China-based manufacturer Yongnuo has produced what looks like a near-clone of Canon's well-liked EF 35mm f/2, a lens that dates back to 1990. With a couple of exceptions (one of which being the brand name on the front of the lens) the Yongnuo lens certainly looks very similar to Canon's 25-year-old prime.
The Yongnuo 35mm f/2 covers a 56mm equivalent focal length on an APS-C body and comprises 7 elements in 5 groups, just like the original. But rather than the Canon's 5-blade aperture, Yongnuo offers 7 blades. Another key difference - whereas Canon's lens still costs around $250 used; we understand that the new Yongnuo 35mm F2 is likely to cost around $115. Keep an eye on Yongnuo's official eBay and Amazon stores for more information.
Yes. It has adequate performance and I like the focal length on full-frame. I've wanted an AF 35mm lens for quite a while, but the parts of my photo ensemble sucking up the available cash have been extreme wide-angle and good fast mid-to-moderate telephoto lenses. How many lenses can you suggest on a gift wish list and actually get? I use it on Nikon D600, D2Xs, and D5200. The Yongnuo's decent performance at an excellent price point works for me. The pros: light weight, classic focal length, fast, decent center sharpness, reasonable AF speed, only very mild vignetting wide-open, AFS-compatible focus. The cons: some CA, soft in the corners wide open, still not terrifically sharp there stopped down to f/8, AF motor noise, physically quite large compared to an old manual focus Nikkor 35mm I have. On a DX body, it looks considerably better because one is cropping away the softer parts, but then it's in the territory owned by the Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 DX.
If the quality is good maybe the products will be buy by many people. but if the quality is bad, who want to buy it ?
They have another clone for the Canon EF 50mm 1.8 II long time ago, the only difference in appearance is the name of Yongnuo instead of Canon, it is $70 new, while the original Canon is $90
^^ The optical forumlae is different along with the aperture blades. The Yongnuo isn't as sharp as the Canon lens wide open.
If DPR hadn't mentioned it looked like a Canon lens would anyone have thought it wasn't just yet another independent maker producing a lens?
Many lens designs have been around for decades and Nikon and Canon in the early days used Zeiss and Schneider designs such as the Planar and Xenotar optical formulas to build their own lenses. Were they clones?
Yeah, you're right. Certainly none of the people that have seen a Canon lens would have figured out this is a complete knock-off without DPR's kind assistance in the matter.
On a related note, I have a ravenous hunger but without DPR's help the proper course of action eludes me.
It doesn't even look like the Canon lens which has its focusing ring in the middle of the lens barrel whereas this one has it on the front. And it has a different number of aperture blades
If Sigma made a 35mm F2 lens with 7 elements in five groups is that going to be classed as a knock off as well?
^Problem is, Sigma is making better quality lenses than the 1st party people (Canon/Nikon). I can attest to this since I used to have a Canon 50mm 1.4 till it broke and replaced it with a Sigma 50mm 1.4. It outperformed in both physical build and I could shoot it at f/1.8 with pleasing results instead of f/2.2 on the Canon copy.
Totally irreklevant. A red herring. Making this lens is totally legal in any country, including US. The patent has expired. Moreover, using old known formulas for making new lenses is very common. That they have done this is only trivia. Nothing to get excited over. DPReview found something they thought fun - and wrote about it. And patent besserwissers took the bate, hook and all.
Sigma (a major manufacturer) has struggled to reverse engineer to Canon's AF system, but I'm sure a third-tier Chinese knock off company will pull it off just perfectly. <sarcasm>
The AF in my Canon 16-35mm can't be repaired due to the part being discontinued. So here's hoping that Yongnuo's clone AF parts can fix my lens.
Likewise my 28-70L (which is better than the 24-70L Mk1) .. I can`t find a USM Rotor from a production model which fits either .
