Vivitar no longer using Samyang!

M. Gilden

M. Gilden

Canon DSLR Moderator
Heard a nasty rumor that Vivitar was going to stop selling Samyang glass a long time ago. Turns out it wasn't just a rumor.

I know a couple of guys in the company who confirmed that that the older Vivitar branded lenses are actually out of production, and selling off the remaining stock. There are two new lenses in production now, an 8mm and an 85mm, which are sourced from some Chinese company. Neither of my contacts knew the name, I'll have to do some digging to find out.

Does anyone else know anything about this? The new 85mm only opens up to 1.8, about a half stop less than the Samyang used to. Wondering how the image quality differs.
 
Vivitar is sending me a sample of their new one to compare with the Samyang sourced ones. Will post my findings here.
 
Great. I can't say I'm excited about it, chances are, it will be pretty bad. But I would definitely welcome another player into the high quality low cost lens market. And somebody has to check how good it is...
 
It arrived- I'm away for the rest of the week so I'll have to wait until I get back to do any real testing. But in my unscientific 5 minutes with the thing, I've found 3 interesting points I wasn't expecting:

1) It's pretty darned sharp wide open at 1.8. Perhaps sharper than the Samyang wide open (albeit at 1.4), if not just as sharp.
2) It is MUCH smaller and lighter than the Samyang, barrel is shorter and narrower. Out of the box it seems closer in size until you realize the front of it is actually a removable lens hood. I expected it to be somewhat smaller than the Samyang since it isn't as wide of an aperture, but not this much. That was before I realized point #3.
3) It appears that it may actually be an APS-C sized lens.

Now, I don't have any full frame bodies here to test it with at the moment, and it doesn't indicate anything about sensor size anywhere on the packaging. However in the little instruction booklet that comes with the lens (I like flipping through those), it says under troubleshooting that if you notice vignetting and dark edges, it is likely because you are using it on a full frame camera and this is designed for an APS-C sized one. As far as I can tell, this little blurb in the booklet is the only place it says anything about that. Strange.
Meanwhile, that does explain why the barrel is smaller and lighter as well.

Since I don't shoot full frame much, I don't mind a smaller/lighter 85mm to carry around. But I still feel like this should be mentioned on the packaging or advertising. It is a vastly different lens than their old Samyang sourced one. Other than that, I'm curious to see how well it performs next week.
 
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A fast prime that only works on APS-C? You've got my attention now.

I've been arguing for years that lenses designed specifically for APS-C could be cheaper, lighter, sharper and faster. Designing a lens involves lots of tradeoffs, and having to meet a much stronger restriction in terms of image circle and sharpness very far away from the center means that something else has to give (usually, center sharpness, size, and price).
 
Victor, yeah- the Samyangs (and I believe all Vivitar lenses) are all manual focus and manual aperture, like a modern version of a vintage lens!
I recall the Vivitar Series 1 lenses had a reputation for being some of the sharpest 3rd party glass around, however they didn't make their own stuff. They would source from various OEMs (Sigma, etc) and rebrand it under their name, which people respected.

Lately, they have been known for sourcing Samyang, and I think had them customize the iris blades on one of the wide angle varieties- I can't remember where I saw this, but I read somewhere that the Vivitar branded wide prime (can't remember if it was the fisheye or not) had more aperture blades than the other Samyang sourced ones.
Either way, surprised to see they are switching OEMs!
 
Yes- sorry, got sidetracked with other things (my son broke his arm, sister in law's wedding, etc).

The new lens is pretty decent. Took some product photos with it, it seems quite sharp, nice and small compared to the Samyang, but that full frame coverage and extra stop of the Samy isn't something I like leaving behind.
Meanwhile, a colleague of mine tried it on his 5dm3 and found that it worked fine, no noticeable vignetting but I'll have to see that for myself. The manual implies cropped sensor, and the size of the thing would lend to that theory as well. But the image circle seems to still cover full frame sensors, which is nice to know.
 
Did some quick tests today with both lenses, interesting stuff!

Took a picture of the back of a motorcycle with both lenses wide open:
2-shots.jpg

Then zoomed in 100% to compare:
compare1.jpg
as you can see, the new Vivitar lens is a bit sharper wide open. But, that isn't fair since the Samyang one opens up wider (1.4), so I decided to stop it down a bit so that it should be approximately the same 1.8/2.

Here's what I got side by side:
compare2.jpg
As you can see, even with the Samyang stopped down a tad, the new Vivitar is actually a bit sharper wide open on the left.

But where the Samyang really shined is when I stopped them both down to F/4:
compare3.jpg
Here you can see, the new Vivitar is still experiencing some purple fringing, whereas the Samyang is pretty darned sharp on the right.

Interesting stuff. I took some other shots of colored objects to compare as well, but I think the rusted metal on here illustrates the best. Will be throwing this into a youtube review as well, hopefully later today.
 
That looks very nice. How is corner sharpness? And bokeh, of course! (the samyang was never a particularly sharp lens, but it does have particularly good bokeh)
 
Gah. You know, I didn't test anything that would shoot solid bokeh shapes (just flipped a few shots in my garage in between gigs). That's something I should have included before I made this video too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkpCGSZ88dA

I'm inside editing all day today, but I'll try to get out and get some bokeh lights next time I'm shooting with it.
 
thanks :)

(no hurry at all, I already have a very nice 90mm that I'm not going to replace, this is just my curiosity bothering you)
 
Bokeh seems nice to me. Stopped down to f/4 here, the LED lights in the background (cable modem in my garage) are still a nice round shape.
IMG_7335.jpg

Here are some outdoor shots:
IMG_7339.jpgIMG_7331.jpgIMG_7326.jpg
 
Not bad. Thanks.
Bokeh is usually better when you close down the lens a bit (here), though most people won't notice because more bokeh easily trumps better bokeh. The last shot seems to be wide open, I've seen better bokeh but also much much much worse than this.

This tiny lens is shaping up as a very worthy companion of the new Sony A7r...
 
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