This past Christmas, my brother wanted a new hiking backpack. His wishlist pointed me towards a well known Chinese website, where I purchased his backpack and didn’t think much of it.
I placed the order for his hiking backpack before Thanksgiving. Christmas has come and passed, but he has yet to receive his present. This is common when ordering things directly from China, so neither of us were surprised. When I logged in to check on the order status, the site mentioned Yongnuo lenses – specifically the 35mm f2 – on the front page.
I had previously known about this particular lens, but didn’t feel like buying it when it was first released. Why spend money on a cheap lens when I could be saving for something better? This was especially a concern considering that there weren’t many example photos taken with the lens upon release and I had no idea about the quality of the lens.
A couple years later though, and other people who have used the Nikon version of the Yongnuo 35mm f2 seem to be pleased with it. So I went ahead and bought it for a total of $83.
First physical impressions weren’t bad considering it’s price. The packaging was stylized in a similar way to Nikon lenses. Taking off the included front and rear caps, you’ll find an all metal bayonet without any weather sealing. Both caps are branded with the Yongnuo logo, which I will probably be covering up with a sticker or gaff tape. The lens itself doesn’t feel particularly sturdy in your hands. If lightly shaken it rattles a bit. I also want to note that the Nikon HB-47 lens hood fits, but will cause vignetting.
Instead of treating it nicely though, I threw it into the camera insert in my hiking bag and went on a few short walks to test it out. I found the autofocus to be a little slow and inaccurate, but manual focus works well. The rubber focus ring works smoothly.
The resulting photos from the lens are wonderful, especially for the price point. I did not directly test for bokeh since it’s typically not something I look for in a lens. The center of the lens is nice and sharp. Corners are slightly softer, but still sufficiently sharp.
Speaking of corners, it’s nice to see that there isn’t any significant vignetting or aberration. There’s some slight distortion but that’s expected with a wide angle lens. This can all be corrected in Lightroom (or whatever software you use) but there aren’t any existing lens profiles that I can find. I’ll just create one myself once I take a few photos that will work well for correcting distortion in an obvious way.
After playing around with it for two weeks, I’m happy with it. It may not hold up as well if compared with other FX 35mm primes. You also might want to be careful when handling it since it seems a little loosely made. For a sub $100 lens that’s full frame compatible though, it’s amazing. Plus it arrived fairly quickly. I can’t say that about my brother’s hiking backpack.
