Rokinon 35mm F1.4 AF Sony E Review

The Rokinon 35mm F1.4 AF Sony E ($799) is a low-cost prime lens for full-frame Sony mirrorless cameras.

It's a budget option, without the weather-sealing you expect from Sony lenses and cameras, but it is as bright as the Sony Zeiss Distagon T* FE 35mm F1.4 ZA.

It's worth looking at if you are on a budget—especially if you find the lens for less than its retail price.

Our favorite low-cost 35mm f/1.4 is still the Sigma 35mm F1.4 DG HSM Art, which is now available for Sony mirrorless cameras in addition to SLRs.

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Sturdy, But Not Sealed

The 35mm F1.4 AF ($599.00 at Amazon) is about average size for a lens of its type.

It measures 4.5 by 3.0 inches (HD), weighs 1.4 pounds, and supports 67mm front filters.

Compare this with the Distagon T*, which is 4.4 by 3.1 inches, 1.4 pounds, supports 72mm filters, and—most importantly to your wallet—costs close to $1,000 more.

The Sony Zeiss Distagon, along with other Sony-made FE lenses, is protected from dust and splashes.

The Rokinon isn't, but it doesn't have the plasticky build of Rokinon's ultra-budget 35mm F2.8 AF Sony E.

The F1.4 lens has a metal barrel, which gives it a more premium feel.

It ships with front and rear caps, as well as a reversible lens hood—they are plastic, which is expected.

Rokinon's parent company, Samyang, also sells the lens under its own banner—aside from the branding, the two are identical.

There are no control switches on the lens itself, aside from the manual focus ring.

It occupies a good portion of the barrel and turns with a bit of resistance.

That's a good thing as it makes it possible to make fine adjustments to focus.

The manual focus system is electronic, and while Sony cameras do display a distance scale in the viewfinder when dialing in adjustments, you typically don't get any tactile feedback when focusing a lens of this type.

Making the manual focus ring a little tight to turn makes the action feel more like a lens with a mechanical manual focus system.

Autofocus is also supported.

The 35mm F1.4 supports all of the special focus modes in the latest Sony cameras, including AF-A, AF-C, DMF, and EyeAF.

Focus is a little slower than many native lenses we've tested—we clocked it at 0.2-second on the a7R III.

The lens locks on to subjects as close as 11.8 inches (30cm).

It's not a macro—to earn that designation a prime lens typically has to magnify subjects at least 1:2 life-size.

The 35mm F1.4 AF projects subjects at 1:5.9 magnification when set to its closest focus distance.

There's no optical stabilization, but that's not a big deal for most Sony shooters.

Apart from its first-generation releases, all of its full-frame mirrorless cameras support in-camera stabilization.

If you're looking to pair the lens with an APS-C model, however, remember that only the a6500 includes sensor-based stabilization at this time.

Shines When Stopped Down

I tested the 35mm F1.4 AF with the 42MP a7R III ($2,798.00 at Amazon) and Imatest software.

At f/1.4 it scores 2,932 lines on our center-weighted sharpness test, which is a little bit better than the 2,750 lines we want to see at a minimum from the a7R III's high-resolution image sensor.

Image quality is good through most of the frame, and while edges are a bit soft (2,172 lines), shallow depth of field is likely to blur them in most of the photos you'll take at f/1.4.

Image quality holds steady at f/2 and f/2.8.

There's a big jump in resolution at f/4, where the lens shows an excellent 4,594 lines.

Edges are just as good as the center of the frame from here on out.

At f/5.6 we see the sharpest results (4,761 lines), and image quality remains superb at f/8 (4,675 lines) and f/11 (4,335 lines).

There's a drop at f/16, to 3,926 lines.

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There is some barrel distortion, about 2.3 percent, which isn't overwhelming, but will draw straight lines with a slight outward bulge.

It's not distracting for most images, and can be corrected using software if it does detract from an image.

It's something we also see in the Sigma 35mm Art (1.6 percent), but not in the Sony Zeiss 35mm F1.4, which shows no visible distortion.

The Rokinon does show a heavy vignette, -4EV at the corners, at f/1.4.

It lessens at narrower f-stops—we see -2.8EV at f/2, -1.9EV at f/2.8, and about -1.5EV at narrower settings.

If you shoot JPGs your Sony camera will compensate for the effect by default.

It cuts the drop in illumination at the corners to -2.2EV at f/1.4—still noticeable, but not as extreme as without correction.

We see about -1.4EV at f/2 and -1.2EV at narrower apertures.

A Solid Option for Budget Shoppers

The Rokinon 35mm F1.4 AF Sony E isn't the most expensive or flashy lens out there.

It skips the dust and splash protection you get with name-brand Sony lenses, and is just a little bit slower to focus than premium options.

But its price is very attractive, and while it's not razor sharp at its brighter f-stops, it delivers acceptable results on Sony's most demanding sensor.

If you've got the cash to spare, we give preference to the Sony Zeiss Distagon T* FE 35mm F1.4 ZA ($998.00 at Amazon) , but it costs close to $1,000 more than the Rokinon.

We also like the Sigma 35mm F1.4 DG HSM Art ($674.00 at Amazon) for budget shoppers.

It's now available in a native E-mount edition, so you won't have to fiddle with an adapter when using it with Sony mirrorless.

And while we don't rate it quite as highly, you can get the Rokinon for even less than the Sigma, and are likely to walk away happy.

Thanks to Lensrentals for providing the Sony a7R III used for this review.