Just a few years ago, I had never reviewed a Sirui lens. I had reviewed a few tripods from the company, but I didn’t think of them as a lensmaker. They then approached me about covering a few of their cine lenses, and while that isn’t my forte, I agreed to do so out of some interest in the unique materials they were using in their lens design (carbon fiber, in this case). Since that point I’ve reviewed about a dozen lenses from them, including cine lenses, their Nightwalker series, an anamorphic lens, and all five lenses in their Sniper autofocus series. But I’ve never been more excited to do a Sirui review than the one I’m doing today, for a number of reasons. First of all, this is their first full frame autofocus lens, and I would presume that the Aurora 85mm F1.4 is the first in a new series of Aurora lenses. Secondly, while Sirui has always utilized some really cool materials in their designs (they know how to make a unique lens!), the Aurora series if the first time they’ve really kicked up the feature set, with the Aurora 85mm sporting a set of features that would compete with Sigma or even a first party lens. Thirdly, they’ve managed to make a full frame 85mm F1.4 lens that is smaller and lighter than what anyone else has done. Finally, I was a bit slow getting my review copy, so a few reviews are already out, and I found that I really, really liked the look of the rendering from the lens. Add to that the fact that Sirui is discounting the already inexpensive price of $600 down to $500 for the holidays…and throwing in a few bonus filters, and they’ve definitely got my attention. Did they pull off the value 85mm on Sony, Nikon, and Fuji? You can find out my full thoughts by watching the video review, reading the text review, or just enjoying the photos below.
Thanks to Sirui for sending me a review sample of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with my Sony a7RV or Sony Alpha 1 cameras.
One other area that I was interested in was being able to evaluate Sirui’s autofocus on a platform other than Fuji, which is where I’ve reviewed the Sniper series. Fuji’s autofocus is quite a bit behind that of other major brands like Sony, Canon, or Nikon, so I feel like my impression of Sirui’s autofocus has been held back a bit by the limitations of the camera. I’m doing this review on Sony, where no such limitations exist, and it will give me a more accurate view of the “state of play” with Sirui’s autofocus.
I’ll give Sirui high marks for presentation. There’s a clever little tab made of material that allows the box to be easily opened, and inside they packed the lens in a zippered and padded nylon case (like Sigma’s lenses), which actually adds real protection value, unlike, say, a Canon L series drawstring pouch. The lens is shrinkwrapped inside to help it to be perfectly sealed during shipment. I’m not a big “unboxing” kind of reviewer, but I was impressed as I unboxed the Aurora 85mm.
It’s great to see another 85mm F1.4 option on the market, particularly one that does have a number of nice strengths. It’s probably not going to dethrone my Sigma 85mm F1.4 DN for me personally, but I’ll also note that it costs half as much.
This is a very nice full frame portrait lens for $500. Check out the photos to see if it checks the boxes for you.
Keywords: Sirui, Aurora, 85mm, F1.4, Sirui Aurora Review, Sirui 85mm Review, Aurora 85mm F1.4 Review, f/1.4, Review, Sony alpha 1, Sony a7RV, Wireless, Review, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, let the light in, weathersealing, #letthelightin, DA
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Just a few years ago, I had never reviewed a Sirui lens. I had reviewed a few tripods from the company, but I didn’t think of them as a lensmaker. They then approached me about covering a few of their cine lenses, and while that isn’t my forte, I agreed to do so out of some interest in the unique materials they were using in their lens design (carbon fiber, in this case). Since that point I’ve reviewed about a dozen lenses from them, including cine lenses, their Nightwalker series, an anamorphic lens, and all five lenses in their Sniper autofocus series. But I’ve never been more excited to do a Sirui review than the one I’m doing today, for a number of reasons. First of all, this is their first full frame autofocus lens, and I would presume that the Aurora 85mm F1.4 is the first in a new series of Aurora lenses. Secondly, while Sirui has always utilized some really cool materials in their designs (they know how to make a unique lens!), the Aurora series if the first time they’ve really kicked up the feature set, with the Aurora 85mm sporting a set of features that would compete with Sigma or even a first party lens. Thirdly, they’ve managed to make a full frame 85mm F1.4 lens that is smaller and lighter than what anyone else has done. Finally, I was a bit slow getting my review copy, so a few reviews are already out, and I found that I really, really liked the look of the rendering from the lens. Add to that the fact that Sirui is discounting the already inexpensive price of $600 down to $500 for the holidays…and throwing in a few bonus filters, and they’ve definitely got my attention. Did they pull off the value 85mm on Sony, Nikon, and Fuji? You can find out my full thoughts by watching the video review below…or reading on.
Thanks to Sirui for sending me a review sample of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with my Sony a7RV or Sony Alpha 1 cameras.
One other area that I was interested in was being able to evaluate Sirui’s autofocus on a platform other than Fuji, which is where I’ve reviewed the Sniper series. Fuji’s autofocus is quite a bit behind that of other major brands like Sony, Canon, or Nikon, so I feel like my impression of Sirui’s autofocus has been held back a bit by the limitations of the camera. I’m doing this review on Sony, where no such limitations exist, and it will give me a more accurate view of the “state of play” with Sirui’s autofocus.
I’ll give Sirui high marks for presentation. There’s a clever little tab made of material that allows the box to be easily opened, and inside they packed the lens in a zippered and padded nylon case (like Sigma’s lenses), which actually adds real protection value, unlike, say, a Canon L series drawstring pouch. The lens is shrinkwrapped inside to help it to be perfectly sealed during shipment. I’m not a big “unboxing” kind of reviewer, but I was impressed as I unboxed the Aurora 85mm.
It’s great to see another 85mm F1.4 option on the market, particularly one that does have a number of nice strengths. It’s probably not going to dethrone my Simga 85mm F1.4 DN for me personally, but I’ll also note that it costs half as much.
This is a very nice full frame portrait lens for $500…so let’s dive in and get the details.
Aurora 85mm Build and Handling
As noted in the intro, the Aurora series is a step up for Sirui in build quality and feature set. In some ways, however, the design language of the Aurora series is more stereotypical than their typical recent designs. Thus far the only color scheme seems to be black, so no white or silver. The overall appearance is nicely clean though with bolder fonts and bigger writing than most lenses. They want you to understand that this is a full frame lens, for example. How do I know that? Because they wrote it right on the barrel.
The fonts on the side, too, are quite bold. This is like the “large print” edition of lenses.
The Sirui badge on the right side of the barrel is probably the most subtle thing here.
The front face is more clean and simple. I always like when there is lens information on the front of a lens.
The lens itself is definitely on the small side for an 85mm F1.4. Not as small as the Sony FE 85mm F1.8, but definitely smaller and lighter than any of the F1.4 options save the Samyang Series II (which I reviewed here). The lens is 80.3 (3.2″) in diameter x 102 mm (4″) in length. It manages to get by with a 67mm front filter thread compared to the 77mm of the Sigma 85mm F1.4 DN or the 72mm of the Samyang AF 85mm F1.4 II. It weighs 540g (1.4lb), which is slightly more than the 509g of the Samyang but less than the 625g of the Sigma. You can see that while the two lenses are similar in length, the Sigma lens is definitely wider in diameter.
The included lens hood (pictured above) is fairly plain. It is a cheaper feeling plastic (relative to the more robust aluminum alloy housing of the lens) that is distinguished mostly by a ribbed grip ring. It bayonets on a little tighter (the tolerances could be a little better here) but at least won’t be jarred free.
This is a fairly feature rich lens. It has a robust approach to aperture control, including a manual aperture ring that can be controlled with clicks (at one third stop detents) or clickless by changing the position of the switch on the right side of the lens.
You also have the option of switching into A (automatic) mode if you prefer to control aperture from within the camera. This isn’t an iris lock, but there is a nice long detent in between F16 and A mode that should keep you from accidentally straying in either direction.
The aperture iris itself is beautiful, with 15 rounded blades, which is well more than any of the competitors.
On the left side of the barrel there is a Function button that can be programmed to a wide range of functions from within the camera along with an AF | MF switch.
The manual focus ring has a nice feel to it overall. The damping is good, and focus smooths well without any apparent lag between input on the ring and the actual focus action. The active focus area will be automatically magnified if you have that setting enabled.
At the rear of the lens you’ll find a USB-C port that allows for quick and easy firmware updates.
