It’s a rather unconventional marketing decision from a company to announce their announcement schedule, but then Samyang aren’t exactly an ordinary lens manufacturer.
The Korean company just posted an official teaser that looks like a budget Transformersposter, although it could be a symbolic recreation of how Samyang are going to take over the world with five elemental lenses. The poster even comes replete with similar Hollywood taglines, which would be amusing with even the most mindblowing camera lens.
Samyang are calling it the “Five Samyang Blockbuster Series”, and are planning to release five new lenses over the next five weeks. Starting July 18th, every Monday will see a new Samyang lens.
What really matters is whether or not these lenses will be autofocus or not. For many years Samyang have established a decent reputation for themselves by making excellent and affordable wide angle lenses under a variety of brands such as Rokinon and Bower. But previously all those primes were manual focus. It was only recently that Samyang announced they would start making autofocus lenses for Sony E. While there’s nothing wrong with manual focus per se, autofocus would bring them into the wider market of most contemporary consumers.
It would see them enter a crowded, but potentially lucrative market where they’ll vy with Tokina, Sigma, Tamron, and plenty of new Chinese upstarts for attention. If Samyang’s five new lenses are cheap and fast primes with autofocus capability, then perhaps they’ll truly live up to the poster’s billing of “summer blockbuster.”
Source: Bokeh
