Samyang 12mm F2 AF X First Impressions Review
In Europe and other parts of the world, the brand new Samyang 12mm f/2 AF X autofocus lens for Fujifilm X mount is already shipping, and hence the first reviews now start to appear on the web.
As we reported a few days ago, Samyang US customer service told to a FR-reader that his Samyang 12mm f/2 should ship in January, hence it might take a bit longer in North America to ship.
So how does this lens perform?
Well, you can find a first impressions video review by Luca Petralia (as well as a summary) down below.
New – Third Party Fujifilm X Autofocus Lenses Group
Samyang 12mm f/2 AF X First Impressions
- compact and lightweight
- mainly plastic (but good quality plastic) with metal bayonet
- build better than the Zeiss 12mm f/2.8
- lens is weather sealed
- no reversible lens hood
- no aperture ring (control aperture via commad dial on camera)
- stepping motor AF. Silent and pretty accurate and fast
- The issue is that somehow the lens does not communicate the proper focusing distance to the camera. Even if you focus at infinity, the distance scale on the camera shows the focus between 3-5 meters. The pictures came out sharp, so basically it is just the lens that the lens does not communicate the proper distance to the camera. This affects manual focus. You have to rely on autofocus or focus peaking
- lens seems to be pretty sharp in the center at f/2, and also at its minimum focus distance
- as the previous manual focus only Samyang 12mm f/2 version, the lens still suffers when shooting directly into the sun. It gives lots of flare and some chromatic aberration. Sunstars are good, though [admin note: I am happy to hear that, as sunstars are probably the one thing I do not really love on my original manual focus only Samyang 12mm f/2]
- the lens is not perfect, but for the price you may want to accept some compromises
- video image quality is really good. You notice less a bit less the shortcomings of the lens. Sometimes the flares add character to the scene in video
- video continuous autofocus (face tracking) is really sticky and pretty reliable. Decent vlogging option if combined with a camera that has IBIS
A nice addition to the X mount AF lineup (the full list of third party AF lenses can be seen here)