You’ll also find a weathersealing gasket located there, and Sirui adds that there is a fluorine coating on the front element. There seems to be some other seals as well. Sirui actually used the word “waterproof” in their marketing, but I’m not aware of any lens actually being waterproof. Weathersealed is probably a better term, meaning that you can use it when it is raining, but don’t drop it in a pool or the ocean and expect all to be well!
Right now Sirui is including two filters as a bonus. One is UV protection filter, which I personally don’t use but some photographers swear by.
The second is more interesting to me, as it is a “Black Mist” filter. This gives you a little more of a glow to an image, a slightly more dreamy look that can be interesting in certain situations. Here’s a quick comparison of a scene with and without the filter. Note that it affects not only the subject but also the bokeh, too.
It’s a nice bonus on a portrait oriented lens, and we’ll come back to that in the image quality section.
The lens barrel is made of metal (aluminum alloy), and it has a nice, anodized black satin finish. Overall I would call it a nice looking lens even if I do find the badging/writing a little overwrought.
85mm lenses are rarely known for great levels of magnification, and that’s true here. Minimum focus distance is 85cm, which is pretty much dead on with what the Sigma and Samyang allow. That will give maximum magnification figure of right at 0.12x, which is obviously very average.
While the Sirui Aurora 85mm F1.4 isn’t precisely the smallest and lightest 85mm F1.4 lens out there, it is very close, and unlike the Samyang, it gives you a metal body and more features, which feels like a nice tradeoff for the additional 31g of weight. Overall I’m happy about what we have here. I love to see when companies “level up” in their lens design.
Stills Autofocus
Sirui has equipped the Aurora 85mm with an STM or stepping motor. While I consider STM motors to be the lower tier of modern mirrorless AF motors (with Linear and Voice Coil motors in an upper tier), the truth of the matter is that there’s a pretty broad range of performance with STM motors. The Sigma 85mm F1.4 DN also has an STM motor, for example, and it costs twice as much. Obviously the Sirui won’t be able to compete with the Sony 85mm F1.4 GM II, which has incredibly fast autofocus thanks to having two XD Linear motors, and those are the largest of their kind that Sony has made to this point. If your plans for an 85mm prime include capturing sports action, you’ll probably want to stick with something like the Sony or, if you’re shooting Nikon, perhaps consider the Z 85mm F1.8 S instead. But for most people in most situations, the autofocus performance on the Aurora 85mm is going to work just fine.
You can see from the shots above that the lens delivered nicely accurate results on either my Sony a7RV or my Alpha 1, with good precision on any kind of trackable subject even if the subject (like Ferrari here) was in profile.
Focus is very accurate on the eye itself, not anything else.
There is almost no noise to be heard even if I put my ear next to the lens barrel. There is the slightest buzz from the motor, but so quiet as to be nearly undetectable. Focus speed is good in most situations, too, though I did notice a little lag when going from a very close to a very distant subject. I would say that in most ordinary situations focus speed will be sufficient. It’s nowhere near as fast as the Sony 85mm F1.4 GM II, but probably only a hair slower than the Sigma 85mm F1.4 DN.
I used the Aurora 85mm to record a birthday celebration for my assistant, Craig, and I got well focused results throughout.
I shot a series of portraits with the Aurora 85mm, and it proved very capable of accurate focus in that setting, whether I was shooting through branches:
Shooting at a closer distance:
…or shooting from further away.
Focus was also good for holiday type celebrations.
Focus for general purpose subjects was just good, delivering good accuracy with no drama.
As with most third party lenses, if your goal is tracking fast action, you might want to go with a first party lens, but for most people in most situations, autofocus for stills was pretty great.
Video AF
On the video front I found mostly good results. Focus pulls were smooth and quick with no visible steps. Focus breathing is fairly obvious, but not unusually so for an 85mm lens.
The Aurora 85mm did fine with my “hand test” as well, where I alternately block the view to my face with my hand and then remove it. Focus transitioned nicely from my hand to my face every time with no lag or misses.
Video footage generally looked good. The Aurora has a different look to the optical glass than competing lenses, including lower contrast and a different color signature. If you like it, you like it, but it isn’t quite like other full frame 85mm F1.4 lenses.
I also had fairly good results with video clips where I slowly moved the camera to force change from one subject to another at varying depths of field. Focus transitions were fairly well damped, and overall autofocus feels pretty capable.
Aurora 85mm F1.4 Image Quality Breakdown
The Aurora 85mm has an optical design of 14 elements in 9 groups, which includes some exotic elements like high refractive elements, extra low dispersion elements, and a aspherical element.
The MTF chart shows a fairly consistent performance across the frame with a dip right past midframe, a correction after than, and than a drop right in the very corners. The stopped down performance is almost flat on the sagittal plane, but the tangential plane shows a big dip, speaking to a bit less contrast.
My optical tests are on the 61MP a7RV, which is currently the most demanding resolution point for a full frame camera. I suspect that my testing results will be a little more punishing than a few of the reviews I’ve seen on lower resolution platforms, as you can see from the blue lines in the MTF chart above that the lens looks great on lower resolution points and a little weaker on higher resolution platforms.
There’s one other clue in the MTF chart that may help you to understand my results. Their MTF chargts were developed at 3.4 meters, which is a little over 11 feet. That’s a bit further than standard. The distance to my test chart, for example, would have been more like 2 meters. This is relevant because I really felt like this was a lens that is optimized for portrait distances. I felt like the lens was less impressive at close focus distances, like here at roughly minimum focus distance (F1.4):
…or at infinity/landscape distances (here at F2.8):
But put it in that sweet spot of 8-20 feet (2.5-5 meters) and it is very sharp even at F1.4:
You may have noticed the real strength of the lens in my first and third examples above. This lens has gorgeous rendering and bokeh. It isn’t the sharpest 85mm out there, but it compensates by having really gorgeous bokeh rendering. And, if you are shooting either in A) the optimized shooting distance or B) on a lower resolution camera, you will also get really great sharpness and contrast as well. This doesn’t surprise me, though, as I felt like this was also the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Sniper series as well.
The Aurora 85mm shows some light color fringing before and after the plane of focus (LoCA, or Longitudinal Chromatic Aberrations), though nothing excessive in my standard tests. You can see some fringing on my chart, but nothing too bad.
One of the key areas that I see fringing is in the imprinting on lenses and cameras, and this only Pentax combination of my Dad’s often will show major fringing if this is an area a lens struggles with. The Aurora 85mm does surprisingly good in this test even at F1.4.
I didn’t see any fringing around the bright specular highlights here (bokeh balls) either.
But this shot at distance was a different story. I see fringing around bare branches, around the geese on the water, and on a few other textures. It’s as if the colors are not quite properly focusing together, and the result is lost contrast and definition on the textures.
This style of fringing is called lateral chromatic aberrations (LaCA), and after what I saw in some real world shots, I was unsurprised to see it pretty strongly on my test chart as well.
Reducing the color fringing isn’t tough (the “Remove Chromatic Aberration” button on your favorite editing software should take care of that without problem), but what you won’t see restored is the lost detail in your images. That makes this a slightly underwhelming lens for landscapes. In many ways the Aurora 85mm F1.4 is the optical polar opposite of the recent Sony 85mm F1.4 GM II. That lens has some of the best microcontrast that I’ve ever seen, able to resolve amazing detail at both close and distance (some of my landscape images at F1.4 amazed me on that lens). But I was bit underwhelmed by the overall rendering and quality of the bokeh. The Aurora is the opposite. I’m completely underwhelmed by the fine detail rendering in many situations, but absolutely love the overall rendering of the bokeh from lens.
There’s a case to be made for both approaches, but if you’re making the case for the Aurora’s approach, it is that clients and viewers will rarely see the pixel peeping results, but they will always see the big picture rendering results.
The Aurora 85mm is a bit like the Sigma 85mm F1.4 DN in that there is a lot more pincushion distortion than expected. It’s as if both companies left some uncorrected distortion as a engineering trick to reduce the size of the lens. The Sirui isn’t as bad as the Sigma, however, as I used a -7 to correct the nicely linear pincushion distortion and only a +38 to correct the vignette (I needed to max out the vignette slider with the Sigma).
A bit of pincushion distortion can be flattering to portrait subjects, but this is probably excessive. You’ll want to correct at least some of it, though you can probably get away with not correcting the vignette.