Saddest loss are the numerous 85mm F1.2Ls which can`t be repaired for the same reason and are "focus by wire" so can`t be manual focussed either - expensive doorstop because canon can`t be bothered to make a batch of USM Rotors (the part which wears out in all USM lenses)
Canon won't hold parts for devices which have been out of production for 10 years or more, this is typical of Japanese manufacturers - this includes holding existing stock of said parts it would seem sadly in the case of Canon.
other makers such as Sigma, Yamaha, Roland, Korg etc will keep parts so long as stock exists thankfully but it would seem that Canon do not for any length of time ...... the only hope for that 16-35L is that the part gone is replaceable with one from another lens - even if the part is slightly different such as the Ribbon tail for the USM Rotor being a different length etc .
I`ve repaired lenses like this before - EG:- the rotor from the 70-200F4L IS works perfectly on the 17-55 F2.8 EFS but the tail is 2" longer so different part number (easier to fix the lens with an existing part I had) maybe there`s a similar option for the 16-35L Mk1 - there isn`t for my 28-70L which is now a manual focus lens for extreme emergencies (or using on the EOS-M)
My first SONY 27-70/2.8 USM also gave up the ghost (and was replaced). I was saying from the start, USM/SSM inherently has a finite life span, unlike the "screw drive" in the lens (where with each body upgrade you'd get a fresh AF motor - one - for all lenses).
There are cases when the silent USM motor is worth it (despite that sooner or later it will brick the lens), but they're far fewer than what people appreciate. I don't expect anything to happen to my screw drive Minolta and Sony lenses - whereas I'd think twice buying a SSM/USM lens for long terms use - esp. second-hand.
DC motors almost last forever too - witness the number of Canon lenses from the late 80s still running such as the original 50mm F1.8 Mk1 and 28-70 F3.5-4.5 . the 80-200L F2.8 "magic Drainpipe" was powered by last forever linear motors whereas its standard zoom brother the 28-80L F2.8-4 was powered by a ring USM - most of these are now in the bin whereas I bet the only dead 80-200s are dead because of fungus or droppage..
Thankfully canon now have a thing about Stepper motors which are as reliable as DC and as quiet as USM .
Does this give you any idea why the Zeiss lenses don't have AF? It's not because of perfectionism or cost; it's because they don't want to deal with problems like this.
Yup. Relying on tiny piezo crystals to strike a hard surface and thus move mass - what a big "surprise" that this mechanism has an inherent expiration date.
The worst are Micro USM - as in the budget canon USM & Nikon AFS lenses inc the Nikon 18-200VR because those piezo rotors are tiny so that they fit into a space the size of a conventional DC motor to drive an orthodox gear focus system - many die within warranty, Pentax had the hardest time with them failing constantly . not good .
FWIW, Canon's CPS told me "The lens has reached the end of its service life." I wrote to several repair companies and they all told me the part was not available. So I have a manual focusing 16-35 now. My lesson from this is to always sell a lens not long after it has been discontinued and replace it with the new model.
When the 16-35 series II came out, I tested it and did not like that it made strong star patterns from point lights such as candelabra bulbs that are common in homes that I photograph. So I stuck with the series 1. (I mostly use TSE lenses though.)
I have to be honest that I didn`t like either of the 16-35L models and found both optically poor for the price even when you didn't get a decentered one the edges were poor , thankfully they`ve now made an F4 model capable of living up to the L badge , it`s got IS too .
I highly doubt they could for instance copy any lens that had a fluorite element. super UD even may be out of the question.
Because the cost savings ratio is much higher. You can save 30-50%, maybe?, from this Yonguo -- whereas for a much more sophisticated lens, you could only save much, much less, or have compromise on the quality.
As the Yonguo is likely to be the same quality as Canon, or similar, the savings-value is much higher than if they copied a high-end lens poorly. And the consumer will have little preference, given cost.
Questionably, this is what happens when you outsource to China, suddenly factories appear making nearly identical products to yours, and what comes from Chinese IP theft, on a global level, where the Chinese military in many cases have been implicated in hacking technology companies to steal corporate designs to transfer technology and IP to China.
Not sure what is the case here; for all we know, Canon has a secret back-end deal -- or maybe the lens design is totally different. But often the case, is as mentioned above.
