Samyang 14mm f2.8?

Hi, I've tried two Samyang lenses, the 35mm & 14mm both Nikon fit. The 35mm was very good but not up to Nikon standard.

The 14mm was not very good at all, it had a huge amount of distortion and vignetting and I found it to be not very sharp. The optimum aperture appeared to be F11 which was quite reasonable sharpness wise but still did not have the bite of Nikon optics. Hope this helps.
 
chrism_scotland said:
Folks, I've been reading up on wide angle primes and the Samyang 14mm keeps getting mentioned a lot, albeit its Manual Focus only but I'm not sure that bothers so much on a UWA.

Is there anyone using the lens? Is it really as good as many of the reviews say?
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It's nice for full frame where 14mm would otherwise cost an arm and a leg... For DX why don't you pick up Tokina 11-16, and have the filter thread and all the other benefits.
For FX it does have a unique selling point. I call it the bathroom lens (guess why), but it also comes very useful shooting stars, aurora, or just something too wide.

G.K.Jnr. said:
Hi, I've tried two Samyang lenses, the 35mm & 14mm both Nikon fit. The 35mm was very good but not up to Nikon standard.

The 14mm was not very good at all, it had a huge amount of distortion and vignetting and I found it to be not very sharp. The optimum aperture appeared to be F11 which was quite reasonable sharpness wise but still did not have the bite of Nikon optics. Hope this helps.
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My experience couldn't have been different. For sharpness it totally destroys the inferior canon 17-40, and rivals the best part of 24-70mm. That's good for 14mm UWA.

Distortion and vignetting - yes, loads, until you download lightroom profile, and have photos corrected to perfection in just a couple clicks.

I think you had serious issues using the lens. Your focussing must have been way off. It is true that you may have recallibrate the lens yourself, but it's easy to do and works a treat.
Just lift the rubber focusing strip, remove selotape, focus lens to infinity via LV, readjust the scale, apply new selotape, and job done.
 
daugirdas said:
Distortion and vignetting - yes, loads, until you download lightroom profile, and have photos corrected to perfection in just a couple clicks.

I think you had serious issues using the lens. Your focussing must have been way off. It is true that you may have recallibrate the lens yourself, but it's easy to do and works a treat.
Just lift the rubber focusing strip, remove selotape, focus lens to infinity via LV, readjust the scale, apply new selotape, and job done.
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Hi, Thanks for your reply much appreciated, but I did do everything you suggest and in my opinion the 14mm lens has nowhere near the optical quality of the Nikon lenses. I cannot comment of course on the Canon lenses as I am not a Canon user.
 
G.K.Jnr. said:
Hi, Thanks for your reply much appreciated, but I did do everything you suggest and in my opinion the 14mm lens has nowhere near the optical quality of the Nikon lenses. I cannot comment of course on the Canon lenses as I am not a Canon user.
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Interesting... I'll link a large JPEG later on for everyone

Once mine got adjusted it is right up there with 50/1.4 for the sharpness.
Unless yours was a bad copy
 
My Samyang 14/2.8 is pin sharp right from f/2.8, and I'm a pixel peeper ;)

Thh distortion can get a bit tasty but sharpness is deffo not an issue with my copy. Will post up some 100% crops if you want to see them.

Some samples on my full frame 5D:


Statue of Liberty by <<BackToTheFuture>>, on Flickr


Walking to work by <<BackToTheFuture>>, on Flickr


Vegas at night (6) by <<BackToTheFuture>>, on Flickr


Monorail entrance by <<BackToTheFuture>>, on Flickr
 
Ive just got one, and so far am quite happy with it. Build quality is reasonably good apart from the built in petal lens hood, which is really cheap looking. On full frame it is super wide, and yes there is some distortion, but download a LR profile and its gone in a click!

Manual focus is no problem, at f11 virtually everything is in focus anyway!
 
matty D said:
Ive just got one, and so far am quite happy with it. Build quality is reasonably good apart from the built in petal lens hood, which is really cheap looking. On full frame it is super wide, and yes there is some distortion, but download a LR profile and its gone in a click!