Unfortunately the Aurora 85mm does not seem to be getting in-camera correction support. I pulled the JPEG file of the chart test above off my second card and it looked just like the RAW file.
So how about resolution and contrast? My tests have been done on a 61MP Sony a7RV, and crops are typically shown at 200% magnification. Here’s the test chart:
Here are F1.4 crops at roughly 200% from across the frame (center, mid-frame, and lower right corner).
I see mostly good detail across most of the frame (a bit of a drop in the corners, as predicted), but contrast is unexceptional. This is mirrors my findings in real world shots, too, though again the contrast results are better in the “sweet spot” of 2.5-5 meters (8-20 feet).
Stopping down even to F1.8 produces more contrast, particularly in the black levels.
You can see that in this real world example comparing F1.4 and F2 as well.
This is one of those lenses that offers you some choice in how you want things rendered. It’s a nice option at F1.4, as it is still sharp enough for portrait work, but still has a flattering quality to the rendering.
For portrait work I felt that there was plenty of sharpness. Even a fairly deep crop at F1.4 shows nice detail.
You can see that there is a very noticeable bump in sharpness and contrast at F2.8:
From 2.8 to F4 is an even bigger jump, and you can see that now even the corners look impressively sharp.
Peak performance in terms of consistency will be from F4 to F8, where sharpness is most consistent for landscape style work (even if that isn’t the lens’ greatest forte.)
Diffraction will start to soften the image after that, with a mild amount at F11 but a more obvious amount by F16:
But the absolute strength of this lens is in the overall rendering. Images just look really fantastic, with enough sharpness and contrast to be compelling, but it is all complimented by very soft, very creamy bokeh.
Geometry is pretty decent, with some geometric deformation near the edges of the frame, but overall the impression is of big, soft bokeh circles.
There is a bit of swirly busyness in those specular highlights, however, which is probably the biggest negative about the bokeh.
I found the backgrounds nice and creamy in a wide variety of situations, however.
This image has a lot in the transition zone, but it still looks pretty good.
Even the foreground bokeh is nice, which is really important for when you want to use out of focus elements to create natural frames for your subjects.
Flare resistance is mostly good. I had good results where the sun was very brightly right out of frame. You can’t really tell it from this image, but this scene was flooded with window light from a bright, directional sun.
This wide open F1.4 shot was shot into very bright sun around this tree, and while you can see some localized veiling at the epicenter of the sun, contrast has held up well in the image.
Stopping down to F11 reduced the veiling but adding just a little ghosting spot.
With the sun right out of frame and at a certain angle, you will get a glowing veil effect, which fortunately is extremely artistic. Here’s a freeze frame from a video clip:
I’ve added that exact effect to a LOT of images in post because I love the warm glow effect.
The Aurora 85mm is a pretty easy lens to get nice looking images with.
I’m also partial to the rendering from the Samyang AF 85mm F1.4 II, leaving us with two pretty great options. Looking back at my review results, I would argue that the Samyang is a hair sharper, but I think the Sirui has nicer bokeh. If you’d like to see more image samples, check out the image gallery here.
Conclusion
The Sirui Aurora 85mm F1.4 is an interesting step forward for Sirui, as it covers a lot of new territory. It moves into covering the full frame sensor, adds weather sealing, more features, and even ups the included accessories to include filters and a case. Doing all of this at the current price of $499 USD is impressive. And it seems like this lens is getting a lot of glowing reviews from those in the target audience – portrait photographers. The optics are optimized for portrait zones, and the gorgeous rendering/bokeh helps make images really look great. There are sharper options if you are just looking for pure sharpness for landscapes or general purpose, but if your priority is the look of images and having great bokeh, then the Aurora 85mm checks a lot of boxes.
It doesn’t hurt that this becomes the least expensive full frame 85mm F1.4 option on Sony and Nikon, and also offers a more feature rich lens than competitors on Fuji.
Sirui is clearly upping their game and moving into a more mainstream market with the Aurora series. There is perhaps the least amount of competition on the Nikon Z space, but here on a Sony there are a lot of alternatives. Some of them are sharper, but none of them are cheaper, and I’m not sure that any have quite as nice of rendering, so if that matters to you, the Sirui Aurora 85mm F1.4 is a winner. It’s a lot of lens for $500!
Keywords: Sirui, Aurora, 85mm, F1.4, Sirui Aurora Review, Sirui 85mm Review, Aurora 85mm F1.4 Review, f/1.4, Review, Sony alpha 1, Sony a7RV, Wireless, Review, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, let the light in, weathersealing, #letthelightin, DA
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
I’m back with another Yongnuo (YN) review. I was interested in covering their most recent lens on the strength of what I’ve seen from the 11mm F1.8 WL Pro I’ reviewed on Sony and the 50mm F1.8 DSM Pro that I reviewed on Fuji. 33mm is a very important focal length on APS-C, giving you roughly 50mm (49.5mm) full frame equivalent angle of view once you add in the 1.5x APS-C crop. Add a fast maximum aperture of F1.4, a host of features, and a good optical performance, and you’ve got an interesting lens. The Yonguo 33mm F1.4S DA SAM WL Pro can be had for well under $300, and it arguably adds a lot more features and versatility than any other lens that it competes with. Should this be your new “normal lens” for your Sony E (tested here), Nikon Z, or Fuji X-mount camera? You can find out my full thoughts by watching the video review below, reading the text review, or enjoying the photos in the galleries below.
Thanks to Yongnuo for sending me a review sample of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the APS-C mode (26MP) of my Sony a7RVcamera.
As noted, this is a fast “normal” lens. Normal lenses are so called because they cover an angle of view similar to what your eye sees, thus the kinds of images you can get look “normal” or easily relatable, which is why the 50mm focal length is so popular.
The YN 33mm (as we’ll call it for brevity) is a very feature rich lens, as we’ll see, but one of those innovations requires purchasing an inexpensive (under $25) remote control unit that leverages a 2.4gz wireless module built into the lens. Far from just being a basic remote control unit, this remote control allows you to remotely control focus, do aperture racking, set up A-B focus pulls, and more basic functions like take photos, start video, and do whatever you have the function button programmed to do. It’s a very clever little device particularly for video functions as you can do some of these key movements without touching the lens and introducing vibration.
The 11mm F1.8 was the first of a new series of lenses from Yongnuo that they call the “Commander Series”, and this 33mm will be joined by a 23mm and 56mm F1.4 lens.
If you don’t speak Yongnuo, let me break down what those letters mean in the 33mm F1.4S DA DSM WL Pro lens designation. In many ways this follows the Fuji naming convention which puts a list of features right in the name.
S = Sony, or Sony E-mount
DA = APS-C
DSM = Digital Stepping Motor
WL = Wireless control
Pro = upscale build, additional features
The YN 33mm has a lot going for it, including a great focal length, great functionality, and fairly strong image quality.
There are also a few weaknesses along with many strengths, which you can discover in the reviews…or just enjoy the photos.
Keywords: Yongnuo, YN, 33mm, F1.4, Yongnuo 33mm F1.4, DSM, WL, F1.4, Pro, APS-C, Review, Sony a6700, a6000, a6400, Sony a7RV, Wireless, Review, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, let the light in, weathersealing, #letthelightin, DA
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
I’m back with another Yongnuo (YN) review. I was interested in covering their most recent lens on the strength of what I’ve seen from the 11mm F1.8 WL Pro I’ reviewed on Sony and the 50mm F1.8 DSM Pro that I reviewed on Fuji. 33mm is a very important focal length on APS-C, giving you roughly 50mm (49.5mm) full frame equivalent angle of view once you add in the 1.5x APS-C crop. Add a fast maximum aperture of F1.4, a host of features, and a good optical performance, and you’ve got an interesting lens. The Yonguo 33mm F1.4S DA SAM WL Pro can be had for well under $300, and it arguably adds a lot more features and versatility than any other lens that it competes with. Should this be your new “normal lens” for your Sony E (tested here), Nikon Z, or Fuji X-mount camera? You can find out my full thoughts by watching the video review below…or reading on.
Thanks to Yongnuo for sending me a review sample of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the APS-C mode (26MP) of my Sony a7RVcamera.
