullframe coverage
16:40
and so you can see here there is that
16:41
hard mechanical vignette because the
16:43
whole fullframe image circle is not
16:45
being covered so if I cycle forward to
16:47
where I've cropped off most of that you
16:49
can see here's what it looks like and
16:51
then this is the apsc crop and I'll
16:53
toggle back and forth so you can see
16:55
we're going a little bit wider but you
16:58
know not enough to be meaningful to
17:01
actually effect I would certainly
17:02
wouldn't buy it to shoot it primarily on
17:04
full frame now taking a look at vignette
17:06
and Distortion there is some pretty
17:08
obvious pin cushion Distortion here it's
17:10
a minus1 to correct for that vignette
17:14
here on Sony is quite low I used a plus
17:16
32 to correct you can see everything
17:17
corrects nice and clean even doing it
17:20
manually however there will be
17:21
correction profiles to clean all of that
17:23
up as noted the weak spot here is the
17:27
fact that there is some pretty
17:28
pronounced fringing and so you can
17:29
particularly see that uh green fringing
17:32
after the plane of focus showing up
17:33
pretty obviously and here in high
17:36
contrast situations I saw a little bit
17:37
of fringing you know as you see on those
17:39
transition areas some purple fringing
17:41
over the wings likewise in a shot like
17:44
this you can definitely see looking
17:46
through this Zone in those really high
17:48
contrast areas there's definitely some
17:49
fringing that are going to show up so
17:51
not perfectly corrected in that regard
17:53
so here's a shot where there's it's
17:55
obviously much lower contrast and you
17:58
can see is we go throughout this image
18:00
that I mean the detail actually looks
18:01
even at f1.4 looks really good
18:04
throughout the frame and that's because
18:06
you're not losing things to fringing in
18:08
the same way so I mean it goes to show
18:10
that even the fringing is pretty
18:12
situational but just something to be
18:14
aware of lateral style chromatic
18:16
aberration are pretty well controlled I
18:18
do see just a tiny bit here this is so
18:21
minim minimal here though and at such
18:23
high level of magnification you're
18:24
probably not going to see much of any of
18:26
that in the real world so this is 26
18:29
megapixels on Sony and we're looking at
18:31
200% magnification you can see in the
18:33
center of the frame there's good detail
18:36
and and good contrast not like
18:38
exceptionally good but very good uh you
18:40
can see in the mid-frame not a whole lot
18:42
of drop off there and as we pan on down
18:46
we can see that you know it's a little
18:48
bit softer from upper corner to lower
18:50
right corner but down here we can see
18:53
there's actually been a little bit of a
18:54
bump back up as the mtfs suggest
18:57
actually looks really quite good there
18:58
in the corner looking up here on the
19:00
upper left side also looking good and so
19:02
we can see we've got a good centering
19:05
performance here with good consistency
19:07
everywhere that we look in the frame
19:09
here's a real world f1.4 shot and you
19:11
can see I mean nothing to complain about
19:13
there when it comes to the detail that's
19:15
available at f1.4 looking really quite
19:18
crisp now there's not a significant
19:20
difference by f1.8 by F2 you can start
19:23
to see increasing contrast looking
19:26
better there as we look into this Zone
19:28
you know it's not exceptional yet but
19:30
you look at the word Canada for example
19:32
at how much better the contrast is in
19:34
the dark areas compared to this Zone
19:36
here now the big jump comes at f2.8 and
19:40
you can see just how much crisper it is
19:42
on the right at f2.8 and now we've got a
19:45
pretty consistent performance I would
19:47
say we look up here into the upper left
19:49
corner you can see really good detail
19:52
it's crisp good contrast lower right
19:54
corner again really good detail right
19:56
off there into the corner stop down to
19:59
f5.6 shows another pop particularly here
20:02
into the corner performance I don't know
20:04
if you're going to see it quite as much
20:05
in the center of the frame maybe a
20:07
little bit deeper contrast maybe a
20:09
little bit here in this mid-frame Zone
20:11
but you can see that really in the
20:13
corners is where we're seeing the most
20:14
significant uptick I'll give you a
20:17
couple of real world examples here at
20:19
100% magnification you can see really
20:21
good detail here in the center of the
20:23
frame at this shot and it continues on
20:25
right off to the very corner there
20:27
looking nice and crisp uh from up above
20:29
I'm able to get a pretty flat plane of
20:31
focus and you can see right off into the
20:33
corners this gravel everything is
20:35
looking really nice good detail there
20:38
right off into the very edges of the
20:39
frame and and so a nice performance all
20:43
around there by f11 you'll see a little
20:46
bit of softening due to the effects of
20:47
defraction however that'll be more
20:49
pronounced at the minimum apture of F16
20:52
I would probably avoid F16 unless you
20:55
know you you're just desperate to get a
20:56
deeper depth of field cuz otherwise you
20:58
are going to get noticeably softer
21:00
results the level of magnification as
21:03
we've already noted isn't exceptional up
21:05
close performance is decent but what you
21:07
can see is there's definitely a little
21:09
bit of that fringing that is impacting
21:11
in this particular uh example here and
21:14
so it's it's okay but it's not great
21:17
here also up close this is at minimum
21:20
Focus distance and again I don't think
21:22
the detail is too bad I don't love you
21:24
know some of this fringing as I've
21:26
already noted there but I also don't
21:28
think this in the three-dimensional
21:29
result it's looking too bad what I don't
21:31
love is even by F2 you're seeing those
21:34
aperture blades and f2.8 you know even
21:37
stronger more pronounced I showed you
21:39
the example comparing in the actual
21:41
review with the 85 fullframe 85mm lens
21:45
but if you just take a look at this shot
21:47
on its own uh detail looks good on the
21:50
subject like I'm happy with that this
21:53
Zone looks a little on the busy side to
21:56
me so uh I there's a little bit more
21:58
hard EDG than what I would like this
22:00
shot here I think is just more
22:01
advantageous it shows a the background's
22:04
a little bit further away Less in the
22:05
transition zone so it looks uh quite a
22:08
bit creamier here like a table that's
22:10
off in the background it's blurred out
22:12
enough in this portrait shot that you
22:14
know everything looks pretty soft in the
22:16
background here if we go back a little
22:18
bit further from the subject so things
22:20
are a little bit more in Focus but again
22:22
I don't see anything really that I'm
22:23
concerned about in this particular shot
22:25
there's a little bit more edges like on
22:27
the chairs around that table but you
22:30
know again it's not bad again this was
22:32
the worst example that I saw with the
22:34
flare with that bit of a ghosting
22:36
pattern there but in less extreme
22:38
examples where I'm not shooting right
22:39
into the midday Sun I mean you can see
22:42
here that there really is anything
22:44
marring the image and so flare
22:46
resistance overall I would say not bad
22:48
and so as you can see this is a lens
22:50
that really holds up quite well in a lot
22:52
of different categories and can produce
22:54
some beautiful images thanks for
22:56
watching to the very end have a great
22:58
day and let the light in