It's god damn standard lens, that has been around for a century, and I highly doubt anyone can accuse them of "copying" the formula. Oh they did copy the external design though.
I don't think you know what IP means. It includes Trade Dress, although it does include other things, like methods of manufacturer. A lot of this kind of knowledge comes from working in factories and then reverse engineering. Put another way, the overall designs for a nuclear weapon have existed for 60 years. But in the last 15 years, China, North Korea, and Pakistan have suddenly made them.
For the same reason they're knocking off $30 phone chargers and selling them for $2.99. This is China!
Making nuke is actually pretty easy - hard part is getting enough amount of purified plutonium. Oh and USSR fell apart in early 90s.
"For the same reason they're knocking off $30 phone chargers and selling them for $2.99. This is China!"
Another way of looking at this is that the rest of the world is charging $30 for what is at worst a $10 proposition as proven by the $3 Chinese example (even if you pay the labor). Greed greases these rails.
Because a lot of people around the world need a cheap standard lens. 50mm is too long for an APS camera and 28mm would have to sell for more.
It's out of production, replaced by the is version which is priced much higher. If a few tens of thousands are bought, you're looking at a lot of revenue. The alternative is a Canon used lens which costs more.
Who cares of a different optical formula. The performance is so poor there was likely no formula crunching or optical QA at all. The lens was barely acceptable sharpness stopped down in the center. This says to me Yongnuo does not know what they are doing in regard to optics and you get what you pay for.
Actually - both the Yongnou lens and the Canon lens seems to be crap, according to this test. Just different kind of crap, and the Ypngnou slighly crappier. So ... whats the meaning behind all this discussion?
They did make 50/1.4, it's on their website, although hard to find. As well as 2.0x Extender. http://www.hkyongnuo.com/e-detaily.php?ID=353
Contrary to what people are saying here, Yongnuo 50 1.8 its a very good lens for half the price of the Canon one.
Problem is that there is no shortage of used canon 50s at the same price as the Yong - no contest .......... there`s far more to Bokeh than the number of blades in the iris ..
The lenstip review shows the Yongnuo 50.18 is quite poor compared to the Canon version. Given that the canon 50/1.8 is already very inexpensive, I definitely would stay away from the Yongnuo version.
Could it be that the level of consistency and quality control on Yongnuo lenses is such that no two are exactly the same, therefore test reports are meaningless? Hmmm…….
If I'm not mistaking, Canon recently purchased Youngnou, their intent is to produces cheap replicas they already do now.
If the iq is decent this is a justified compromise for me. I had the Samyang 35/1.4 a very good lens except my old eyes cannot focus on moving models, especially when wide open. Like the 50 1.8 EF the focus ring is all but useless, so it is limited in function for video.
If companies like canon let these chinese companies copy their products, and sell for 1/2 the price, who will fund future R&D for future technological improvements? Sure the chinese make a quick buck and your happy you got a $600 lens for $300, but a portion of that extra $300 pays for R&D. I most definitely put my money where my mouth is and wouldn't take this chinese lens if you gave it to me as a gift.
IIRC the Yonguo 50mm is significantly different internally (different AF, different optical formula) even though it looks almost identical on the outside. Also, they're only copying very old lenses. The patents on these have probably already expired since they were designed 25 years or more ago.
It goes deeper. The government controls all foreign currencies received in domestic Chinese banks. If a company earns 100 USD it receives x amount of renminbi ( usually at a per centage below the posted exchange rate). The foreign reserves are then used to purchase critical foreign technologies which themselves are then reverse engineered.
30 years ago China's Navy was a Pirate in the Pacific model. Today it is the fastest expanding Navy in the world. Cheap towels, silk, cashmere and lenses...all earn and finance this military build-up. Look carefully through your lenses. Focus.
They can copy the shape and design but is the optics the same or better. If it is better then many would welcome it.
Lenstip did a full test of the Yongnuo 50 f/1.8. The results were dreadful. One would hope this would better, because it can't be much worse.