As noted, this is a fast “normal” lens. Normal lenses are so called because they cover an angle of view similar to what your eye sees, thus the kinds of images you can get look “normal” or easily relatable, which is why the 50mm focal length is so popular.
The YN 33mm (as we’ll call it for brevity) is a very feature rich lens, as we’ll see, but one of those innovations requires purchasing an inexpensive (under $25) remote control unit that leverages a 2.4gz wireless module built into the lens. Far from just being a basic remote control unit, this remote control allows you to remotely control focus, do aperture racking, set up A-B focus pulls, and more basic functions like take photos, start video, and do whatever you have the function button programmed to do. It’s a very clever little device particularly for video functions as you can do some of these key movements without touching the lens and introducing vibration.
The 11mm F1.8 was the first of a new series of lenses from Yongnuo that they call the “Commander Series”, and this 33mm will be joined by a 23mm and 56mm F1.4 lens.
If you don’t speak Yongnuo, let me break down what those letters mean in the 33mm F1.4S DA DSM WL Pro lens designation. In many ways this follows the Fuji naming convention which puts a list of features right in the name.
S = Sony, or Sony E-mount
DA = APS-C
DSM = Digital Stepping Motor
WL = Wireless control
Pro = upscale build, additional features
The YN 33mm has a lot going for it, including a great focal length, great functionality, and fairly strong image quality.
There are also a few weaknesses along with many strengths, and we will break down it all in our review.
Build and Handling
The 33mm focal length has been a fairly popular one over the past few years, with a variety of releases from first party brands (Fuji) and third party brands like Viltrox, Tokina, and Meike. The YN 33mm shows well in this class, however, with the lowest price and more features. This does come at the cost of some weight, however, as the Yongnuo is the heaviest lens at 370g (13oz), though the Fuji lens is a close second at 360g. The Viltrox and Tokina lenses seem to essentially be twins, and have identical dimensions and weight (270g).
The extra weight is due to have a little extra girth and length. The YN 33 is 69mm in diameter (2.7″) x 87mm (3.4″) in length, which is over 13mm longer than the Fuji 33mm lens. The front filter threads are a common 58mm size.
You’ll note the “Wi-Fi” radio signal logo next to the lens designation. Yongnuo continues to be the only company I know of utilizing this, though I have seen Bluetooth in a few Viltrox lenses.
That extra length is at least well used. The other three lenses I’ve been mentioning have an aperture ring (as does this lens), but the Yongnuo adds several other features, including the ability declick the aperture, a custom/function button, and a two mode-custom switch that allows you tweak the behavior of the ring.
As noted, this is a very feature rich little lens. We have a function/focus hold button on the left side of the barrel. That function can be assigned from within the camera.
There’s also a custom switch that allows for a few different functions. In one mode, it serves a an AF | MF switch, with mode I being AF while mode II will switch to MF.
The manual focus ring has a nice feel to it overall, though the weight is on the lighter side. There is no obvious stepping, however, so focus moves fairly smoothly as I use the MF ring. You can program the custom switch to this function by turning the camera off, setting the position to II, and then holding the custom button down. Then power the camera back on, and you will feel a click in the lens.
To use the optional remote control, turn the camera off, set the switch position to I, and then hold down the function button while turning on the camera. Now position “I” will mean that wi-fi is turned on for remote communication while position “II” will mean that it is turned off. I would recommend keeping it in the off position when it is not in use. I haven’t noticed a battery drain issue, but you can essentially assure that this won’t be an issue by turning it off.
The YN 33mm also has a robust approach to aperture control. It has an aperture control ring with one third stop detents between F1.4 and F16 along with an automatic position that can be accessed past F16 (there is a firmer detent there to keep from accidental switches between the two). The feel of the clicks is good, with clear delineation of each position but without being rough.
There is also a declick option with a switch on the right side of the barrel. Click that switch and you can smoothly rack through the aperture, which is particularly useful for video work.
The aperture iris itself has 9 rounded blades to help ensure circular specular highlights when stopped down.
The lens barrel is made of metal, and it has a nice, anodized black satin finish. The lens design is very clean and modern.
A petal-shaped lens hood is included. While it isn’t anything particularly special, it is sturdier than some and bayonets into place with a reasonably precise feel.
There is a USB-C port for firmware updates covered by a small rubber gasket. Be careful when pulling it out, as it is small and wouldn’t be hard to lose. It’s also nearly impossible to pry out unless you have a small prying tool, like a very small flat screwdriver.
The USB-C port will allow for quick and easy firmware updates, which is a smart move by Yongnuo considering that they are a third party lens maker, so they may have to rely on firmware updates to maintain compatibility with cameras in the future. The lens does include a USB-C cable in the box in case you don’t have one.
There is a metal lens mount with a weather sealing gasket attached. Yongnuo also claims a fluorine coating on the front element to resist fingerprints and moisture.
A number of these lenses all share a rather poor minimum focus distance, with only the Fuji 33mm allowing for a closer 30mm distance. The Tokina and Viltrox are both 40cm, with the Yongnuo right under that. That will give maximum magnification figure of right over 0.10x, which is not very good.
The remote control has a small LCD screen and is primarily controlled through the main knob that can be clicked to switch through various functions and rotated to control those functions. There are two buttons for programming A and B focus pulls (just set the focus position, hold down the corresponding button for one second, and either “A” or B” where appropriate will light up. There’s a power switch on the side and also a custom button on the side that corresponds to the custom button on the lens. Clicking it will enable whatever function is programmed to that button on the lens.
Using the remote isn’t always intuitive, but if you’ll spend a few minutes with the included user manual it becomes easy enough to use. Range is up to 30 meters, which definitely gives you some flexibility for controlling off camera.
The fact that the Yongnuo is both the cheapest ($268 USD) and most feature rich lens in the bunch is pretty impressive, though it is also the biggest and heaviest. This is all relative, however, as the lens isn’t abnormally large or anything.
Autofocus and Video
Yongnuo has equipped the 33mm F1.4 with what they call a “digital stepping motor” (DSM). I’m not entirely sure how a digital stepping motor varies from a typical stepping motor, so I suspect this is mostly their own marketing language. My copy of the lens (prerelease) did need a firmware update to ensure full compatibility, but after the firmware update has functioned well. Focus speed is pretty good, and I’ve gotten good accuracy even in narrow depth of field situations.
There is almost no noise to be heard even if I put my ear next to the lens barrel. There is the slightest buzz from the motor, but so quiet as to be nearly undetectable. Focus speed is good, too, with near instant transitions from one focus point to another either indoors or out. This is one of the speedier STM motors that I’ve tested, which is great for a third party lens from a smaller brand.
I found that real world precision was good, whether I was shooting a human subject:
…or with a simple subject like these lingering red leaves late in November.
It’s worth noting with the shot above that I was testing the Megadap ETZ21 Pro adapter with my Nikon Z8 and using the Sony FE 50mm F1.4 GM (one of my favorite lenses) on it. I was a little frustrated as the Megadap combo was being reluctant to focus on the foreground subject and kept sticking on the background even though, for the most part, autofocus was quite good. I also had the YN 33mm mounted on my a7RV, and so I took the same shot (the one above) right after that, and was amazed at how effortlessly the YN 33mm grabbed the right subject and focus properly on it.
I did a series of available light portraits, and was really pleased by how effectively the lens focused. I used a lot of foreground branches for natural frames, but autofocus was consistently good.
If we zoom into that last photo, for example, we can see that focus is accurate and that the lens produces very usable sharpness even at F1.4:
As with most third party lenses, if your goal is tracking fast action, you might want to go with a Sony lens (not that there are many in this focal range), but for most people in most situations, autofocus for stills was pretty great.
Video AF
On the video front I found mostly good results. Focus pulls were smooth with minimal steps. Focus breathing is definitely present, but it isn’t egregious.
The YN 33mm did mostly fine with my “hand test” as well, where I alternately block the view to my face with my hand and then remove it. Focus transitioned nicely from my hand to my face, though there was a time or two when it didn’t move from my face to my hand.
Video footage generally looked good, though, and having fairly confident focus helps to keep details crisp when operating at large apertures. Here’s a freeze frame from one of my clips:
I also had fairly good results with video clips where I slowly moved the camera to force change from one subject to another at varying depths of field. Focus transitions were fairly well damped, and overall autofocus feels pretty capable.
