Yasuhara Anthy 35mm f/1.8 RF Review (Canon EOS R mount)

Yasuhara Anthy 35mm F/1.8 RF Review

Dustin Abbott posted his Yasuhara Anthy 35mm f/1.8 RF review, a third party RF mount lens for the Canon EOS R full frame mirrorless system.

The Yasuhara Anthy 35mm f/1.8 RF will not cost you a fortune, it’s priced at $299. And, according to the reviewer, it has a “beautiful classic build – much like classic Zeiss [lens]”.

Says Dustin Abbott in his conclusion:

For years I have chosen to pull out vintage lenses occasionally despite the fact that they have far more optical flaws than more corrected modern lenses.  Why?  Because often there is a unique character to them that I enjoy despite their flaws.  Images have a c ertain quality to them that I like.  I also sometimes enjoy the “analog” approach of manual focus and a more deliberate style of photography.  It is that part of my inner photographer that can appreciate the Yasuhara Anthy 35mm F1.8 despite some glaring flaws like poor flare resistance, warm color rendering, and the odd vignette effect.  Used in the right settings, the Anthy35 produces images with a rich color palette and nice bokeh falloff.  It has an artistic, retrograde feel that some photographers will love and others will hate.  I hope that this review and the images contained in it have helped you decide which you are.

Read the review…

Dustin’s Yasuhara Anthy 35mm f/1.8 RF review can also be watched as a video:

The Yasuhara Anthy 35mm f/1.8 Is A High-quality, Small But Fast Prime For The Canon EOS R

Yasuhara Anthy 35mm F/1.8

Yasuhara Anthy 35mm f/1.8 at a glance:

  • Focal Length: 35mm
  • Aperture Blade: 9
  • Aperture: f1.8 – f16
  • Elements: 9 elements in 7 groups
  • Coatings: Multicoated
  • Weather-Sealed: No
  • Minimum Focus Distance: 0.4m
  • Filter Threads: 52mm
  • Weight: 15oz

More and more companies, be they small or big, are starting to invest in the Canon EOS R full frame mirrorless system, and build lenses for it.

Japanese company Yasuhara launched the Yasuhara Anthy 35mm f/1.8. Our friend Alik Griffin reviewed it.

From Alik’s conclusion:

If you’re looking for a lens for shooting at night or for black and white photography this lens is great, but for general use, it’s by no means perfect and it does have quite a few flaws. Whether those flaws are deal-breaking or not, you’ll have to decide that based on how you shoot.

Personally I’ve been using it way more than I thought I would be simply because of the small size. There just aren’t a lot of full-frame f1.8 lenses that can do what this lens does that are also this small and the build quality is fantastic.

For night shooting it performs really well since you don’t see the vignetting, and it doesn’t have any serious issues with astigmatism like the Canon RF 35mm f1.8.

It does have some sort of rear reflection thing going on that I showed in some test shots, but I haven’t seen it yet in real-world shooting.
The most annoying thing to me is that purple vignetting. It’s not easy to fix and requires quite a bit of noodling to completely remove. It’s best to just make a preset which is what I’ve done.

[…]

For those shooters that shoot both full-frame and APS-C, this lens could be an incredible option. Canon and Nikon haven’t released their APS-C cameras for their new mounts yet, but I could see this lens being a great lens for those cropped systems since you won’t see that purple vignetting when cropped and you will see an improvement in those corners.
In terms of color, contrast, sharpness, and bokeh, for a lens this size it’s really nice it’s but it is a little soft wide open. For $299 this could be a pretty fun lens to mess around with and once you learn to work with the strengths and avoid the weakness you can really make it work. But for the full-frame shooter that’s just starting out, it could be a bit of a challenge to work with.

For APS-C shooters you will see slightly better contrast and color to what Meike and 7Artisans are doing, but with the Anthy35 you get a dramatically superior build. Of course, the price reflects this.

Alik Griffin’s review of the Yasuhara Anthy 35mm f/1.8 touches every possible feature of the lens, and comes with a rich set of sample and test photos. Highly recommended review. If you prefer, you can read his first impression of the Yasuhara Anthy 35mm f/1.8. The Yasuhara Anthy 35mm f/1.8 will be available in Fall 2019, can be preordered at $299.

You can follow Alik Griffin on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and by visiting his website.