Rokinon Adding Autofocus to E Mount 50mm F1.4

[Erik Naso]

Rokinon will release new autofocus lenses starting with a Sony E-Mount 50mm F1.4. Priced around $700. Not clear if the lens will be focus by wire. Hopefully the AF performance is on par to native Sony lenses. 50mm E-mount lens is scheduled to be released in August.



Based on the image it doesn't show any manual options so the lens is fully electronic with no manual iris control.

At $700 would you be interested in this over the Sigma ART 50mm that cost $949? I'm not sure.

 

[Samuel H]

We had some talk about this lens over here, when Samyang announced it. It seems to be a new optical design.

The new Sony 50mm f/1.4 doesn't convince me at all (the 55mm f/1.8 is cheaper, sharper and has nicer bokeh -even if it has some onion rings-). The 55mm f/1.8 is super nice but it is not cheap either and it's one of the more failure-prone Sony lenses. And the Sigma is not a native E-mount lens. So I see a market for this Samyang. Let's see how good it is...

 

[Chris Joy]

Early reports have the focusing being loud. We'll see, it needs to be stellar with the FE55 out there cause its much larger and about the same price.

 

[Samuel H]

The FE 55mm f/1.8 seems like a superb lens indeed, but these comments from LensRentals make me nervous about it:

My paranoia increased when I saw that the linear electromagnetic focusing motors (LEMs) in the Sony FE 24-70mm f/4 and FE 55mm f/1.8 lenses broke a lot

From here

It's still the one I would get, I think, but I'd just like it if there was a better alternative (a II model with dual linear EM would be lovely).

 

[Erik Naso]

I have the Sony 55mm F1.8 and I like it alot. Part of the reason I sold my Sigma 50mm off but I do kind of miss that lens.

 

[ProfessorU]

The Sony 55mm f/1.8 is fantastic. It's really square to the corners, like the Canon 50mm macro, but also the sharpest lens I own at f/2.8.