Photography News Issue 39

Photography News | Issue 39 | absolutephoto.com

68 First tests

Samyang 20mm f/1.8 EDAS UMC £430

Specs

Price

£430

Format 35mm, APS-C, Micro Four Thirds Mount Canon EF, Nikon, Sony FE (other fittings are available to special order from Intro 2020 – these include, among others, Micro Four Thirds, Fujifilm X and Canon M) Construction Two aspherical elements, three ED (extra low-dispersion) elements Coatings Samyang Ultra Multi Coating Filter size 77mm Aperture range f/1.8-16 Diaphragm 7 blades Internal focus Yes Manual focus Yes Minimum focus 20cm Focus limiter No Distance scale Yes, feet and metres Depth-of-field scale No Image stabiliser No Tripod collar N/A Lens hood Bayonet fit hold supplied Weather-sealed No Dimensions (dxl) 83x88.4mm Weight 497g (Canon EOS version) Contact intro2020.co.uk 13 elements in 12 groups Special lens elements

In a relatively short period of time, Korean lens brand Samyang has developed a fine reputation for delivering high-spec photo and video lenses at attractive prices. Although autofocus is a feature starting to appear on Samyang lenses, its photo lenses are mostly manual focus which helps keep prices competitive. Many of them sport temptingly fast maximum apertures too. The Samyang 20mm f/1.8 is a recent arrival and typical of the sort of specification Samyang’s latest products are blessed with. The 20mm is my favourite ultra-wide focal length and to have one with a f/1.8 maximum aperture is great news. I tested the 20mm f/1.8 on a Nikon D810 with which it makes a well- balanced combination. The supplied hood bayonets on securely although I didn’t experience flare or ghosting with or without the hood in position. On occasion I took the hood off to use ND grads and a polariser. On the Nikon, for aperture control from the camera body the f/22 setting (colouredred) needs tobe set soyouget aperture control from the body. There is no lock to keep this in position. On the Nikon-fit lens, the aperture ring is close to the camera body which makes using it with gloves slightly awkward. The aperture ring itself is in half- click stops and on our new sample it was slightly stiff in use. The same could be said of the manual focus barrel but that helped with handling and its smooth actionmeant you could be very precise. The long travel of the focus barrel helps too and it takes just over half a full rotation to travel from infinity focus to its closest 20cm focusing distance. In normal shooting very little travel is required to change focus from infinity to, say, one metre so most travel is with closer distances. The optical performance of this ultra-wide is generally impressive even wide open. The only downside at f/1.8 is in the extreme corners where detail is soft but this will only be an

issue if you are cropping really tight and want the corners sharp. Stop down to f/4 and f/5,6 and any corner softness is banished. Central and edge sharpness is sound wide open but stop down to f/3.2 or f/3.5 and there is a clear improvement in terms of finer detail, resolution and contrast, and if you have the light to use f/5.6 or f/8 you will get the best from this wide lens. Stopping down any further for more depth-of-field means diffraction effects overall sharpness. I took this lens out to Westonbirt Arboretum, among other places. Getting in close at f/1.8meant focusing had to be as precise as possible and the bright viewing image helped in this respect, as did the camera’s focus confirmation signal in the viewfinder. The benefit of shooting at f/1.8, even at ISO 100 on dull days, meant the shutter speed was around 1/500sec so I shot handheld and just swayed back and forth to get focus on the gently moving leaves. The bokeh looked good and circular which may be surprising as the lens only has a seven-blade diaphragm and there is some natural fall off in the corners to give some minor vignetting. This is easily corrected in post-processing if you prefer but I left it as I often add vignetting anyway. Any distortion can also be corrected in software too. WC there is a clear improvement in terms of finer detail, resolution and contrast Stop down to f/3.2 or f/3.5 and

Above Set maximum aperture and move in close for some delightful bokeh effects with the Samyang 20mm f/1.8. Default sharpening and no vignetting correction were applied in Lightroom for this shot. Exposure of 1/640sec at f/1.8 and ISO 100.

Original image

F/1.8

F/2.8

Verdict

Whether you grew up with manual focus or have only recently learnt (or maybe you haven’t yet) to appreciate the involvement you get with it, lenses such as this Samyang 20mm f/1.8 are a delight. It is attractively priced for a lens of this spec, is capable of sharp pictures and delivers images with a bit of character. On the whole, I didn’t really find any serious downsides to the Samyang 20mm f/1.8 ED AS UMC and would happily use it for my own work. Pros Good picture quality, good close-focusing distance, long travel focus barrel for precise close-up focusing Cons Long travel focus barrel takes marginally longer to use

F/4

F/5.6

F/11

F/16

Above We had a Nikon-fit Samyang 20mm f/1.8 to test and it was used on Nikon D810. We had no compatibility issues with the camera’s exposure system and the AF confirmation LED worked as normal. The scene above was the road bridge at Postbridge, Dartmoor, shot with the camera mounted on a Benro Mach3 carbon-fibre tripod.