Yongnuo 33mm F1.4 Image Quality Breakdown
The YN 33mm has an optical design of 11 elements in 9 groups. The majority of these are exotic elements, including high refractive elements and ultra low dispersion elements. A lot of fancy glass for an inexpensive lens!
The MTF chart shows a very consistent performance with a nearly flat performance across the frame. The F8 graph levels out some of the dips and rises, but only offers a few percentage points of improved performance. That speaks to a pretty great wide open performance.
The biggest practical negative I saw was some fringing in certain situations, but overall I was pretty impressed with the general optical performance.
Now, interestingly, in this particular image I felt like fringing was pretty well controlled, with minimal amounts of green fringing on a few of the textures. In other images, however, I saw much more pronounced LoCA, or Longitudinal Chromatic Aberrations that come before and after the plane of focus. Here, for example, you can see fringing in the lettering on the lens, on edges of the SLR, and then green fringing around the specular highlights.
That fringing was evident on my chart as well, so just be aware that this is probably the most significant optical issue with the YN 33mm.
Lateral chromatic aberrations (LaCA) were not at all an issue, with nice and clean transitions from black to white near the edges of the frame unmarred by fringing.
For those hoping to get some kind of stealth full frame lens, prepare to be disappointed. You can see that a lot of the full frame image circle is mechanically obscured by the lens.
This is an APS-C lens, period. It will still work fine in APS-C mode on Sony cameras for either stills or video, however. As is almost always the case, you would be better served by buying a full frame lens if you want full frame coverage.
There’s a bit more barrel distortion than I expected in a normal lens along with some vignette.
I used a +9 to correct the barrel distortion. It was fairly linear in correction, so even with a manual correction I could get a good result. The vignette is moderate, requiring a +57 to correct, or in the two stop range. Both of these are well within the range of easily correctable.
So how about resolution and contrast? My tests have been done on a 26MP APS-C mode of my Sony a7RV. Here’s the test chart:
Here are F1.4 crops at roughly 200% from across the frame (center, mid-frame, and lower right corner).
On a flat chart like this, the sharpness results are good but not exceptionally good at F1.4. I’m actually more impressed with real world results, which is good news for the real people who shoot real subjects.
In this real world shot, there is a tangle of dead branches that has coverage near the edge of the frame as well, and we can see that while contrast isn’t top notch, there is plenty of detail across the frame.
But field curvature shouldn’t be as much of an issue when shooting at infinity, and in real world results I noticed the corners being softer (as noted).
For portrait work I felt that there was plenty of sharpness. Even a fairly deep crop at F1.4 shows nice detail.
There’s a mild contrast boost at F1.8 that grows a bit further by F2:
There’s a more obvious bump from F2 to F2.8. where contrast and detail are obviously improved.
If we swap back to a real world subject, we can see at least part of the reason. The aberrations that produce fringing (and thus reduce contrast) are vastly reduced, allowing the native sharpness of the lens to shine a little more obviously.
There is a bit more to be gained at F4, and then another jump at F5.6. Now even the corners are looking pretty crisp.
Real world landscape shots from F4 to F8 will look nice, with good detail across the frame.
Sharpness peaks around F5.6, with F8 being very close to the same. Diffraction will start to soften the image after that, with a mild amount at F11 but a more obvious amount by F16:
Often the tradeoff for a bit of uncorrected fringing is softer bokeh. I wouldn’t consider the bokeh quality to be absolutely top shelf, but it is pretty nice overall.
Here’s another shot with a nice, soft rendering.
Here’s a shot where the subject is further, so nothing is completely blurred out, but it shows how you can still create some subject isolation at this distance.
Flare resistance is mostly good. I had good results where the sun was very brightly right out of frame.
You can see some ghosting in this landscape shot, as the sun hit the elements at obviously a more difficult angle for them.
My review period landed in a season in November when the sun was rather shy. A lot of grey days, so I didn’t get a lot of bright sun to contend with. I did take a quick peek at Christopher Frost’s review, however, and it seems like he had a fairly decent flare outcome, so I feel like what I did see was representative of the overall performance.
Yongnuo’s optical glass is fairly good but not top notch. Colors were mostly good, however, though not quite as special as what you’ll get from higher end lenses.
But it’s important to remember that this is a lens that costs under $270. I would say that the overall rendering is pretty great for the money. When compared to other lenses in this price class I think the optics are competitive and the feature set is clearly much more robust than what competing lenses offer. If you’d like to see more image samples, check out the image gallery here.
Conclusion
The Yongnuo 33mm F1.4S DA DSM WL Pro is a pretty attractive option if you’re looking for a 50mm equivalent lens on your APS-C camera. It is a feature rich, focuses well, has weather sealing, and delivers a pretty strong optical performance, too.
It certainly bests the competition that I’ve seen from Viltrox and Tokina, and prices in much lower than any competing first party lens that I can think of.
Although I was shooting in a difficult season of the year (in between autumn and winter), I felt like I didn’t have a hard time getting images that I liked. I’m pretty amazed by how good budget lenses are these days. In 2016 I reviewed a Samyang 21mm F1.4 fully manual lens that had zero features, and that lens cost $450 at the time. Flash forward eight years and all the inflation that we’ve seen, and you’re still getting a lens with autofocus, weather sealing, a declickable aperture, a custom button, the ability to wirelessly control the lens…and paying nearly $200 less. That’s really pretty astounding when you stop and think about it. That makes the Yongnuo YN 33mm F1.4 well worth consideration.
Pros:
Nice looking lens with nice build
USB-C port for firmware updates
Good manual focus ring and experience
Very feature rich
Weather sealed
Declickable aperture
Wireless remote control
Custom button
Autofocus motor is quiet and fast
Good sharpness wide open
Excellent sharpness stopped down
Fairly good bokeh
Great price to performance ratio
Cons:
Some fringing issues
Gasket for USB-C is hard to remove and easy to lose
Keywords: Yongnuo, YN, 33mm, F1.4, Yongnuo 33mm F1.4, DSM, WL, F1.4, Pro, APS-C, Review, Sony a6700, a6000, a6400, Sony a7RV, Wireless, Review, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, let the light in, weathersealing, #letthelightin, DA
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
One of the things that I perhaps hear most often in the chatter in my YouTube video comments or in message chats is the desire for faster zoom lenses. Yes, of course, the uninformed would always love to have a 15-400mm F1.4 full frame zoom that costs $500 and weighs 500g, despite the unfortunate reality that none of this is physically possible. More realistic, however, is the notion of an F2 zoom, so long as you keep the focal ranger fairly constrained. We saw a good example of this with the Sigma 28-45mm F1.8 zoom earlier this year, and, of course, Canon was an early leader with the release of the RF 28-70mm F2L lens, a behemoth of a lens weighing 1430g and costing over $3000. Despite these factors demand has remained high for the lens. Sony has entered the conversation with their most recent lens, the Sony FE 28-70mm F2 G Master. They have managed to do a little better than Canon with a lens that is smaller (11%), lighter (36%), and cheaper (a still expensive $2899 USD). Is this new premium zoom worth getting? You can watch the video review below, by reading my text review here, or by just enjoying the photos in the galleries below.
Thanks to Sony USA for sending me a review loaner of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the Sony a7RV along with the Sony Alpha 1 that serve as my benchmark cameras for Sony lenses.
Lenses like this prove to be very popular with portrait and wedding photographers. Why? Because that faster maximum aperture allows you to have much better low light performance and produce shots with much shallower depth of field than what an F2.8 lens can achieve. F2 is a full stop faster than F2.8, meaning that you need half as much light with an F2 lens. You can get more “prime-like” shots with lenses like this.
There really aren’t any direct competitors to a lens like this. There are some interesting faster zooms now, like Tamron’s 35-150mm F2-2.8 VXD combines a very short portion of the zoom at F2 with a killer focal range, and Sigma’s 28-105mm F2.8 DN expands the traditional range for an F2.8 standard zoom. But outside of the wider Sigma 28-45mm zoom, there’s nothing that covers the standard zoom range like this with a constant fast aperture like this.
It doesn’t hurt that the Sony 28-70 GM is optically exceptional. It’s not cheap, obviously, but I suspect that it will become a pretty big hit nonetheless, as this is the kind of lens that you could replace multiple primes with and still be very happy. Enjoy the images from this special lens below.
