Samyang Launches New 50mm f/1.4 to Match Successful 85mm

The Samyang 85mm f/1.4 mirrorless-first lens design appears in all the top lens options across all mirrorless camera mounts. In an extremely competitive focal length category, it stands out as among the sharpest, and usually the cheapest. Today the company announced a 50mm equivalent, with many similar design elements.

Writers at Camnostic own a couple different Samyang 85mm f/1.4 lenses in different mounts (Sony E-mount and Canon RF-mount). In both cases, the lenses’ image quality is almost as good as the OEM brand’s best 85mm equivalent, but they cost several times less, and are smaller and lighter.

The new 50mm lens appears to have more weather sealing than the 85mm f/1.4. It weighs less than a pound, is 3.5 inches long, takes a 72mm filter and has a relatively poor (0.16x) magnification.

The MTF chart shows that its center will be less sharp than the best 50mm f/1.4 primes out there, but that it maintains very decent sharpness and lack of astigmatism for the central third of the frame. The edges of the frame do not fall off rapidly, and appear to be significantly sharper than most the OEM versions. By way of comparison, the very-well-respected Sigma 50mm f/1.4 Art lens is less sharp across the entire frame.