What you see here on top is the teaser launched by Samyang Europe on Facebook. Most rumor sites write they will annnounce their first autofocus lenses. But the truth is that this will NOT happen any time soon. And in an interview from Samyang with Dicahub they said they are having issues with Sony to add autofocus on E-mount lenses. This is the inetresting part of the interview:
Q(=DicaHub): are you working on AF lenses?
A(=Samyang Optics rep.): we aren’t working on AF lenses.
Q: Is it difficult to work on AF lenses of open mounts like Micro Four-thirds or E mounts?
A: Open mounts like E mount also open only basic informations, so we need more discussion to develop AF lenses. In this case such issues weren’t solved also.
Q: What lenses will you announce on April 28th?
A: We are preparing cine lenses and other stuff also. (note: I don’t remember whether he said other stuff or stuffs.)
In summary:
– It is true Samyang Optics had discussed with Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Micro Four-Thirds.
– They aren’t working on AF lenses because there are some issues like licensing, even about open mounts.
– They want to support A contact.
Following lenses are expected to be announced at April 28th:
– Cine lenses(not lens!) → 2 or more. The cine version of 7.5mm F3.5 Fish-eye MFT lenses could be announced.
– Other stuff or stuffs → 1 or more. The lens supporting A contact for Canon could be announced.
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So I think that means an auto – aperture and EXIF manual focus version of the 35mm 1.4 for Canon? Ah well, it’ll play nicely on the Metabones adapter..
How rubbish. No AF, then no buy. As I have plenty of MF lenses. Sounds like Sony aren’t sharing AF information to protect their lenses from the competition. Hardly surprising. Samyang need to go back to the negotiating table and chew the fat
For those that don’t know what Chew the Fat means..
English expressions for gossiping or making friendly small talk.
Actually, it sounds like they haven’t discussed anything with Sony for the moment.
Sigma made a couple AFs
Sigma did made, but so what? If Bradd had sex with Jolie, this doesn’t mean that John also can.
They should talk to Sigma about sharing their AF chip.
which would probably be costly, too. Sony should help, in the end they will benefit if more af lenses are available…
Cheaper that Sony and that’s the point.
It appears that Sony feel that they aren’t going to benefit so perhaps they know something you don’t.
I get that the underlying patents are commercially valuable to Sony, but I totally agree with fully opening the mounts. Sony’s commitment to lenses isn’t exactly spectacular and I imagine we’ll see a sharp drop in the number of FE lenses being released once the minimum bases are covered. If Sony isn’t able/willing to produce the more interesting glass (eg a 100mm equivalent apsc maco or FE primes with OSS), then why not let other manufacturers step up to the plate? Sony’s good at catering for the value and pro ends of the spectrum, but the enthusiast end is almost exclusively given over to Sigma, Tamron and the second hand market.
They should consult Metabone instead.
Admin perhaps post the full interview to avoid the perception of misrepresenting the situation..To be fair, the full interview shows they have licensing issues with all major manufacturers…See below
Q(=DicaHub): are you working on AF lenses?
A(=Samyang Optics rep.): we are not working on AF lenses.
Q: Is it true you wrote the comments on your facebook page? [editors note: there were comments on Facebook by Samyang itself that looked like a leak and were suggesting a 35mm AF lens for Canon was set to come]
A: Yes, but the comments were deleted because it was the result of miscommunication between site administrators. Actually we had discussed with Canon, Nikon and others about AF lenses. There are several issues like licensing.
Q: Is it difficult to work on AF lenses of open mounts like Micro Four-thirds or E mounts?
A: Open mounts like E mount also open only basic informations, so we need more discussion to develop AF lenses. In this case such issues weren’t solved also.
Q: Is same with Micro Four-Thirds?
A: Micro Four-Thirds also open only basic informations like aperture, so we need more discussion.
Q: Don’t you have any plan to support electric contacts like A(perture)?
A: We already have AD AE version for Nikon. We hope to support other brands, and we are working to produce lenses supporting A contact for Canon because the share of Canon is still largest.
Q: What lenses will be announced on April 28th?
A: We are preparing cine lenses and other stuff
Q: I think the teaser image shows a lens that could be a 7.5mm f/3.5 fish-eye lens. If you can confirm, will you announce the cine version of 7.5mm F3.5 Fish-eye also?
A: This is… [no clear answer was given]
Plus one. That title is somewhat misleading.
Yes very misleading.
Yes, it makes it sounds like it is an issue exclusive to Sony but it isn’t. Seeing that they do not make any AF lenses for any mount…
In short: “open mount” is a marketing phrase for idiots.
And it seems the usage of OSPDAF is not supported by the protocol, but the camera has explicitly support it for each lens — making it unlikely for Sigma lenses to support it.
A good first step prior to going autofocus would be reporting aperture, distance and focal length data to the host camera. This seems doable in the near future, and possibly as a retrofit to existing lenses. I’m perfectly happy with manual focus, but do miss the EXIF data.
I have 1 manual focus lens.. thats kind of enough.
I would not consider buying things fro this company.. mostly because they are wierd and have like 5-7 different brand names for their lenses.. thats kind of suspicious behaviour lol.
And also I want to have auto-focus on my lenses.
Well I considered buying the 35/1.4 and the 85/1.4 (for my Alphas) as I’m used to manual focusing under problematic situations like concerts where the AF sometimes cannot know what I want…..
But I’d the opportunity to use the 85/1.4 for half an hour – and I decided not to buy that stuff! Reason: while the optical quality seems to be good (cannot really tell from the shots taken in a small venue) you have to turn the focus ring with so much force that you cannot focus fast – what a difference e.g. to my Sigma 70…200/2.8.