Keywords: 28-70mm F2 GM, Sony FE 28-70mm F2 GM, 28-70 GM, GM, II, F2, 28-70mm, Canon, Full Frame, Review, Sony Alpha 1, Sony a7RV, Review, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, let the light in, weathersealing, #letthelightin, DA
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
One of the things that I perhaps hear most often in the chatter in my YouTube video comments or in message chats is the desire for faster zoom lenses. Yes, of course, the uninformed would always love to have a 15-400mm F1.4 full frame zoom that costs $500 and weighs 500g, despite the unfortunate reality that none of this is physically possible. More realistic, however, is the notion of an F2 zoom, so long as you keep the focal ranger fairly constrained. We saw a good example of this with the Sigma 28-45mm F1.8 zoom earlier this year, and, of course, Canon was an early leader with the release of the RF 28-70mm F2L lens, a behemoth of a lens weighing 1430g and costing over $3000. Despite these factors demand has remained high for the lens. Sony has entered the conversation with their most recent lens, the Sony FE 28-70mm F2 G Master. They have managed to do a little better than Canon with a lens that is smaller (11%), lighter (36%), and cheaper (a still expensive $2899 USD). Is this new premium zoom worth getting? You can watch the video review below or just keep reading.
Thanks to Sony USA for sending me a review loaner of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the Sony a7RV along with the Sony Alpha 1 that serve as my benchmark cameras for Sony lenses.
Lenses like this prove to be very popular with portrait and wedding photographers. Why? Because that faster maximum aperture allows you to have much better low light performance and produce shots with much shallower depth of field than what an F2.8 lens can achieve. F2 is a full stop faster than F2.8, meaning that you need half as much light with an F2 lens. You can get more “prime-like” shots with lenses like this.
There really aren’t any direct competitors to a lens like this. There are some interesting faster zooms now, like Tamron’s 35-150mm F2-2.8 VXD combines a very short portion of the zoom at F2 with a killer focal range, and Sigma’s 28-105mm F2.8 DN expands the traditional range for an F2.8 standard zoom. But outside of the wider Sigma 28-45mm zoom, there’s nothing that covers the standard zoom range like this with a constant fast aperture like this.
It doesn’t hurt that the Sony 28-70 GM is optically exceptional. It’s not cheap, obviously, but I suspect that it will become a pretty big hit nonetheless, as this is the kind of lens that you could replace multiple primes with and still be very happy. Let’s take a closer look at the details.
Build and Handling
No one who really understands lens design would expect this lens to be small and light, and that’s a good thing, because it isn’t! Yes, it is both smaller and considerably lighter than the Canon equivalent, but this is a still a very good sized lens. It is 92.9mm (3 3/4″) in diameter and is 139.8mm (5 5/8″) in length. It will extend a very small additional amount (about 10mm) when zoomed to the 70mm position.
The weight is substantial at 918g (32.4oz), but that figure is actually pretty good when you remember that Sigma had a DSLR era lens in 2015 that was a 24-35mm F2 and weighed a whopping 941g. With current technology I would say that figure is pretty remarkably low for this kind of lens. The lens does look pretty robust when mounted on a camera, particularly considering that none of Sony’s camera bodies are very big.
A lens like this needs a very large front entrance pupil (a big front element), so that means that the lens will require hefty 86mm front filters, which do tend to be a little more expensive than smaller, more common filter sizes.
Sony’s GM lenses have always been feature rich, though their recent standard has added a couple of new features that are present here and were missing on the previous lens. A lot of the GM features are designed around aperture control in an attempt to make lenses useful for both photo and video capture. There is an aperture ring that gives you the option of having clicks at one third aperture stops, with full stops marked on the aperture ring.
You can also choose a declick option from a switch on the lower right side of the lens, and this will allow you to smoothly move through the aperture without any preset stops. This is most useful for doing aperture racks during video.
There is also the inclusion of an “Iris Lock” switch that will allow you to either lock into or out of the manual aperture ring. Some people prefer using the aperture ring and don’t want to mistakenly go past F16 (minimum aperture) and into the “Auto” position. This might be most common when doing aperture racks. Other people don’t particularly like using an aperture ring, and the iris lock can assure that they don’t get inadvertently bumped into the manual aperture ring.
Moving a little further up the barrel and you’ll find an AF | MF switch along with two Focus Hold/Function buttons whose function can be defined in camera. One button is on the left side of the barrel, and the other on top to allow a button to be close to hand whether shooting in landscape or portrait orientation.
The aperture iris itself has eleven rounded blades, ensuring that specular highlights remain rounded when the aperture is closed down.
Here’s a look at specular highlights with the lens stopped down to F2.8:
Eleven blades will produce a 22 bladed sunstar when stopped down, which looks fairly good to my eye.
The zoom ring is large and ribbed, with a rubberized ring. Zoom action is nicely executed, with precise zooming that doesn’t hang anywhere. What’s interesting, however, is that they’ve employed a Smooth | Tight switch that I’ve never seen outside of long telephoto zooms. This gives you two different responses for the damping of the zoom ring. Smooth will give you quicker, lighter zoom action, while tight works nicely if you want to hold a certain focal length or prevent zoom creep.
Focus happens internally, which helps the lens to function better on a gimbal as the balance remains constant. The zoom extension is also small enough that it doesn’t really change the balance point.
The manual focus ring has a linear response (focus distances will be repeatable), though I find the damping on the ring itself to be too light. There isn’t a lot of feel during manual focus, and thus it doesn’t feel like a true manual focus emulation to me. This is a consistent complaint of mine with GM lenses.
·The 28-70 GM has a thorough weather sealing including rear gasket, internal seals on all seams, buttons, and switches, and a fluorine coating on the front.
It comes with a nylon lens pouch along with a lens hood that has a lock along with a window to allow you access to rotate filters easily.
The minimum focus distance is 38cm across the zoom range, so you’ll get your highest level of magnification (0.23x) at 70mm.
This is a high enough figure to do a lot of useful things.
The body itself is a mixture of metal and engineered plastics, and has the typical GM satin finish that has very light flocking.
All in all, this is another premium GM lens that is loaded with features. It’s a big, expensive lens, but in the realm of the competition for the lens, its worth noting that Sony has worked to keep the size, weight, and price lower than the competition while offering even more features and performance.
Autofocus and Video
One of the key areas of focus for Sony at the moment is engineering their lenses to keep up with the stupendous speed of bodies like the a9III, which can rip out as much as 120FPS for stills and of course cameras that are filming at 120 and even 240FPS. Lenses like this one with extremely large, heavy elements have rarely been valued for their focus speed in the past, but Sony has unlocked a winning formula for achieving extremely fast focus speeds even in lenses like this. The solution? Not one, not two, not three, but four XD (extreme dynamic) linear motors are deployed to enable focus that is fast enough to keep up with even high speed focus situations.
Whereas a lens like this might work fine for portraits or similar speed work in the past, the 28-70 GM is well suited for much faster action than that.
I shot some bursts of Nala in the environment above, but the problem in this setting is that there really wasn’t much contrast between here and the scene (she camouflaged too well), so there are some missed shots in my action sequences here. To be fair, however, the AI in Lightroom can’t even identify a subject in these photos to create a mask, which tells you that the camera AI would have a similar issue.
On the basketball court, however, there was much better contrast, and I had no problem keeping up with players in motion.
I had excellent pinpoint accuracy is shooting narrow depth of field shots.
In a church setting I had zero issues getting accurate focus on the speaker whether they were looking towards the camera or in profile.
And how about portraits? This is perhaps the most important application for a lens like this. At this stage I would be shocked if a GM lens didn’t work great for portraits, and of course it does.
I got flawless results across my portrait session.
As we’ll get to in the section below, this is a lens that is pretty flare prone. Even with the veiling and ghosting, however, focus was perfectly accurate.
Sony also recognizes that the modern mirrorless camera market is a hybrid one. It is just as important that lenses be able to function well in a video environment. First of all, I found that the lens isn’t completely parfocal, though its close enough that you could probably get away with it in a lot of shots (if you were locked into manual focus). If you keep autofocus on, the lens is able to make those microadjustments necessary in such a smooth way that you probably won’t notice autofocus at all. Here’s a frame from the moment where I zoom to 70mm, and it shows accurate focus on the subject.
