Samyang/Rokinon 135mm f/2.0 Lens - Would make for a fun adapted lens!

I'll probably pick one up if the price is right, think I'm going to try all manual lenses for a while

 

Yeah, can almost pick up the canon for that price...

 

Thinking about it. Thinking hard...

If this is something like the 85mm f/1.4 it will be rather soft wide open, but still very flattering for portrait work. I could buy the Canon version, and use it on both m43 as a long telephoto and the Fujis with focal reducer as a "normal equivalent" 135mm but with about one stop light gain.

OTOH I'm waiting to see some real life samples, because there are hosts of older manual 135mm lenses (at f/2.8 or f/3.5) that could -potentially- be equally effective... I don't know...

 

At that price, you can get a Canon FD 135mm f/2 for half. And the Canon is nice and sharp, so this would have to be incredible wide open to make it worth it, I'd say.

 

Exactly; or some old M42, OM, Contax, Rokkor, etc lens may have a desirable rendering, bokeh or color reproduction.

Still I'm not dismissing Samyang, will have to wait and see some reviews I think.

 

Samyang launches the 135mm f/2.0 (and a Cine 135mm t/2.2) for Micro Four Thirds.

Small surprise, Samyang just launched not one but two 135mm lenses. They both come for Micro Four Thirds mount camera too! One is a non-Cine 135mm f/2.0 and one is a Cine 135mm t/2.2 lens.

First test of the lens at http://lcap.tistory.com/entry/Samyang-135mm-f2-vs-Canon-EF-135mm-2-L

 

Wow, it actually looks significantly better than the Canon. And with an open-mount and a non-electronic aperture, you can get the Nikon F version and throw on a focal reducer and have yourself a 2-in-1 95mm f/1.4 and a 135mm f/2. That's definitely an interesting short-tele on M4/3, but nailing focus wide-open would be absurd, I'm sure.

 

Glad to see from this thead that I'm not the only one to have considered the potential of this lens. I've just ordered the Nikon mount Samyang 135 f/2 , a Zhongyi turbo II speed-booster and a basic Nikon->mu43 adapter, and will report my impressions when I get them. Naively, for low light wildlife photography of reasonably close/large subjects, the prospect of a 190mm f/2.8 equivalent (DOF-wise) with f/1.4 light-gathering ability seems a promising one to me!

 

This guy is listing all versions for $447.95

NEW Samyang 135mm F2.0 Full Frame Telephoto Lens for SLR and DSLR CAMERAS w/Case

 

Review of one on a Sony.

Rokinon 135mm f/2.0 ED UMC Lens for Sony E Mount Review

 

Another review on a Nikon.

Samyang 135mm f2.0 Lens Review - Adrian Wagner Studio

 

Youtube review...

 

@ Rick : yeah, those three reviews all contributed to my decision to go ahead and order one . That price seems to be fairly typical, I paid the sterling equivalent to a dealer here in the UK.

 

Look forward to seeing your pics with it. I have the Rokinon 50/1.2 and very happy with it. Super sharp too.

 

Had a few minutes on the way to the post office today to shoot a few frames with the Samyang 135 plus Zhongyi Lens Turbo II combo. Initial impressions are pretty good, I think.
With the Lens Turbo II in place:

• There is significant vignetting, but not so bad as to be unrecoverable, at least at larger aperture settings.
• There is more frequent evidence of bokeh fringing than seen with the Samyang on its own but again, not excessively so.
• Sharpness appears to hold up well, across the frame. The Samyang by itself is astonishingly sharp already, so we'd expect to see something pretty decent when paired with a speed booster, and we do.
• Manual focusing on moving targets at 100mm f/1.4 is actually not as tricky as I feared it might be — practice will certainly improve my accuracy, but the combination of focus peaking on the E-M5 mk II and the smooth, heavily damped focus ring on the Samyang make it quite intuitive.

The 135 is a fairly heavy lens — about 100g heavier than the 40-150 pro — and it does feel slightly front-heavy on the E-M5 mk II, possibly to an extent due to the heavy damping of the focus ring, which requires a certain amount of torque to make radical adjustments. I wouldn't describe it as being stiff — it isn't like the Panny 100-300 focus ring or the 100-400 zoom ring, for example, both of which I'd say were stiff in a jerky, jumpy, unhelpful way. It feels to me like it's been lubricated with something pretty viscous, whereas the others don't feel to be lubricated at all. I suspect that it's probably exactly what's required, considering the degree of precision needed to focus accurately when working with such a shallow depth of field. And for the money, I think it's excellent.

So here are a few pics from this afternoon, nothing astounding on the creativity front, but hopefully they may provide some indication of the possibilities of this combination.

All are with the Samyang and Zhongyi mounted on an E-M5 mk II, and shot with apertures in the range f/1.4 - f/2.

Green Street by Alex G, on Flickr

Broad Street by Alex G, on Flickr

Oxford Row by Alex G, on Flickr

Hay Hill by Alex G, on Flickr

I'll post some more when I've had time to shoot some more!