First they made 50/1.8 with success. Now 35/2 . I can't wait to see 24-70/2.8 with same image quality at 400-500$
Interesting. I wonder if they're going to copy the 50mm/1,8 mkI next. I'd love to see that lens brought back.
I'd consider it if it was a 1.4. I already own the cheap and excellent 28 mm 2.8 from canon which I got used for 100.
I wonder if they use the same quality glass elements with equivalent coating. I also wonder about their QC.
Well, their flashes are rather amazing and really well build for the price. Solid and superb performance. Check DigitalRev channel, they compared already yongnuo and canon 50mm, in their own way of course :)
Yep I own 4 of the Yonguo 560III flashes with the 603 triggers, awesome units for the price, I think they are still around $70 each. If their lenses are anything like the flashes , this is an interesting alternative.
YN would need to copy an expired Nikon patent. Are any of Nikon's patents expiring this year or recently?
Keep in mind that Canon and Nikon started out copying Leica and Zeiss cameras and lenses. Maybe some of these Chinese companies will be the major innovators in the future. DJI is certainly doing that with multirotors.
I don't expect them to be innovators. I work in China, here's the thing over here (electronics in general): output is really cheap with tiny profit margins, labour is cheap but quality of output is very low so the more automated the better the results for most industries. So they spend as little as possible on R&D in general - often $0, and spend much more time trying to copy something with 70+% of the quality at 40% of the price, which they are really really good at. So you want a tripod that can nearly compete with Gitzo at half the price, you can have it. Lenses, well theres one where quality differences are much more measurable and its a tougher sell.
My parents used to tell me how it started off with "It's crap, probably Made in Japan", which progressed to Taiwan, and now, China.
Indeed! Plenty of complete crap made here, plenty of hi tech factories churning out top quality stuff too - but generally the hi quality stuff is foreign companies producing here, home grown innovation is not as profitable yet as making stuff that sells across the globe
Do photographers who use copied gear have a moral right to prevent copying of their work? I'd say no.
Then no one has copyright for their photos. All camera gear is derived from what came before. The Yongnuo isn't a copy. It is optically similar but not identical, just as most double gauss 50mm lenses are very similar but slightly different.
The founding fathers felt patents should expire because after a while copying is good for all of us.
If two lenses have aspherical elements, and two photos have birch trees in them - neither is necessarily a ripoff. If two lenses are double-gauss designs, and two photos have a pond surrounded by trees - they are likely similar, yet not copies. However, if you take someone's readily shot photo from their memory card, and, after some time passes, start printing it, and selling it under your name – this is ripping off, which metaphorically describes what yungnuo did with this lens.
Why can't some draw a line between improvement on the existing stock - enhancing progress, and embezzlement of others' ideas and achievements - hindering progress? These are completely different in incentives they provide, in effort required, and results they yield! Stop mixing these up!
Drills, hammers, saws, etc... The design is always copied. It doesn't prevent you from building something that is protected by your intellectual property rights.
A company named TeleVue produced in the 80's a telescope eyepiece with an 82 deg. apparent field. Then, a company called Meade Instruments produced its own widefield eyepiece that improved on the TeleVue design by eliminating a blindspot effect. They didn't rip-off TeleVue, as the design of the basic eyepiece existed even before TeleVue refined it. As long as the product doesn't use patented designs and is different, it's allowable.
I bought some old slides at an estate sale from 1950s. Do I have the moral right to reproduce the photos and sell them?
If it's possible to make the exact Canon lens and sell it for $100, then canon have either been lazy in their production costs, or seriously ripping us off for decades with their $600 price. Could be the Chinese low labor cost too but not to make up for 1/5 the price. Ill buy what is best for me though.
EDIT: Correction, they are competing with the non IS version, not as bad a comparison then but still half the price.
It's like a store proclaiming 70% off! Well, if you are making margin at a 70% discount, what the heck were you making when it was at its normal price? Overcharging opens the door faster to competition.
