Samyang 35mm f/1.4 AS UMC £487/$499
A manual lens in varying degrees
This manual-focus Samyang lens (badged as Rokinon in the US) is available in a wide variety of mount options. Most have no built-in electronics, so you can’t control the aperture from the camera. Instead, you need to use the lens’s own aperture ring, and the viewfinder image gets progressively darker with narrower aperture settings. Exceptions are the AE versions in Canon and Nikon mounts, which enable camera-driven aperture control as well as illumination of focus-assist lamps in the viewfinder.
Typical of manual-focus lenses, the focus ring has a long rotational travel and operates with smooth precision.
Performance
The Samyang is comparatively big and heavy, but sharpness and contrast are disappointing at apertures wider than f/2. Stop down to f/2.8, though, and image quality becomes excellent.
With its f/2.8 aperture rating, this Tamron is the ‘slowest’ lens in the group, but the upsides are that it’s very compact and weighs just 210g. Despite that, the build quality feels sturdy and solid, complete with weather seals. The lens feels well-balanced on the Sony full-frame mirrorless cameras for which it’s designed. The stepping motor-based autofocus system is near-silent but not massively fast, while the electronically coupled focus ring works with precision. Like the Canon RF 35mm lens on test, the Tamron can double up as a macro lens, delivering 0.5x magnification at its shortest focus distance of 0.15m.
Performance
Sharpness is exceptional even when shooting wide-open, although the f/2.8 aperture rating is modest. Other aspects of image quality are similarly impressive.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could get top-end performance and fabulous image quality from a lens that’s compact and light yet robustly built, all at a really low price? That’s exactly what the Tamron 35mm delivers – and more besides, with refined handling and a bonus 0.5x macro facility. Sure, it only has a modest f/2.8 aperture rating, but that should prove perfectly sufficient for street photography. The only real downside is that this lens is only available for Sony E-mount cameras. Sigma’s 35mm Contemporary lens is a little heavier and much more expensive, but is a great buy for L-Mount as well as Sony cameras.
The Canon RF 35mm is another standout lens for street photography. It’s faster than the Tamron with an f/1.8 aperture, adds a highly effective five-stop stabiliser, and again boasts 0.5x macro magnification, for added versatility with extreme close-ups. Image quality is superb, and the lens is keenly priced. The competing Nikkor Z 35mm f/1.8 S is another fabulous lens with high-end design and incredible centre-sharpness, but it’s comparatively pricey. Both lenses are obvious choices for street photography on the respective companies’ full-frame mirrorless cameras, though.
For full-frame Canon DSLRs, our top choice is the Canon EF 35mm f/2 IS USM. For Nikon, we prefer the Sigma 35mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art to the own-brand option. For a more traditional manual-focus lens, look no further than the Samyang 35mm f/1.4 AS UMC.