Samyang 14mm F2.8 ED AS IF UMC Wide Angle AE Lens

Badger8

Badger8

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Tim
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Good Morning Everyone,

I hope you all had a good Christmas?

Right, I'm looking at investing in a new lens, a lens that I can use for Landscape and Astro photography. The lens that I always seem to stumble upon is, the Samyang 14mm. The pros I can see to this lens is obviously the price. But the cons are that you can't fit a filter to it. So, my question is, has anyone got this lens? Would they recommend it? If you could go back in time, would you have purchased a different lens?

Tim
 
I have the lens and although I have only used once so far for astro, I do like the lens.

You can get filters for it, Cokin bought out some for it and Samyang were giving the filter holder for free at one point.
 
Yeah, its fine for an odd rainbow or milky way shot. Sharpness is great and you can blend exposures instead of filters. But then it is hopelessly too wide for most normal landscape subjects. I last used mine in august, once.
 
Good lens for the price, I bought one and use it and most issues I can fix in post processing. Tend to use it more for the night sky or interiors of ruins or castles where space is tight rather than landscapes though.
 
Badger8 said:
Thank you. I'm really confused with what to do. I think I'm going to have to buy a night lens and landscape lens.

Any advise on a landscape lens?
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Is your camera Nikon D3100 as it says on your profile? If so, how about a Tokina 11-16 f/2.8 - it'll be wider than the 14mm, same speed (which is constant through the range), has AF and most importantly a 77mm front filter ring so you can use filters. The Tokina could do both night and landscape work.

I had one on my D300s and it was excellent!
 
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The samyang keeps popping up on Amazon Lightning deals. Not sure of the price compared to other places, but might be worth a look.
 
Samyang 14mm is a bloody good lens for its price, centre sharpness is exceptional however the corner suffers. But this is the same with Canon 14mm f/2.8L II ... build quality is OK'ish and the QC is varied from batch lenses I guess. Some people had been selling and buying a few just to get the perfect lens. It is a challenging lens to use but I have been using it quite a bit and I enjoyed very much. Have a look at my flickr page on Landscape section there are a few taken with that lens.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/robinsslee/sets/72157648886837888/
 
I can't recommend the Samyang enough. Solid metal design, hard infinity stop.

It has perfect optics modern coatings, full of exotic glass, aspherical elements, etc. For its price it is a bargain. Nikkor 14/2.8D can't hold a candle to it. The only real alternative is Carl Zeiss 15mm that costs 8x as much.

There are a few negatives though. Distortion is difficult to correct so it is not the best choice for architecture, vignetting is huge (3+ stops). Doesn't take filters and very prone to flares.
 
robinsslee said:
Samyang 14mm is a bloody good lens for its price, centre sharpness is exceptional however the corner suffers.
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Your copy may need focusing adjusted. Corners should be absolutely spot on, however the focusing rings are assembled by monkeys or cats and infinity might mean 0.5m or the other way round.
 
robinsslee said:
Hi can you show me samples of center to corner sharpness? How do you do focusing adjustment anyway?
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Lift up the rubber focus ring, remove selotape holding everything together, find correct infinity focus using live view, reapply selotape, slide back the ring, enjoy. I bet you'll never call that thing solid and well built, but at least it works well. I don't know if the upgraded their manufacturing recently, but I doubt it at that price.

P.S. Edges match centre fairly closely until you go to the very corners; or simply put 17-40L looked completely hopeless in comparison.
 
daugirdas said:
Yeah, its fine for an odd rainbow or milky way shot. Sharpness is great and you can blend exposures instead of filters. But then it is hopelessly too wide for most normal landscape subjects. I last used mine in august, once.
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Not often I agree with you, but on this occasion I think your spot on. Loved mine for the northern lights found it far to wide for general landscapes.

OP if your on a crop body don't touch the 14mm get the 11-18mm f2.8 recommended easier great for astro and landscape. The Samyang only really makes sense as a cheap ultra wide on a full frame camera.
 
Cheers Jeremy, I am pretty confident in my technical however I do not possessed the tools I required to do the adjustment. Moreover hyperfocal distance will mostly covered my needs (y)

daugirdas said:
Lift up the rubber focus ring, remove selotape holding everything together, find correct infinity focus using live view, reapply selotape, slide back the ring, enjoy. I bet you'll never call that thing solid and well built, but at least it works well. I don't know if the upgraded their manufacturing recently, but I doubt it at that price.

P.S. Edges match centre fairly closely until you go to the very corners; or simply put 17-40L looked completely hopeless in comparison.
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robinsslee said:
Cheers Jeremy, I am pretty confident in my technical however I do not possessed the tools I required to do the adjustment. Moreover hyperfocal distance will mostly covered my needs (y)
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The hyper focal distance may well not be where you think it is either, the distance scales on these can be all over the place I set mine so it looked right in live view and in shots on screen then taped the focus ring in place for my trip to iceland!
 
I have one, brilliant on my 5dmk3. I'll post up pics later. It is soft at edge, distortion isn't a problem if you use Lightroom, there's a profile for it (although it's listed under Nikon) that works well.
I bought mine new at focus for £265, they are a little more now but it's a great versatile lens. Depth of field is brilliant for street photography.
 
a1ex2001 said:
The hyper focal distance may well not be where you think it is either, the distance scales on these can be all over the place I set mine so it looked right in live view and in shots on screen then taped the focus ring in place for my trip to iceland!
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Hi Alex, it is actually pretty easy to find the hyperfocal distance using live view and DOF button :)
 
stumeech said:
Is your camera Nikon D3100 as it says on your profile? If so, how about a Tokina 11-16 f/2.8 - it'll be wider than the 14mm, same speed (which is constant through the range), has AF and most importantly a 77mm front filter ring so you can use filters. The Tokina could do both night and landscape work.

I had one on my D300s and it was excellent!
Click to expand...

Thanks for this. I've actually upgraded to the D7100 now. I'm slowly making my way up the range ;)
 
Badger8 said:
Thanks for this. I've actually upgraded to the D7100 now. I'm slowly making my way up the range ;)
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Crop sensor get the 11-18mm wider plus it has a more versatile range for classic landscapes, af and better build if I'd been on a crop I'd have had one and probably kept it!
 
I've got be purely for night photography. Think its good value for money. But as posted above infinity focus can be anywhere. Mine is at 3 metres. Once I worked that out it was a far better lens
 
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