This is silly. So if I use a non-OEM battery or flash I'm giving up my copyrights? As if Canon invented the first 35mm lens.
I don't understand the market for this lens you choose a great brand like Canon or Nikon to enjoy the best optics or flash they produce and then go for a cheapo copy inferior accessory like this? I wouldn't have this for free....
If anything products like this and their 50mm f/1.8 clone will light a fire under Canon (and soon Nikon's) rear so that they realize that they either need to do one of two things:
1. Make sure the products they put out have a large enough performance gap from the copy-cats that it warrants the price premium.
Granted the Canon 50mm f/1.8 II is already cheap and the extra money it costs is probably worth the performance gains it offers over the Yongnuo.
You can sell a ton of these cheap lenses but there's not much money in it because they still need to be assembled and tested. They are helpful in moving bodies when someone on a budget buys a camera but can barely afford a lens.
Canon and Nikon would do well to contract with a company like this (if they don't already) to make the low priced lenses, so they can concentrate on expensive stuff that makes money. Same for cheap flashes.
jukeboxjohnnie: Are you implying that one needs a high quality name brand camera + lens + accessories to produce good results?
Lartigue captured wonderful shots of high speed action and beautiful women with a box brownie over 100 years ago. When he was just 7 years old...
Sure, but if Yongnuo introduced a top-of-the-range 70-200 and charged $2000+ dollars for it then NOONE would buy it. They have to gain a reputation before they can compete in the big money market.
Look at what they've done with flashes. They started small and now there best flashes are easily competitive with Canon/Nikons.
@jukeboxjohnnie - are you kidding me? I'm all over this, definitely going to scoop one up the moment it's listed for sale. I have a hard time believing the Canon version of this and the plastic fantastic 50mm are "the best optics" Canon can produce.
Sounds like a brand insecurity problem. Who cares what brand it is if it works? You don't even know how the lens performs and are already writing it off out of pure fear. If some fly by night Chinese company can reproduce a Canon lens for 1/5th the price then Canon isn't as great as you thought.....
Every major corporation in the world that produces high tech industrial or electronic products is a target of Chinese economic intelligence operations. If you invest and build a factory in China with the hopes of producing cheaper for your own domestic market--you will find a clone of your product on sale in Seattle for half the price--two weeks before your own goods hit the U.S. port of entry. The Japanese know this and Canon is withdrawing operations step by step...back to Japan.
In the past when I've wondered-out-loud why Zeiss doesn't broaden their appeal and usefulness by adding AF into their great lenses, people on here have claimed that adding AF would be too expensive, because of having to reverse engineer the AF system and/or license AF technology. So much for that argument...
Well they did just introduce those two new Batis lenses for the E-mount and they have AF. But I do agree they have a lot of great glass that would be more useful with AF. I think they forgo AF in favor of build quality, feel, and optics.
Adding AF would mean they would have to start making compromises they may not want to. For example the Otus 55mm f/1.4 lens. Its got great glass, is large, and weighs a lot. To put AF in would require design changes and compromises. Keeping the weight the same would mean making other parts lighter which could mean replacing metal with plastic or thinner metal. It would also increase the size. The would run into the same issues keeping the size down as they would with keeping the weight down.
Yongnuo has none of these concerns. They are simply taking an existing product and copying it. They can charge very little for their product because the have no money tied up in R&D or marketing.
With AF, lenses for each mount are really different and each has potential problems. If not now, sooner or later, when a new camera model arrives. With manual focus there's not much going on except changing the lens mount.
I think that's tremendously naive. They forgo AF in favor of pocketing more cash, as they simply aren't good enough at their jobs to incorporate it at even their exorbitant prices. Giving the customer less at a given price-point is the oldest way to make more money. Plus, even acknowledging the need for AF is a functional concern, where they are more reliant on marketing mystique.
No, you can build a lens better, and smaller by eliminating AF. Look at Leica lenses. Fragile motors and electronics do not match machined aluminum parts that make-up a good manual lens, unless that lens is considerably bulkier.
