Small Userreview of the Samyang 14 mm / 2.8 IF ED MC Aspherical super wide angle lens with a Canon EOS 5D DSLR - this lens is also named Bower, Walimex, Vivitar, Falcon and Rokinon
''
This is not a 1:1 transaltion of my German page - I am not that good in languages to do that.
Some people in different photo boards asked me to show first pictures and tell my experiences with that cheap new super wide lens.
Many amatuer photographers hope to get with this lens a cheap extreme wideangle lens, with only minor disadvantages in comparison to the expensive Canon EF 14 mm oder Nikon Nikkor 14-24 lenses.
The images above are optimised, some in Silver Efex Pro (plus vignetting), some during the moment of picture taking.
My following test-images - they are shot with a Canon EOS 5D (the old one, not 5D MII) as RAW images. With Rawshooter the images were processed, without sharpening or contrast corrections, if no other is mentioned. These images are linked from the smaller ones you can see here.
left f/ 2.8, right image f/4.0
left f/ 5.6, right image @ 8.0
At last f/11 - these 5 images were shot from a small tripod with mirror pre release
Because some can´t see the resolution and the borders of the images good enough with my first images, here a better one (same lens as the other images):
The tree images bellow are at f/ 2.8 - without image processing to sharpen or contrast optimizing. I like the bokeh of the Samyang wideangle lens. From the few pictures I found in the net taken with the Nikon 14-24mm @ 14 mm and the Canon EF 14/2.8 I and II at open iris and withnear objects I have the impression that the Samyang could have a little bit better bokeh rendering. I like the feasibility to work with f/2.8 in close distance with that lens.
Now images mostly @ 8.0, here you can see the moustache distortion :
On the left side an normal image from the Samyang super wide angle with moustache (Wave) distortion - on the right side the image with PTLens corrected - one can see how little image border area is gone!
The moustache distortion is the main problem of this lens.
With
PTLens one can correct most of the distortion of this extreme wide angle lens, I should test that, one of my pictures was the correction master-image.
For me it seems, that stray light / flares are no special problem of this lens. But I have not tested the Canon EF 14 mm lens, or the Nikkor 14-24 or the old Tamron 14 mm.
My impression is, that the iris steps are not even. When I close the iris from 2.8 to 4.0 I need not twice the time. But that could probably depends on the decreasing of the vignetting. Have to test that further (with a full homogen object, and some test images).
My lens has the problem, that the flange back lenght is not properly adjusted. If I photograph objects in infinite distance the focus scale is on ~ 0.8 meters.
While correcting that by myself I could see, that the mount ring has only three screws which are in plastic - for my impression not very trustworthy.
To the focus scale: The lens has no depth of field scale and no IR index.
I think the later I will add myself for easier infrared photography with that lens.
Here in an German photo board a user write his focus was deadjusted after a 40 cm fall - inside the camera bag.
The three mount screws are screwed into plastic - I don´t think that is ideal for such a big lens.
Here a test image for freelensing with the Samyang superwide: The wasp or bee touches the lens! But it didn´t care.
One of my first Samyang 14 mm freelensing images is the 7. image from the top.
In this image one can see the smooth bokeh very good.
There is no filter usage planned for this lens. Flat filters need some 17 cm diagonal in front of the lens. If one shortens the lens shade, smaller filter should be ok.
I perform at the moment some tests with filters inside the camera mount.
Short test of the Samyang 14 mm / 2.8 ED AS IF UMC Aspherical Super Wide Lens with Canon EOS 350D ExF Infrared-Modified
I bought the Samyang super wide lens as a super wide for my fullframe camera, but it should be useful for the infrared crop-sensor camera too. My infrared camera is a self modification invented EOS 350D with exchangable filtersystem inside. So I have the bright viewfinder, short exposure times, and the possibility to change in two minutes the filter in the camera to react to different situations. I can use up to now the original Canon ir cut filter, two different IR-transmission filters, a red filter, a UV-cut filter which passes infrared and visible light. For these tests I have used the common Hoya R72 filter.
I made some tests of
green grassland in the bright sun, I didn´t see any hotspots from f/2.8 to f/8.0 - I could´t make further iris settings due to a older women who talked with me till the sun went away.
These infrared images (near infrared) are optimized - red-blue channel exchange, Silver Efex Pro, dust removal:
More of my Samyang 14 mm / 2.8 pictures:
Infrared 1, Infrared 2, Infrared 3, Cow, Waterfall 1, Waterfall 2, Devil, Architekture, Coverage of a colorful German folk music festival
Some more informations :
- First more exact informations about the Samyang 35 mm f/1.4 (not 1.2) lens in the Fredmiranda-Forum - first exhibited on the Photokina 2010 and end 2010 available. I proofed this data through a mail to Samyang.pl - they wrote that the try (!) to show samples on the Photokina 2010, but they can not tell a date for the comercial launch.
- Company Samyang -there are no informations about the 14 mm / 2.8 lens up to now
- Foto-Tip.Com with the Samyang Domain and a page for the 14 mm Samyang.
- Some informations at dpreview
- Test of that new version of the Samyang 14 mm lens at Lenstip.com
- Test of the Samyang 14 mm f/2.8 IF ED UMC Aspherical on a full format camera at photozone.de
- Adobe Lens Profile for distortion correction, Thomas Berndt
Some more pictures made with this corrected version of the lens:
- forum.nikoniarze.pl
- canon-board.info - here is another user with false flange back distance - and his repair on page 17
- Here a good repair tip how to correct the focus on the Samyang 14 mm / 2.8, Thomas Berndt