Samyang AF 135mm F1.8 FE review

The Samyang AF 135mm F1.8 FE combines telephoto reach with real speed

5 Star Rating
Samyang AF 135mm F1.8 FE
(Image: © Matthew Richards)

Digital Camera World Verdict

With its 135mm focal length and fast f/1.8 aperture, this Samyang is perfect portrait lens for tight head shots. It’s sharp and crisp where you need detail, and the quality of its bokeh is lusciously soft and dreamy. Moreover, its fast autofocus system works brilliantly well with the eye-detection and tracking systems in Sony’s E-mount mirrorless full-frame cameras, ensuring excellent shot-to-shot consistency.

Pros

  • +

    Superb all-round performance

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    Robust, weather-sealed build

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    High-end handling characteristics

Cons

  • -

    No dedicated aperture ring

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The Samyang AF 135mm F1.8 FE goes head to head with Sony’s own-brand Sony FE 135mm f/1.8 G Master lens. It boasts many of the same high-end features and handling exotica, as well as a tough, weather-sealed construction, but costs less than half the price to buy. It’s ideal for tight head shots in portraiture, as well as for sports and wildlife photography, and any time you want medium telephoto reach with a fast aperture for isolating the main subject with a tight depth of field, or for freezing motion under low lighting conditions.

Specifications

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Matthew Richards

Matthew Richards is a photographer and journalist who has spent years using and reviewing all manner of photo gear. He is Digital Camera World's principal lens reviewer – and has tested more primes and zooms than most people have had hot dinners! 

His expertise with equipment doesn’t end there, though. He is also an encyclopedia  when it comes to all manner of cameras, camera holsters and bags, flashguns, tripods and heads, printers, papers and inks, and just about anything imaging-related. 

In an earlier life he was a broadcast engineer at the BBC, as well as a former editor of PC Guide.