Samyang AF 18mm F 2 8 FE Review | 54 Data compared

The Samyang AF 18mm f/2.8 FE, reviewed on ePHOTOzine, is a highly portable and affordable 145g full-frame lens for Sony E-mount, featuring excellent, uniform sharpness from f/2.8 to f/16 and a fast, quiet linear STM autofocus motor. While offering impressive optical performance, the lens compromises on build features by lacking weather resistance, exhibiting flare in bright backlit scenarios, and showing diffraction at f/22. The review concludes that the lens is a high-value option for travel and street photography, despite these limitations.

in english language, be very specific, mention pros and cons insideSearching Dustin Abbott’s review describes the Samyang AF 18mm f/2.8 FEGo to product viewer dialogue for this item. as a highly compact, lightweight (145g) ultra-wide-angle lens that offers excellent value with strong center sharpness, fast linear STM autofocus, and good flare resistance. While it is ideal for travel and vlogging, notable cons include a lack of weather sealing, plasticky build quality, heavy vignetting, and soft corners at f/2.8. YouTube· The lens also exhibits visible barrel distortion requiring correction and noticeable focus breathing, with a somewhat sticky manual focus ring. Despite these limitations, it is praised for its affordable price point, 58mm filter thread, and inclusion of a lens hood, making it a competitive option for Sony full-frame users.

The Shotkit review highlights the Samyang AF 18mm f/2.8 FE as an extremely lightweight (145g) and compact ultra-wide-angle prime for Sony, offering high portability and rapid, silent autofocus. Key advantages include excellent center sharpness at f/2.8 and a budget-friendly price point for a wide-angle, fast prime. However, the lens lacks weather sealing and features a plastic build that feels less premium. The review notes significant corner softness and heavy vignetting at f/2.8, requiring stopping down to achieve consistent sharpness, alongside a 25cm minimum focus distance.

The Samyang AF 18mm F2.8 FE is an exceptionally compact, lightweight (145g), and highly affordable super wide-angle lens designed for full-frame Sony E-mount cameras. It features an optical design consisting of 9 elements in 8 groups, with 7 diaphragm blades, delivering a 100-degree field of view. The lens offers notable pros, including fast, accurate, and quiet autofocus that integrates well with Eye AF, remarkably low distortion, and excellent central sharpness even when shooting wide open. Its lightweight plastic build relies on a durable metal mount to handle frequent lens changes safely. However, users must navigate some distinct cons, particularly a softer overall contrast, low microcontrast, and noticeable chromatic aberration in the corners at f/2.8. Corner sharpness drops off significantly at full aperture and requires stopping down to f/5.6 or f/8 for sharp results across the entire frame, making it less sharp in the edges than competitors like the Zeiss Batis 18mm or Tamron 20mm. Additionally, the lens exhibits visible vignetting at f/2.8, has a non-linear wavy distortion pattern that is difficult to correct, and lacks weather sealing entirely.

The Samyang AF 18mm f/2.8 FE is reviewed by OpticalLimits as a highly affordable, ultra-lightweight (145g) ultra-wide-angle lens for full-frame Sony E-mount cameras, offering an exceptional value-for-money proposition but coming with clear optical and structural compromises. On the positive side, the lens features a very compact pancake-style profile, a native distortion profile of just 1.8% (which becomes negligible with auto-correction), low field curvature, and good lateral chromatic aberrations restricted to roughly 1 pixel at the borders. Its optical sharpness is very good in the center at f/2.8 and achieves excellent frame-wide resolution, including the corners, when stopped down to its sweet spot of f/5.6. Additionally, manual focusing works smoothly "by wire," and the physical body does not expand during operation. Conversely, the lens suffers from several specific shortcomings, most notably extreme native vignetting that hits a heavy light falloff of ~3.4 EV at f/2.8 and remains visible even when stopped down or corrected via software. Image corners and borders are noticeably soft at wide-open settings, making it less than ideal for astrophotography. While the autofocus settles fine, the initial AF...

