LensTip.com

Lens review

Samyang XP 85 mm f/1.2

11 April 2017
Arkadiusz Olech

10. Focusing



Please Support Us

If you enjoy our reviews and articles, and you want us to continue our work please, support our website by donating through PayPal. The funds are going to be used for paying our editorial team, renting servers, and equipping our testing studio; only that way we will be able to continue providing you interesting content for free.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - advertisement - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

As it befits a good manual lens, the Samyang features a comfortable focus ring which works properly well. Its range amounts to 200 degrees but a shallow depth of field, provided by the tested lens, makes you sometimes wish that value was actually closer to 300 degrees. The producer didn’t make the life of photographers easier by adding any DOF scale. It is a bit strange – the rival Mitakon not only has such a scale but also its marks include even f/2.0.

Samyang XP 85 mm f/1.2 - Focusing

As we’ve already said, the combination of full frame, the 85 mm focal length and f/1.2 produces a very shallow depth of field. You have to have a lot of experience with manual lenses to deal with it efficiently. A short focusing screen in a viewfinder would be also advisable or a focus peaking option, if you manage to attach the Samyang to a camera which features such a functionality.