Samyang 85mm F1.4

[amr276]

I'm thinking of buying this lens sometime in the future. It's fully manual, with no electrics at all, will I be able to use it in Shutter Priority on my Canon, or full manual only?

Thanks for any help,
Adam

[popo]

It should work in aperture priority, but I'm not sure about shutter priority, since it can't change the aperture for you.

One way to find out, try setting shutter priority with no lens attached (e.g. fit body dust cap). See if that works. If so, then it would with lens too.

Alternatively you can trade the aperture for AF and go for the Canon 85mm f/1.8 USM instead.

[Kenneth Skou]

Hi amr276,

I have this lens and use it on a Nikon D300. As popo mentions, no you cannot go shutter-priority, per se. From the perspective that shutter-PRIORITY means that the camera can adjust aperture and other variable to adjust to your selected shutter-speed - you can't.

However, this does not mean that you cannot select your shutter speed. You can go full manual and still have auto-ISO adjust to your choices.

Keep in mind that your camera has to be able to accept non-CPU lens data-entry (made by you), otherwise it cannot calculate exposure at all! On the Nikon, I enter 85mm and f1.4 as the non-CPU specs, and the camera can find the correct exposure automatically in Aperture mode.

This lens is great for the price! It cannot take screw-in filters, mind you. But action is very smooth, construction is very solid and being able to adjust the aperture the old way, by rotating the aperture ring, is just so much more intuitive than some wheel in the body - I think anyway.

Image quality is superb, but it's not easy to find focus @ F1.4 with such a slim DOF. If I used this lens more often, I'd put one of those split-prism focus screen on my camera similar to what we had with film cameras. But if you can make it all come together, it can produce spectacular results for you and you save a lot of money, going with this lens.

Hope to see some shots from you, with this lens sometime!

Cheers

[popo]

LahLahSr, Adam has a Canon 50D from the sig, which doesn't work the same as your D300. As I don't have one any more I can't check directly myself, but on the 7D shutter priority without a lens still functions and allows auto-ISO. The 50D didn't allow auto-ISO in manual mode. There is also no provision on the body to enter lens data for unknown lenses, but if required you can still do manual compensation.

Actually, I forgot to mention a common trick. If you buy the Nikon mount version of that lens, you can use it with a Nikon to Canon adapter which is chipped. The chip will allow focus confirm to work and you can also program it to report lens data to the body.

[Ruben123]

Thanks popo, Ill remember that!

[Gordon Laing]

Two years later, I now have some results in my Samyang Rokinon 85mm f1.4 review! Hope they're useful!