The Samyang AF 18mm F2.8 FE is a featherweight, pocket-sized ultra-wide-angle prime lens designed for Sony full-frame mirrorless cameras, offering a 100-degree angle of view (76 degrees on APS-C). Measuring 64x61mm and weighing just 145g, it stands out for its unfeasibly compact design and solid build that includes a smooth focus ring and a metal mounting plate. Driven by a stepping motor, its autofocus is quick for stills and smooth for movie capture, though the lens omits extra bells and whistles like customizable rings or AF/MF switches. In terms of optical performance, it delivers excellent image quality with fabulous sharpness across the entire frame—even wide-open—and shows very minor color fringing and minimal barrel distortion compared to rivals. The lens brings clear advantages but also some distinct compromises. Its core pros are its ultra-compact, lightweight frame, superb image sharpness, minimal distortion, and the inclusion of a removable, petal-shaped bayonet hood. On the downside, its cons include a complete lack of weather-sealing or a protective fluorine coating to repel moisture and grease. Additionally, it features a modest minimum focusing distance of 0.25m...

The OpticalLimits review highlights the Samyang AF 18mm f/2.8 FE as an ultra-compact and incredibly lightweight lens, weighing just 145 grams and featuring a 58mm filter size. Optically, the lens delivers impressive performance for its tiny form factor, offering very strong sharpness and a wide center sweet spot when used at its maximum aperture of f/2.8. Image quality further excels when stopped down to f/5.6, where the corners and borders sharpen up beautifully to reach excellent resolution across the entire frame. Additionally, it features exceptionally low field curvature, a smooth manual focus ring, and is considered a highly affordable, standout value proposition within the Sony E-mount ecosystem. YouTube · However, the lens's design involves clear compromises. The build quality feels somewhat cheap and "toy-like" due to an untextured plastic lens barrel sitting on a metal mount. Optically, the small front element results in heavy vignetting at f/2.8, which remains a factor even at medium apertures, alongside soft corners and borders when shot wide open. Finally, the autofocus speed is slower than expected for an ultra-wide prime lens, exhibiting noticeable micro-adjustments...

The ePHOTOzine review of the Samyang AF 18mm f/2.8 FE lens highlights its outstanding optical performance, noting excellent sharpness across the frame from f/2.8 to f/16 and fast autofocus on high-resolution Sony bodies. Weighing just 145 grams, this compact, affordable lens is lauded for its superb handling and high-contrast imaging. While performance is high, the lens lacks weather sealing and displays noticeable flare when shooting directly into bright light sources. Despite these limitations, the lens is "Highly Recommended" for its high-value, lightweight design.

The PCMag review highlights the Rokinon 18mm F2.8 AF for Sony E as a budget-friendly, ultra-lightweight (5.1 oz) prime lens, delivering an expansive view for mirrorless users. It is recognized for quick, quiet autofocus and good sharpness when stopped down, but it exhibits heavy vignetting at f/2.8. The lens features a lightweight plastic construction with no weather sealing, and it struggles with image resolution on high-megapixel sensors. Due to these compromises, the review prefers alternatives like the Tamron 20mm F2.8 for better, more affordable performance.

The Samyang AF 18mm f/2.8 FE lens delivers an outstanding, highly recommended performance as a remarkably lightweight and budget-friendly ultra-wide-angle prime lens designed for Sony full-frame cameras. Extensively tested over three weeks during autumn in Japan on a Sony A7Riii, the lens proved to be "sharp as a tack" from its maximum aperture of f/2.8 all the way down to f/16, with image softening only beginning at f/22 due to diffraction. Its featherlight construction of just 145 grams and short 60.5mm length make it an incredibly comfortable choice for travel, landscapes, and street photography, allowing photographers to easily handhold shots at low shutter speeds when paired with in-body image stabilization. Despite its high value and superb optical clarity, the lens does come with a few notable drawbacks. The most significant physical omission is its lack of weatherproof sealing, meaning users must exercise caution when shooting in adverse environmental conditions. Additionally, while the lens functions perfectly on Sony APS-C crop-sensor cameras, its focal length shifts to an equivalent of 27mm, which strips away its ultra-wide-angle identity and reduces it to a...