Introduction

Yasuhara has a bit of an illustrous history. Founded in 1998 by a former Kyocera camera engineer, an M39 rangefinder camera has been sold under that brand from 1998 to 2004. The company then disappeared but resurfaced in 2011, now designing lenses. The founder passed away in 2020, so I am not sure if there will be any new products under this brand. Nevertheless, I did get my hands on their Yasuhara Anthy 35mm 1.8 for E-mount, so let’s have a closer look at this somewhat exotic lens.

Sample Images

Most of the sample images in this review can be found in full resolution here.

Specifications

The Yasuhara Anthy 35mm 1.8 has the following specifications:

• • Diameter: 72 mm
  • Field of view: 63° (diagonally)
  • Length: 61 mm
  • Weight: 409g (without hood and caps)
  • Filter Diameter: 52 mm
  • Number of Aperture Blades: 9 (slightly rounded)
  • Elements/Groups: 9/7
  • Close Focusing Distance: 0.29 m
  • Maximum Magnification: 1:5.7 (measured)
  • Mount: Sony E

buy from manufacturer’s shop (use code “PRnet” for 3% discount) | B&H (affiliate links) for $299

Disclosure

I traded in the Meike 50mm 1.2 review sample for this lens.

Handling/Build Quality

This is the first Yasuhara lens I am reviewing and its mechanical design and quality can best be described as crude and also unlike any other lens I have used so far.

The focus ring has a nice resistance and travels ~180° from the minimum focus distance of 0.29 m to infinity. The whole front barrel including hood rotates though, which is a bit odd. The focus ring also rotates in the “wrong” (Nikon) direction.
The filter thread does not rotate though, as it is recessed. This also means that attaching (and especially removing) a filter is rather difficult and when you attach a polarizer it might even get stuck for good. You have been warned.

The aperture ring is located close to the bayonet and features equidistantly spaced full stop click stops. The stops are not very distinct – there isn’t even a real one at the f/1.8 setting so I constantly accidentally changed the setting to f/2.0 – and the aperture ring generally feels cheaply made. Talking about the aperture diaphragm: the arrangement of the aperture blades leaves a lot to be desired, as it closes asymmetrically.

The outer casing does seem to be mostly made of metal and the markings on the lens barrel as well as the hood are engraved and filled with paint. The markings on the front retention ring are only printed though.

The lens does feature a retractable hood that reminds me a lof ot the Brightin Star 50mm 0.95 FE. Already from the picture you can tell that the hood is shiny on the inside, but that is not even the worst part: this hood is the wobbliest and cheapest-feeling retractable hood I ever came across. Obivously it easily extends by itself and also extended it doesn’t like to stay in place. Generally I am a fan of retractable hoods, but definitely not of this one.

The Yasuhara Anthy 35mm 1.8 isn’t a huge lens, but compared to the Sony FE 35mm 1.8, Samyang 35mm 1.8 AF, Sigma 35mm 2.0 C DG DN, Voigtländer 35mm 1.2 SE Nokton and especially the Pergear 35mm 1.4 it is way too big and heavy – mainly thanks to its odd mechanical design.

Vignetting

Light falloff

The vignetting figures are average to low for a lens with these parameters. They are pretty much the same as those of the 7Artisans 35mm 2.0 WEN. The Voigtländer 35mm 2.0 Apo-Lanthar E actually vignettes more at its maximum aperture but slightly less stopped down.

It is recommended to have a look at this article first to get an idea how this brightness graph works.

Optical vignetting

Fast lenses usually show a significant amount of optical vignetting. Without going too much into technical details optical vignetting leads to the truncation of light circles towards the borders of the frame.
In the center of the frame almost every lens will render a perfect circle, but only lenses with very low optical vignetting will keep this shape in the corners.
So in the following comparison we move from the center (left) to the extreme corner (right) and see how the shape of the light circle changes.

The amount of optical vignetting is also average for a lens with these parameters. The points of light take on rather unusual shapes in the corners though.

Already at f/2.8 we also see the irregular shape of the light circles caused by the dodgy aperture diaphragm.

Sharpness

Focus Shift

With some lenses the point of optimal focus shifts on stopping down, this is also the case for this Yasuhara 35mm 1.8 lens. The depth of field merely extends to the back and this also hurts the performance at focus point so it is a good idea to use this lens at working aperture.

The Pergear 35mm 1.4 is doing even worse though.

infinity (42mp Sony A7rII)

The center looks decent from f/1.8, but already the midframe demands stopping down to f/5.6, better f/8.0, for decent performance and for the corners it is a good idea to stop down to f/11.

Here the Pergear 35mm 1.4 performs worse, as its midframe areas never look great. The 7Artisans 35mm 2.0 WEN M performs way better though, as it already shows a great across frame performance from f/5.6.

portrait distance 1.0 m (42mp Sony A7rII)

I refocused for every shot and aperture to get the best possible result at different locations in the frame (center, inner midframe and outer midframe).
The circle of the dollar bill is more or less the size of a human eye.

f/1.8 <—> f/2.8

At portrait distances the sharpness is pretty good actually. In the outer midframe it is a bit softer at f/1.8, but definitely usable.

Here the performance is noticeably better than what the Pergear 35mm 1.4 has to offer. The 7Artisans 35mm 2.0 WEN might actually be more contrasty though.

close 0.29 m, 1:5.7 (42mp Sony A7rII)

A minimum focus distance of 0.29 m is generous for a 35mm lens. The performance is typical for a unit focus lens: soft at wider apertures but very nice stopped down by about two stops.

The Pergear 35mm 1.4 shows a very similar performance at shared apertures.

