Samyang AF 45mm F1.8 Autofocus Lens for Sony FE

As a prime lens the image quality was quite disappointing mounted on my A7R3, in terms ofcritical sharpness. Images were soft, and had quite noticeable chromatic abberations in contrasty situations (that I shoot a lot): contre-jour, silhouette tree branches, skylined landscape features. Colour rendition was pleasing. 3d pop was not conspicuous, and not as good as I expect of a simpke fixed focal length lens that can have few optical elements. It came with a very nice and effective little featherweight hardshell case (well done indeed on that!), and the lens itself is ultra lightweight...but alas so is its optical performance...and for me that is 99% of its job. "Next candidate please!"

This lens is an absolute gem. Great price and has a unique character, the rendering is beautiful like lenses of old before everyone became so focused on image sharpness that photos lost that character. Yes the lens is still sharp but its not to sharp. The autofocus once updated to latest firmware is spot on, not as fast as Sonys own lenses but still good enough. Images are sharp enough from wide open and the image quality is beautiful and characterful. Oh and the focal length makes it that perfect one lens to cover 35 and 50 by taking a few steps either way when composing your images. And oh my god is it light!!! Perfect walk around lens

Purchased this as a lightweight walk around, everyday lens - found a 55 to be too tight and the 35 to be too heavy. While I wasn’t impressed out of the box (the lens feels a little cheap, and it I’m not entirely sure I was the first owner) I stuck with it and I was impressed, plenty sharp enough in the middle wide open and a decent bit of character to the bokeh. Thought it also handled colour well and is reasonably well corrected for fringing. The auto focus is pretty snappy in all light except near darkness and as an added bonus it has no issues with coma, to the point where I was able to get decent milky way results whilst working away in Devon. This is not a lens for pro use by any means but as a day to day all rounder it’ll do just fine.

This is a great little lens provided you get a good copy. It has an excellent form factor, focus seems relatively accurate and quick and it's nice and light. It has the potential to be fantastic, but mine appears to be decentered, with the left hand corner very soft compared to the everywhere else in frame. Buy one, test it quickly and if its sharp across the frame - keep it!

A cracking lens for the money. Very sharp with great contrast and colour reproduction. Hardly ever off my Sony a7c these days.

I bought this lens due to its Interesting focal length of 45mm which is not so narrow or too wide and also the relatively large aperture of F1.8.The lens performs well beyond my expectations with fast AF, light weight and decent build quality.Personally i think its performs better than my Sony 50mm f1.8 lens which i found slow and clunky and just a tad but below my Sony FE 55 ZEISS f1.8 Lens which costs considerably more.The lens also came with a nice compact zip case which was an welcome addition for safe dust free storage which will come in handy for travels- yes that day will come again.I have tested this lens on Sony Full frame A7 iii, A7 II and Sony NEX 5r.

This lens is compact and light, with a useful focal length. AF speed is good, accuracy in general was also very consistent. Optically I found it sharp with good, but not outstanding colour and contrast. In difficult situations mine struggled somewhat with purple fringing.However, it's not without problems especially at the launch price of £350. Build material quality felt cheap, the hood in particular felt like a flimsy toy. The most significant issue was the lenses 50-50 ability to focus to infinity, with multiple attempts needed even in very high contrast scenes. This may well be fixed via firmware, but you'll need a dock to do so. The bayonet mount also felt overly tight and required more force than other lenses to mount, feeling a little "scratchy".I really wanted to replace my zeiss 55mm with this as I much prefer the wider fov, but, optics (mostly) aside, it's not in the same quality bracket, which I suppose comes with the price.

I replaced my Sony 50mm 1.8 with this and it is fantastic. Works really well in combo with my Sony 85mm