I'll take a "worse" AF lense any day, whatever that means. Photographic moments are fleeting. The additional shots I can pull off with an AF lense more than makes up for the placebo difference in image quality you claim. I couldn't care less about longevity. When the AF motor breaks in 15 years, I'll buy another lense. I buy gear to shoot with, not to pass on to my children. In that 15 years, I'll have produced many more in focus images with my AF lens than you ever will in your MF lens in a life time. I'll also have produced images of a much wider range of subjects, many of which are impractibly difficult to shoot with a MF lens.
BT, I couldn't agree more. I can never understand how people can let the questionable mystique of a MF lens outweigh the manifest benefits of AF.
They have a market and they have a loyal fanbase who pay big for their products. Why should they change that? I'm sure there are some real life compromises involved with that change in design, for the moment they get their sales because their best products are better than the competition. And much as people are keen to dismiss expensive manual focus lenses, have a look around at the top quality photographers posting on the internet, a remarkable number of them are loaded up with Zeiss, manual focus and all. I'll take AF when I can get it, but I want image quality more. This story is a bit different, cloning something - we can't see if they have duplicated the quality or the build yet - is vastly easier and cheaper than designing.
True. But I think it is much easier to objectively judge quality when it comes to cameras and lenses than general electronics, where you honestly don't really know if one product is 'better' or 'worse' than others. You can see the quality, measure it if you want, the build quality is also usually fairly obvious too. And in the modern world, having a luxury branding is just begging for bigger sales as the vast wealth of Asia starts to get spent more and more. I've seen people go into a camera shop and ask for the best camera, walk out with a D810 and an Otus, and probably no clue how to use them.
I'm gonna blame the hipsters. You know, the ones who will gladly pay for the privilege of not having autofocus.
Easy: try fo manually focus in an lens prepared for it like Canon FD 200mm 2.8 and with a lens prepared for using autofocus like Canon EF 200mm 2.8. The manual is a joy for been used in manual.
The whole point of patents is that they offer a protection to the inventor in exchange for the freedom to copy the invention after a certain number of years.
for sure. I would not be surprised if the original EF 32/2.0 was basically an optical copy of the FD lens anyways, as canon quickly revamped alot of their FD primes to EF mount at the beginning of EOS.
Like rrccad said, the patents would have expired. The thing Yongnuo would most likely be violating is "trade dress." I have no idea if Canon has ever tried to sue Yongnuo for trade dress infringement, but their flashes and other lenses also look like exact Canon copies.
Trade dress is only relevant if someone might believe it to be a genuine Canon lens. And, in that case IMHO it is the consumer that is fooled and not Canon. In particular since Canon is not making the lens any more.
all you need is to change the design a little bit, then it become your own design. in this case, they changed the number of blades.
Patents generally last 25 years - shorter in some cases. Given that it is a 1990 lens, and its 2015 now... I'd say Yongnuo jumped on it.
If it is capable of rendering any kind of photographic image, then it already surpasses the abilities of many camera users out there!
As far as I remember, tests showed that their 50mm f1.8 clone performed as well as or even slightly better than the original.
I think performance varied by copy. Some reviews I read showed slightly better other showed slight worse (although I don't think all review may have done micro adjustments in camera).
Grinding precision glass isn't as difficult as it used to be in the old days. With automation costs have come down and quality way up.
Yes, grinding spherical optics can be cheaper today, but don't believe that all of this mass produced stuff is acceptable, some of the cheap stuff is horrifically bad, especially binoculars. Also, China's monopolization and manipulation of rare earths has resulted in price increases in low-dispersion ED type glass.
I bought a copy and tried it,, so from my own experience I formed an opinion,, the only opinion I care about. No, I didn't document the experience for the likes of you. Feel free to pi5s away your hard earned $ on the 35mm to learn the same lesson for yourself.
When tested with my Canon 7D I, the lens searches and can not auto focus when in auto and CA modes. Now the seller is telling me to get a Canon 7D II to test this lens. I am not going to buy a new camera for a $116 lens.