We Review the Thypoch Simera 28mm f/1.4 Lens

Thypoch recently released the Simera 28mm f/1.4 lens in native Sony E-mount. Let’s see if it's worth buying.

To kick things off, I’m fairly new to the manual focus lens world, but after diving into adding the Sony a7C R to my bag as a sort of everyday carry camera, having a lens that’s a bit more nuanced in its handling has become of interest to me. And because my camera has a bit more of a vintage vibe with its color scheme, the aesthetics of a vintage-style manual lens like the Thypoch Simera 28mm f/1.4 don't hurt either. 

Right off the bat, when I got this lens in the mail, I was pleasantly surprised with the build. This lens has a bit of weight to it with its all-metal design. Add in the metal lens hood as well as a metal front and rear cap, and this is far from my lightest lens option. That said, my Sony a7C R still feels very balanced and even with its sturdy weight, the camera is not front-heavy at all and will even sit on a table correctly without tipping forward like some of my other lenses. This means in hand, you won't have to deal with that awkward torquing sensation on your wrist when using it for long periods of time. Which is something you absolutely want with an everyday carry type of camera.

When it comes to the accessories, I was glad to see that Thypoch did not skimp on what was included. Not only do you get an all-metal front and rear cap, but you also get an all-metal lens hood as well as a secondary metal lens cap designed for use with the lens hood. So if you find that you want to always use the lens hood, you still have the ability to use the square lens cap without having to constantly take the hood on and off. Likewise, if you never want to use the lens hood, you still have a traditional round lens cap to use with the lens.

This attention to detail translates over to the overall design of the lens as well. One thing I love is that rather than having the traditional hyperfocal scale, there are small circular windows that represent the scale. As you select an aperture of f/1.4, only the first of these windows shows as red. As you adjust the aperture, and in turn increase the scale, more of these windows show red. This visual representation is a fun little design element that I have not seen in a lens before.

From here, I also really enjoy their implementation of the aperture de-clicking switch. Rather than having a bulky on-off switch like most lenses, this switch is built into the aperture ring in a way that if you didn't know it was there, you could totally miss its presence. But this minimalist design element is still very easy to use and though it's on the aperture ring, I never once have accidentally hit the switch or had it change unexpectedly.

Aside from the aperture ring, the only other moving element of this lens is the focus ring. Since this is a full manual focus lens, this ring is arguably one of the more important features. Thankfully, this ring is, in my opinion, dampened perfectly. It's not too tight and not too loose. The focus lever is also well-placed and the throw of the ring is almost perfect. I can easily go from its closest focus to infinity with very little hand movement. Only when focusing to infinity do I have to sort of stretch my hand out a bit to get the full rotation. That said, if you have smaller hands, you may not be able to go from close focus to infinity with one clean motion when using the focus lever. That said, focusing the lens in a more traditional way is still easy, though a bit awkward since the finger lever cannot be removed. But I personally prefer the finger lever and enjoy its overall design and use.

Aside from build and handling, I don’t particularly enjoy spending a ton of time diving into the nitty gritty of optical performance. But I realize this is an important factor for some people. Especially if you are looking for a lens that can be used wide open while maintaining corner-to-corner sharpness. If that's you, then this lens probably isn't for you. When set to f/1.4, this lens is pretty soft on the corners and does have a fair amount of vignetting. The vignette gets under control fairly well once you stop down to f/2 and the corner sharpness, for me, is good at around f/5.6. As for distortion, again, I'm not particular about this unless it's noticeably bad. The results I see are good for me and what I photograph. But you can see the sample images here and decide for yourself in that regard. But even so, I feel like where the lens stands, the distortion is minimal enough to be handled easily in post-production.

Before I end this review, I’d be remiss if I didn't state the obvious. This lens is easily comparable to something like a Leica 28mm Summilux in terms of its vintage styling, focal length, and minimum aperture. But this lens costs a mere 10% of what you would pay for the Leica counterpart. And while I can't speak to the build and optical quality of the Leica, I find it very hard to believe, with how good the Thypoch lens is, that the Leica is worth spending more than $7,000 extra for. Add in that this lens can be had in both Leica M-mount and Sony E-mount which opens the door to a lot more photographers. And with such a price gap, you could potentially want to use the word cheap when describing this lens. But with its amazing build quality and performance, this lens is far from cheap. Instead, if you are at all interested in a manual focus lens in this focal length, the Thypoch Simera 28mm f1.4 lens is a bargain not to be missed. My only wish is that the Sony version of this lens also came in silver (like the M-mount version) instead of only black.