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Five lenses in five weeks? Samyang teases upcoming announcements

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It’s not every day that optics companies announce more than a couple of new products. But an official teaser from Samyang is saying to expect five new lens announcements from the company over the next five weeks, one every Monday — starting July 18.

The company, in a release issued from its South Korean headquarters, is calling it the “Five Samyang Blockbuster Series.” The firm promises to release five new lenses, and the notice came with a teaser image that shows the silhouettes of what we must assume are the new additions to its lens lineup.

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Image used with permission by copyright holder

Samyang is a South Korea-based optics company. Its lenses are often sold under different brand names depending on where in the world you are, which can make things a bit confusing. For example, here in the U.S. you can find the company’s products branded as Rokinon, Bower, or Samyang — and they are all identical minus the switched out logos/branding.

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Notably, besides Zeiss (due to that firm’s special relationship with Sony), Samyang is the first third-party company to make Autofocus FE (full frame e-mount compatible) lenses. There is a good chance that one or more of these five teased lenses are for the FE mount.

Samyang/Rokinon/Bower are best known for dirt cheap prices than its quality. That said, the optical quality itself is generally good to excellent. It’s the quality control and build quality that can cause issues, though in Samyang’s defense, it has been much better about that with its latest lenses.

There was no time announced for the first of these five releases, but we will be on the lookout to see what the up-and-coming South Korean optics company has up its sleeve this time.

Anthony Thurston
Anthony is an internationally published photographer based in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. Specializing primarily in…
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