Today Samyang made the fourth of their expected 5 announcements in the form of a brand new 20mm F/1.8 lens that will be available in both still and cinema versions. This continues the latest trend from Samyang to capitalize on the growing popularity of affordable filmmaking with both stills and video versions of their latest lenses.
As far as this new 20mm F/1.8 is concerned, the lens is made up of 13 glass elements, including 2 aspherical lenses and 3 ED lenses, set into 12 groups. Manual focus is still the name of the game for this Samyang release, as it seems that AF technology will only be for their mirrorless lenses for the time being.
Sitting in between their 16mm and 24mm offerings, Samyang says that their 20mm F/1.8 offers “a perfect fit to explore wide angles not only for shooting indoor images such as concerts and interior photos but also street snaps.”
As for the differences between the stills and video versions of the lens? Optically they are identical, but the F/1.8 stills aperture translates over to a T stop of T/1.9 for the cinema version. Obviously, the cinema version also comes with a ridged focusing for built-in compatibility with follow focus devices.
As for the pricing and availability; the new Samyang 20mm F/1.8 and 20mm T/1.9 are expected to be available worldwide in September with a suggested retail price of $499 for the standard version and a slight premium of about $50 to make the cinema lens come in around the $550 mark.
If interested you can find out more information about this lens over on the Samyang website, here.