I use both 35mm 1.4 and cine 85mm t1.5, Well I can say the aperture ring of 85mm is butterly smooth.
you need a hammer, it’s the soul of all mechanics.
@admin: stuff is plural, stuffs as a noun is not a proper word
Exactly. Stuff is a mass noun – the singular/plural concept doesn’t apply. Only count nouns have a plural form.
Big deal, get over it.
English is not his first language and most people hate grammar police idiots like you.
You understood what was written and that is the point. Don’t give me any lectures about the admin learning through being corrected either. He has a contact address, it is NOT necessary to do so in a public forum.
Keep your “helpful” comments to yourself in future.
How about you sh*t up instead of calling me a grammar police idiot? You are the one who makes a big deal out of this by responding to my comment in an aggressive fashion!
I don’t complain about silly spelling errors, but if I read something like “Other stuff or stuffs → 1 or more”, it just hurts and I’m sure I am not the only one. I consider my comment as an advice and not a criticism against the author.
And no, I am not willing to write a ‘private’ e-mail to the author to ‘correct’ him, I’m too lazy for that.
English isn’t my native language either, but stuff like ‘stuffs’ hurts my eyes too.
You don’t like it when YOU are on the receiving end of criticism, do you? That is quite telling, it isn’t very nice is it!
Yours is a useless criticism and actually half of it is an insult. His is a simple correction, not even a criticism. Not comparable whatsoever. And on top of that, how do you know that Admin isn’t appreciative of such a correction? I would be.
+1
Shut up @ AlphaGuy.
English isn’t my native language either, and the only way I learn is if someone corrects my spelling or pronounciation errors. People like you, are actually making it worse.
Actually that comment is helpful in that Andrea doesn’t have to worry about remembering if the rep said stuff or stuffs.
Dude, he was just commenting of the something that is relevant to the post.
No need to call him an idiot. Totally unnecessary.
I read this site for his content, not for the faults that the one who writes the stuff could write. I read many books all along the year, if I had to spend my time to correct the faults, I would not read much of it.
Unfortunately some people don’t understand that very simple point.
Well, it would be pointless to correct a book, which the author would never see.
You can pretty much tell from the external gearing in the pic that it will be cine lenses.
Why not a 50mm? or 135mm? or 200mm?
So how was Sigma able to make AF lenses for E mount?
Because Sony allowed them to. Part of deal was probably the requirement that Sigma will release only slow (f/2.8) lenses and those which focal are already close to Sony’s.
No, Sigma reverse engineer all mounts that they support. Thats why in the past, there were countless AF accuracy issues. They get better with time though.
Like they do for A-mount. They allegedly reverse engineer it, which would explain why Sigma lenses sometimes have compatibility issues and need re-chipping.
what is the difference between cine and “normal”(?) lens?
I shoot Nex- 7 and i really want something like 85mm proper fix lens.. any suggestions?
Cine lenses have a free diaphragm dial ring without clicks, thus it allows fractions of diaphragms due to stepless movement from one to another. Then they have sprocket like gears on the dial rings to allow motorized zooming with special motors, what makes them zoom perfectly silent without clicks and noise. Some higher end cine lenses do not change sharpness when you zoom through the whole range, the expensive Zeiss Cine lenses are made that way, and they cost up to 10000$ and even higher.
Dude, I am a NEX-7 shooter and I am using my Samyang cine 85mm t1.5 for photography…I can say this lens is amazing with this camera. Super optics and easy to handle if you are comfortable with manual focus.
You can check samples at – https://www.flickr.com/photos/31669605@N05/
I don’t really get it. There is obviously lack of e-mount lenses, shouldn’t Sony be like welcoming third party lens manufacturer to make them? I would love for a Sigma 35mm 1.4 and a zoom lens at constant 2.8.
I’m guessing the issue is in OSPDAF support. Possibly AFS-C. I sold my Sigma 30mm. Does anyone know if it supports AFS-C? I think Sony originally opened up the mount hoping 3rd parties would flock to it but they didn’t and now Sony’s strategy has changed. They are selling their bodies for less and pushing out more “premium” lenses. The advances in Sony’s AF all happened after the original mount specs became public so Sony is just not releasing the updated/AF info. Too bad really. With the growth in Korea I could see AF E-mount lenses actually being viable for a company like Samyang.
what the heck might be the: “A contact for Canon”??? – all we have are EF/EF-S and EF-M mounts, no other “A-mount” with electronic contacts exists in the Canon land to my best knowledge
So in other way I’d better buy Samsung 85/1.4 ED SSA lens and some cheap camera like NX300 for it and will not wait any crazy sony stuff. Have Samyang 85mm manual focus lens and I’d tired to shoot with manual focus at all
I don’t think it is a problem. Personally, I like the way the Samyang lenses are built, and work best with EVF/liveview. Keep it as simple as possible with less mechanical parts and no AF, and keep the price down. I shoot with the 35 and 85 lenses, and both are a joy to use on the a99.
No AF and manual iris is what’s appealing about Samyangs. It would be insanely great if they made cine style MF, manual Iris zooms, similar quality and price as their primes. a 17-50 2.8 ?
Completely agree
I care about proper EXIF data (i.e. f-stop value in the RAW file) much more then AF.
Never bothered me before digital, doesn’t bother me now.
No-one will care in a hundred years, and we’ll both be dust.
Samyang – we need a MF 70-200 F2.8 (or similar).
Manual focus or medium format?
Manual….as I know MF will always have lower price than AF with same level of optics.