I’ve been using the lens for my channel (secretly) over the past two weeks, and I’ve had A) perfectly stable focus results in front of the camera and B) great looking footage, with nice color balance and great detail.
My video focus pull test went excellent, with smooth, confident pulls back and forth. No pulsing, settling, or steps. I’ll also note that focus breathing is very well controlled even with focus breathing compensation turned off.
I also found that my hand test (where I alternatively block the camera’s view of my face with my hand and then move it out of the way) stood out as being particularly good. Focus transitions from my hand to my face and back were very smooth, and the minimal focus breathing makes those focus changes almost undetectable. There’s nothing jarring or abrupt, but rather the subject smoothly changes. This would be a great lens for interview style shots where you move from one subject to another.
Focus breathing is well controlled for a longer focal length. I also found that real world transitions from one subject to another were well damped. They are fairly quick, but not abrupt. They have a reasonably cinematic feel to them, and the low focus breathing helps those transitions to not feel jarring.
Real world focus changes were excellent, allowing for fairly cinematic looking focus pulls that are not far off what you could achieve with a good manual pull. I’m very impressed with the overall performance of this lens in the autofocus department.
Image Quality Breakdown
Obviously designing a lens like this takes some incredible engineering to pull it off successfully. The optical design is quite complex, with 20 elements in 14 groups. That includes 3 extreme aspherical (XA) elements (the most ever in any Sony design), 3 Super ED elements, 3 aspherical elements, and 1 ED element. That’s a lot of fancy glass, but it clearly has paid off. Since I am doing this review ahead of public release, things like the MTF chart are not yet available, but I have seen one in a Sony briefing, and it looks pretty fantastic.
This is a very high resolution lens, producing highly detailed images that hold up even at high levels of magnification. I shot primarily on a 61MP a7RV body, and this was one of those lenses whose images look good when viewed full screen…and then exceptionally good when you zoom in 100%!
More importantly to me, I think Sony has done a pretty great job of correcting various aberrations while not completely eradicating the character of the lens. This is a lens that does an amazing job of resolving the fine details with great microcontrast:
But it also produces images that just look good even when you aren’t getting lost in the details!
There’s a reason why lenses like this start at 28mm rather than 24mm. 28mm is much easier to engineer, and if they went to 24mm (and F2), the lens would be A) much larger and heavier and B) much more optically compromised. Keeping things at 28mm on the wide end allowed them to keep distortion under control. Here’s a look at how the lens handles vignette and distortion at 28mm:
There’s a moderate amount of barrel distortion, requiring a +8 to correction. Vignette is actually extremely low, requiring just a +15 to correct. That’s really low for a lens like this. All it takes is a look at a lens like the Sigma 24-70mm F2.8 DN II to realize how low the vignette and distortion is here, but that’s at 28mm rather than 24mm, of course.
How about on the telephoto end of things?
There’s a tiny amount of pincushion distortion that is just a bit complex (-3 to correct), and again extremely low vignette (+16 to correct). The vignette figures in particular are surprisingly low for a lens like this, running several stops less than what we see on the Canon RF 28-70mm F2L.
That’s a great start.
I also found that longitudinal chromatic aberrations (LoCA) were well controlled, with minimal color fringing before or after the plane of focus.
It’s not that there is nothing there, but I found that in real world usage the lens showed solid control of aberrations, and that allows for really great microcontrast.
It’s the same thing that we saw in the dried wildflowers earlier. Just really, really impressive microcontrast.
The same was true of lateral chromatic aberrations (LaCA) that show up near the edges of the frame in transition zones. I see a clean transition from black to white near the edge of the frame here.
Another strong performance.
How about resolution? I’m using a 61MP Sony a7RV here and will show results at or near 200% magnification levels. Here’s a look at the test chart that the crops will come from:
And here at the F2 crops at 28mm from the center, mid-frame, and bottom right corner.
You can see very consistent sharpness from the center out to the very edge of the frame. That’s really impressive.
I found that real world images had very nice looking 3D pop shooting at 28mm F2. This will prove a very nice environmental portrait lens.
The very consistent sharpness across the frame makes it easy to compose in the corners and still get great sharpness and detail.
Such great sharpness at F2 typically means that there isn’t really much room for improvement, and I couldn’t really see a difference stopping down to F2.8. By F4 I can see a bit of improvement in contrast, but mostly in the corners.
Shooting landscapes at 28mm produces beautiful results with fine details rendered all across the frame.
As per usual, diffraction (particularly on high resolution bodies) will start to soften the image by F11. After F11, however, diffraction becomes much more noticeable, with the effects of diffraction being very obvious by the minimum aperture of F22.
At 35mm the results are highly similar save for an improvement in the corners. Here I’ll show the upper left corner, which looks noticeably better, as does the typical lower right corner that I often sample.
There are very few 35mm primes that can compete with that level of performance! Expect your 35mm images to just look great, period.
50mm, if anything, is even more consistently good. Here’s yet another area from the chart, with 35mm F2 on the left, and 50mm F2 on the right.
Here’s a real world shot at 48mm, F2. Just look at the contrast and detail on the very narrow depth of field on the needles.
And that brings us to the critical 70mm point. 70mm at F2 provides a very shallow depth of field and will certainly be a very popular portrait focal length. Does the lens drop off here?
Absolutely not.
Here are the F2 crops from across the frame.
Look at the lens’ ability to render those fine details at F2:
No, sharpness is never going to be a problem with this lens. It is one of the sharpest zooms I’ve ever tested all across the zoom range. It is flawlessly usable at F2 at any focal length; you can essentially just use aperture for controlling depth of field. You’ll never need it for additional sharpness.
Whether shooting landscapes, portraits, or art shots, you’ll find fantastic sharpness and contrast throughout.
To be frank, though, I didn’t anticipate any issues with sharpness in a modern Sony GM lens. They truly have been the Gold Masters when it comes to resolution over the past 4 years. My bigger concern was if the lens would be so overcorrected as to lose its soul. Fortunately I didn’t come away feeling like that at all. This lens has quite beautiful rendering.
I showed the 28mm framing of this scene earlier, but here’s a look at a familiar fern at 70mm, F2:
Here’s another shot that I felt was quite artful in the rendering.
This shot is a little further away, and while I do see a slight bit of “nervousness” in the transition zone, I think the 3D pop on the subject is really nice.
Specular highlights also look quite nice (shown here at F2.8).
Color rendition was nice as well, with nicely saturated colors with a neutral white balance.
The reds were really rich after a rain here.
I had an opportunity very early one morning to test for coma. Star points stay consistent across the frame, with next to no coma. Very nice performance!
It looks good at 70mm, too.
Flare resistance is the only weak link I can point to. The 28-70 GM has a surprising amount of ghosting artifacts, whether at wide apertures (F2 here):
…or at smaller apertures (F11 here):
You can see a bit fewer ghosting artifacts in this shot of autumn leaves.
You will definitely have to account for this if you want to shoot backlit portraits. It WILL be a factor.
Sony shooters have had some jealousy over the Canon RF 28-70mm F2L, but there’s no need of that anymore. They now have a lens that is superior in every way. The Sony FE 28-70mm F2 GM is smaller, lighter, faster focusing, sharper, and even cheaper! This is the lens that will officially make Canon (and Nikon) shooters jealous instead.
The Sony 28-70mm F2 is expensive. It’s big and relatively heavy. But it also could legitimately be that “one lens” for a lot of people.
It has great autofocus, its loaded with features, and it has amazing, amazing image quality.
So if you’ve got the money to buy it and the muscles to carry it, say hello to your new favorite lens. I can see the Sony FE 28-70mm F2 GM going on the camera bodies of certain portrait and wedding photographers and never coming off again.