Manual focus is no problem, at f11 virtually everything is in focus anyway!
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I did see your London shots on Flickr with the 14mm. Very good!
 
I actually strongly prefer manual focus in this range. MF gives me better control.

It is easier to focus on hyperfocal distance with ultra-wide lenses.

With 14mm lens at f/5.6 you have pretty much everything in focus between 60cm and infinity. So focusing basically means turning the focus ring somewhere to the middle and shooting. You only need to thing about focusing when taking pictures with close foreground subjects. And that's much faster and easy manually than relying on slow and error-prone AF thinking about focus points, focus patterns, etc.

I highly recommend Samyang 14mm. It is underrated lens and the image quality is very close to 14-24/2.8.
 
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matty D said:
Thanks! But the London shots are older ones from last year. I think they were probably shot with a sigma 10-20 on a D7000.
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Doh! I realised after I posted that, I came across some very very similar London shots by someone else on Flickr with the 14mm..... does look very impressive though!
 
Well I managed to get a play with a Samyang 14mm, not really used to manual focus and its a much larger lens than I imagined!

The few shots that appear in focus are very sharp though, seems a good lens but I'm not sure its a keeper.

Is there a way to have confirmation of when its focused on my D7000?
 
chrism_scotland said:
Well I managed to get a play with a Samyang 14mm, not really used to manual focus and its a much larger lens than I imagined!

The few shots that appear in focus are very sharp though, seems a good lens but I'm not sure its a keeper.

Is there a way to have confirmation of when its focused on my D7000?
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You should be able to see in the view finder, at the bottom left IIRC there is a focus conformation thing. If you see a circle its focused, or an arrow means your either behind or in front of focus
 
chrism_scotland said:
This lens is very sharp! Just wish I could use filters on it!
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which is why Tokina is better for you for only very slightly more :rules: (until you buy full frame)
 
Chris,

Regards the Samyang 14mm f/2.8 lens, I've owned one for about a year, I used it on a full-frame 5D MkI body, good results ok, but for me it was too wide on full frame, I think something like a; 20mm -21mm - 24mm is wide enough on full-frame etc, but it's a personal thing.

I've been using a Samyang 35mm f/1.4 for 18 months now and like it a lot!

Here's a few Samyang 14mm shots;


Wide angle building by Peter McCullough Photography, on Flickr





The haunted house by Peter McCullough Photography, on Flickr
 
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Well I've sorted out (just about) the rest of my lens lineup, I've been buying lenses with a full frame upgrade in mind which currently has me with a 20 f2.8, 24 f2.8 and a 35 f1.8 (will upgrade to a 35 f2 for FX).

I also have the 85 f1.8 but I'm not really using it so will sell it for now, I'm going to buy the Tokina 11-16 as yeah the filter thing is going to be important and good as the 14mm is I also think it might be too "wide" for full frame with the 20 and 24 being a better bet there.
 
I agree that the 14mm is very wide on full-frame. However, I don't agree that it is too wide. Every millimetre at short end counts and enables me to stay closer to the subject, increase perspective by suppressing background and maximize the dramatic effect of the ultra-wide picture.

Ultra-wide lens is a specialized tool, it doesn't work for every picture, but when it makes sense to use it, you want to be as wide as possible.

When I was shooting DX, I had Tokina 11-16mm. Looking at Aperture statistics from these days, it was 80% at 11mm, 15% at 16mm (perhaps situations when I was too lazy to change the lens). I had no desire to shoot at 12-15mm.

If you are on DX, get the lens that starts at 11mm or 10mm. For FX, you want to be below 16mm to get the effect. And use it for composing ultra-wide pictures only. 20-24mm lenses (particularly the 24 1/.4G) work as well for some scenes, like environmental portraits or landscapes, but you'll get different pictures than with an ultra-wide.
 
I've managed to get hold of a 14mm to use for the weekend from a friend so will see how I get on.
I've got some filters coming as well (Hitech) that I can use with my 20 and 24 so will see what I think.

Buying a used 14mm would be a lot cheaper than sourcing an 11-16 and it could be that the lack of filters doesn't overly bother me too much!
 
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