Samyang AF 24-70mm F2.8 Full-Frame Lens (2021)

Samyang (Rokinon) AF 24-70mm F2.8 is the first zoom lens with autofocus that the South Korean manufacturer has ever made. Introduced as part of Samyang's celebration for the 50th year since its foundation, the AF 24-70mm F2.8 packs a lot of material and is what Samyang hopes to be a break-out product for them.

To achieve this, Samyang has decided to optimize this lens not only for stills but also for video. In fact, even though the lens has autofocus, Samyang has made the use of a follow focus easy with a linear manual focus action. Most importantly, the lens is par-focal: this means that the focus point does not shift during zooming. The lens also has no apparent focus breathing.

In terms of image quality, Samyang touts smooth out-of-focus rendering, which is believable, seeing that its AF 85mm F1.4 produces bokeh that is loved by many photographers. Samyang has also made sure that autofocus is swift and quiet.

Last but not least, the lens, like other recent Samyang AF lenses, is weather-sealed.

On the downside, however, the AF 24-70mm F2.8 is rather unwieldy. Perhaps much of this is to achieve its par-focal design, which makes it a questionable design decision. The maximum reproduction ratio of the lens is also mediocre at best, though it does manage 0.27x maximum magnification at its long end.

Perhaps the more questionable decision is for Samyang to price this lens similar to the SIGMA Art lens, which has a decidedly more loyal following.