Pros:
Smaller, much lighter, and cheaper than Canon RF lens
Great build quality
Thorough weather sealing
Wide range of aperture control options
Smooth | Tight switch interesting alternative to zoom lock
Keywords: 28-70mm F2 GM, Sony FE 28-70mm F2 GM, 28-70 GM, GM, II, F2, 28-70mm, Canon, Full Frame, Review, Sony Alpha 1, Sony a7RV, Review, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, let the light in, weathersealing, #letthelightin, DA
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
The LAB series is to be Viltrox’s “Otus” series; an optically superlative lineup of lenses that will eventually include 35mm, 50mm, and 85mm F1.2 lenses in addition to the 135mm F1.8 LAB lens that I’m reviewing here. Viltrox is unique in my experience in that they tend to announce their development cycle well ahead of releases rather than hide them until they are ready for release. We’ve had more than a year to get excited about the LAB series, and I’m delighted to finally get my hands on one of them. So is the LAB 135mm worth getting excited about? That may depend on your tolerance of large, heavy lenses, but if that doesn’t turn you off, then the LAB 135mm is about as close to optical perfection as you’ll find. It is Viltrox’s most expensive lens, yes, but at a price tag of $899 USD it still is a pretty huge value (and if you use code DUSTINABBOTT at checkout at Viltrox, you can get an additional 8% off!). But, of course, you can also get the excellent Samyang AF 135mm F1.8 for even cheaper, and it is smaller and lighter as well. So which is the 135mm to get on Sony E-mount? Find out in my head to head comparison video here!
Thanks to Viltrox for sending me a review copy of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the Sony a7RV and the Sony Alpha 1.
I have an interesting relationship with 135mm lenses. I fell in love with the Canon EF 135mm F2L a decade ago, and held onto it for years. I replaced it with the amazing Zeiss Milvus 135mm F2, a lens that I called worthy of being labelled an Otus. As I began to shoot Sony more and more, I eventually replaced the Milvus with the outstanding Sony FE 135mm F1.8 GM lens. I finally parted with the GM lens in order to purchase the Sony FE 50mm F1.4 GM instead, but only because I found the Samyang AF 135mm F1.8 good enough that I felt I could sell the 135GM and get both the Samyang and the 50mm GM lens for roughly the same money. In short, I have owned a premium quality 135mm for just about as long as I have been a professional photographer. I value the focal length above all for the utterly unique portrait shots you can get; shots the feature extreme isolation and wonderfully creamy bokeh.
But the biggest downside of a 135mm lens for many of us is the simple fact that it isn’t the most versatile of focal lengths. You often need a fairly large amount of working room to do portrait work, so many people prefer an 85mm lens even though the 135mm images are bit more special. I loved the 135mm GM lens but was willing to part with it because I had a lot of money invested in it but didn’t reach for it as often as what I would like.
But now Sony shooters have two awesome options available at very reasonable price points in the Samyang AF 135mm F1.8 (my review here) and the Viltrox LAB 135mm F1.8 (my review here). In my head to head video I break down the relative strengths and weaknesses of both lenses. Here’s a summary of the points I found:
Reasons to Choose the Samyang:
Deep dive video review of the Samyang AF 135mm F1.8
Price: $799 vs ($899)
Weight: 772g (27 oz) vs 1300g (45.85oz)
Size (130mm [5.1”] vs 145.7mm [5.73”])
Better edge sharpness at F1.8
Reasons to Choose the Viltrox LAB
Deep dive video review of the Viltrox LAB 135mm F1.8.
Slightly higher magnification and better up close performance
Better center and midframe sharpness
Better flare resistance
Softer bokeh
Lower distortion and vignette
Better light transmission
Conclusion
The only real advantages for the Samyang lie in being much lighter and slightly cheaper. The Viltrox has a superlative build, features, autofocus, and overall image quality performance, and is my personal clear choice. At the same time, the difference in weight is significant enough that those who don’t need as fast of autofocus might considering going with the Samyang instead. It remains an excellent choice.
Keywords: Viltrox, Viltrox AF, LAB, Viltrox LAB, #LAB, #LAB135, Viltrox 135mm, Normal, Full Frame, F1.8, f/1.8, VCM, Viltrox LAB 135mm F1.8 FE, Viltrox 135mm Review, Viltrox AF 135mm F1.8 FE Review, VCM, Samyang, Rokinon, Samyang AF 135mm, Sony a7IV, Sony Alpha 1, Sony a7RV, Review, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, let the light in, weathersealing, #letthelightin, DA
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
I’ve just wrapped up a review of Viltrox’s smallest, lightest, and cheapest lens: the AF 28mm F4.5 “Chip” – a micro-pancake lens just 15mm long. That makes it somewhat ironic to immediately pivot to what is easily their biggest, heaviest, and most expensive lens to date. I’ve been excited about reviewing the Viltrox LAB series ever since they announced it in 2023 as a part of their roadmap ahead. The LAB series is to be Viltrox’s “Otus” series; an optically superlative lineup of lenses that will eventually include 35mm, 50mm, and 85mm F1.2 lenses in addition to the 135mm F1.8 LAB lens that I’m reviewing here. Viltrox is unique in my experience in that they tend to announce their development cycle well ahead of releases rather than hide them until they are ready for release. We’ve had more than a year to get excited about the LAB series, and I’m delighted to finally get my hands on one of them. So is the LAB 135mm worth getting excited about? That may depend on your tolerance of large, heavy lenses, but if that doesn’t turn you off, then the LAB 135mm is about as close to optical perfection as you’ll find. It is Viltrox’s most expensive lens, yes, but at a price tag of $899 USD it still is a pretty huge value (and if you use code DUSTINABBOTT at checkout at Viltrox, you can get an additional 8% off!). Find out more in either the video review below or by reading the text review…or just enjoy the photos in the gallery.
Thanks to Viltrox for sending me a review copy of this lens. As always, this is a completely independent review. *The tests and most of the photos that I share as a part of my review cycle have been done with the Sony a7RV and the Sony Alpha 1.
I have an interesting relationship with 135mm lenses. I fell in love with the Canon EF 135mm F2L a decade ago, and held onto it for years. I replaced it with the amazing Zeiss Milvus 135mm F2, a lens that I called worthy of being labelled an Otus. As I began to shoot Sony more and more, I eventually replaced the Milvus with the outstanding Sony FE 135mm F1.8 GM lens. I finally parted with the GM lens in order to purchase the Sony FE 50mm F1.4 GM instead, but only because I found the Samyang AF 135mm F1.8 good enough that I felt I could sell the 135GM and get both the Samyang and the 50mm GM lens for roughly the same money. In short, I have owned a premium quality 135mm for just about as long as I have been a professional photographer. I value the focal length above all for the utterly unique portrait shots you can get; shots the feature extreme isolation and wonderfully creamy bokeh.
But the biggest downside of a 135mm lens for many of us is the simple fact that it isn’t the most versatile of focal lengths. You often need a fairly large amount of working room to do portrait work, so many people prefer an 85mm lens even though the 135mm images are bit more special. I loved the 135mm GM lens but was willing to part with it because I had a lot of money invested in it but didn’t reach for it as often as what I would like. Can the Viltrox LAB 135mm provide GM levels of performance for $1300 less? While I think there is at least one area where the GM has an advantage, the optics definitely aren’t it. After using the LAB 135mm for a month, I’ve concluded that it has the peerless microcontrast of the recent Sony 85mm F1.4 GM II while also delivering smoother, creamier bokeh. Yes, this is one of the best lenses optically that I’ve tested. Take a look at this unedited shot.
Nice, right? Nice colors, smooth bokeh. But when I hit the zoom button on the back of my Alpha 1, here’s what I saw:
That was a bit of a “jawdrop” moment, because that level of microcontrast and detail at F1.8 is pretty amazing. From landscapes to portraits to general purpose shots, the LAB 135mm delivered results that I simply loved.
Keywords: Viltrox, Viltrox AF, LAB, Viltrox LAB, #LAB, #LAB135, Viltrox 135mm, Normal, Full Frame, F1.8, f/1.8, VCM, Viltrox LAB 135mm F1.8 FE, Viltrox 135mm Review, Viltrox AF 135mm F1.8 FE Review, VCM, Pancake, Chip, Sony a7IV, Sony Alpha 1, Sony a7RV, Review, Hands On, Dustin Abbott, Real World, Comparison, Sharpness, Bokeh, Flare Resistance, Autofocus, Image Quality, Sample Images, Video, Photography, let the light in, weathersealing, #letthelightin, DA
DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Sirui Aurora 85mm F1.4 Review 
Yongnuo YN 33mm F1.4 DA DSM WL Pro Gallery 
Yongnuo YN 33mm F1.4 DA DSM WL Pro Review 
Neewer NW-ETZ vs Megadap ETZ21 Pro | Sony E to Nikon Z Adapter Showdown 
Sirui Aurora 85mm F1.4 AF Gallery 