Flare resistance

Evaluating flare can be a complex matter, but here it isn’t, because this Yasuhara Anthy 35mm 1.8 is simply showing a bad performance.

No matter where in the frame a strong light source is located, you will catch all kinds of ghosts and also the contrast takes a great hit.

With the light source outside the frame the situation isn’t really any better, veiling flare definitely has the potential to ruin your pictures:

This is not a performance worthy of a modern lens, it rather reminds me of lenses from 50 to 60 years ago.

Coma

The coma correction of the Yasuhara 35mm 1.8 isn’t particularly great, but also not awful. The Pergear 35mm 1.4 shows a similar performance at shared apertures. If you are looking for a moderately fast 35mm lens with a really good coma correction, check out the Voigtländer 35mm 2.0 Apo-Lanthar E.

Distortion

The manufacturer claims that this 35mm 1.8 is practically distortion free and over most of the frame this is the case, but straight lines close to the edges of the frame are actually not perfectly straight.

I don’t think there will ever be a distortion correction profile for this lens included in Lightroom, so if you want to use this lens for architecture pictures you may have to create a correction profile yourself.

Bokeh

The short minimum focus distance surely helps here, as it allows for some very interesting close-ups with really nice bokeh. Cat’s eyes are actually also well behaved, we have seen significantly worse in the world of 35mm fullframe lenses.

Also at mid distances this lens draws a nice and undistracting bokeh. It handles the transition from the plane in focus to the out of focus background and also the structured background in the picture with the Vespa surprisingly well:

At longer distances the Yasuhara is still doing a good job, but for creating a shallow depth of field with objects as big as a car I would rather use either a faster 35mm lens or a longer lens.

The bokeh rendering of this Yasuhara 35mm 1.8 reminds me a bit of the 7Artisans 35mm 2.0 WEN. Both these lenses create a smooth and undistracting bokeh. The Pergear 35mm 1.4 but also the Zeiss Loxia 35mm 2.0 and the Voigtländer 35mm 2.0 Apo-Lanthar E create a significantly busier bokeh.

Sunstars

After I had a look at the aperture diaphragm with its badly aligned aperture blades, I thought there won’t be any sunstars at all. Interestingly they do in fact look quite okay at f/11 and f/16.
If you want to know more about sunstars have a look at this article.

Chromatic aberration

lateral

Lateral CA are reasonably well corrected. Only small traces are visible and you can easily get rid of these in Lightroom or CameraRaw by just one click.

longitudinal

In this category the Yasuhara 35mm 1.8 performs surprisingly well. There is only minimal outlining in the out of focus areas visible and purple fringing is also hardly an issue.

Conclusion

Some people may not even be aware how difficult it was to find an actually decent 35mm lens in the early years of the Sony FE system. Had this Yasuhara Anthy 35mm 1.8 been available in 2013, I would have definitely been interested in it. Sharpness is good enough, it features pretty nice bokeh for a 35mm 1.8 lens and even a generous minimum focus distance.

Sadly for this lens, it is 2023 now. And nowadays we have a lot of nice 35mm lenses to choose from, just have a look at our 35mm guide. The real issue I have here is, that for the asking price of roughly 300 bucks the build quality is simply too bad. If I pay that kind of money, I expect better than that wobbly reflective hood, the dodgy aperture diaphragm and that cheap, annoying aperture ring. And the flare resistance, it is also really bad.

The Pergear 35mm 1.4 for example is not as sharp, but faster, much smaller and only about half the weight and less than half the price. So if you are on a budget, this is an easier recommendation.

If you enjoy a well made manual focus lens the 7Artisans 35mm 2.0 WEN comes to mind: couple it with a close focus adapter and there is hardly an area where it performs worse than this lens.

For a little more money (or maybe even the same if you find a good deal) you can even buy a Samyang 35mm 1.8 with AF.

So at the end of the day, not everything is bad here, I actually really liked the bokeh from this lens, but the same is true for the Pergear as well as the 7Artisans and in my opinion those are simply more desirable and/or fun to use lenses.

buy from manufacturer’s shop (use code “PRnet” for 3% discount) | B&H (affiliate links) for $299

Alternatives

I will only talk about the most obvious alternatives here, you can find many more in our 35mm guide.

Pergear 35mm 1.4:
The Pergear 35mm 1.4 was a big surprise to me, as it performed way better than I had expected at this price point. It is not the sharpest lens and the bokeh is not the smoothest, but in both categories it performs good enough and thanks to its small size and low weight it is a great addition (especially to a slower zoom lens) that won’t weigh you down when it found its way into your bag.
buy from amazon.com | amazon.de | ebay.com | ebay.de (affiliate links) for $129

7Artisans 35mm 2.0 WEN M:
This 7Artisans lens actually draws a similar bokeh, but it is noticeably sharper at infinity and the build quality is way nicer. The main disadvantage compared to this Yasuhara lens is its 0.7 m minimum focus distance, but on a Sony camera this can be fixed with the help of a close focus adapter.
buy from manufacturer’s homepage | B&H | ebay.com | ebay.de (affiliate links) for $238

Sample Images

Most of the sample images in this review can be found in full resolution here.

Further Reading

• All Lens Reviews
• Lens aberrations explained
• Review: Laowa 35mm 0.95 Argus
• Review: Voigtländer VM 40mm 1.4 Nokton
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BastianK

My name is Bastian and I am your expert here when it comes to ultra wide angle lenses, super fast portrait lenses (ranging from a 50mm f/0.95 to a 200mm f/1.8) and I also have reviewed way too many 35mm lenses. Don't ask me anything about macro or wildlife shooting though.

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