Rokinon 14mm f/2.8

[joshmurrah]

I dug through the forums here, and I didn't see a dedicated thread (there was some good info in the 12-24mm thread tho).

I'm looking into this lens mostly for astrophotography, so I can shoot a wide view of night skies, milky way mostly.

I tried this out with my 24-105 for the meteor shower last weekend, and found that I need something faster, and something wider, so the Rokinon seems to satisfy both of these needs.

I have two big questions:

1) does anyone have any experience shooting at infinity @ f/2.8 with this lens, does it have a fairly flat field of focus?
2) Has anyone had experiencing correcting the strong distortion in ACR 7? Is there a profile for a FF camera plus this lens in it that works well?

And of course, any general opinions about this lens would be great.

Thanks in advance!!

 

[extremeinstability]

Number 2 first, I found one I believe in here: http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/extend.displayTab2.html#resources In the profile downloader area. There was just one for the lens. In the profile list I think it was listed as canon and not samyang/rokinon/etc. Works great to remove the crazy distortion. There so much resolution everything is still highly sharp after the correction.

I haven't tried the Milky Way yet as the real good parts aren't high up now. I wonder how well it will work as there is a lot of vignetting and light loss at F2.8. May not matter given the brighter parts of the Milky Way get put in the middle. It just has a way of not feeling like F2.8 I guess.

Edge to edge is pretty sharp at F2.8 infinity. It doesn't seem you even gain much more sharpness by stopping down than from where it starts at. But I haven't used this lens all that much yet. And my new/used 5D II also has a flange to sensor plane difference that needs fixed, but even on that it's good to go.

 

[Brand B]

I bought one a couple of weeks ago and shot some various test shots with it (5DIII) prior to leaving on a trip, and got pretty good sharpness, but I concentrated on F5.6. Have not had a chance to do much with it at 2.8. I shot some night shots, but there is so much light pollution where I live they were't worth keeping, not a hint of the Milky Way.

I bought PTLens and am correcting the distortion externally that way, but I use Aperture. It has a plugin for LR and PS, but not for ACR. It does correct the distortion quite well though.

I hope to do some shooting with it this weekend, and will post more conclusions.

 

[tron]

Number 2 first, I found one I believe in here: http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/extend.displayTab2.html#resources In the profile downloader area. There was just one for the lens. In the profile list I think it was listed as canon and not samyang/rokinon/etc. Works great to remove the crazy distortion. There so much resolution everything is still highly sharp after the correction.

I haven't tried the Milky Way yet as the real good parts aren't high up now. I wonder how well it will work as there is a lot of vignetting and light loss at F2.8. May not matter given the brighter parts of the Milky Way get put in the middle. It just has a way of not feeling like F2.8 I guess.

Edge to edge is pretty sharp at F2.8 infinity. It doesn't seem you even gain much more sharpness by stopping down than from where it starts at. But I haven't used this lens all that much yet. And my new/used 5D II also has a flange to sensor plane difference that needs fixed, but even on that it's good to go.

Can you please get a picture of the night sky with the lens fully open and see how the stars show at the corners? If the lens has coma (which even Canon L lenses have fully open) they will look like ... seagulls!

 

[Brand B]

FYI, price drop to $359 at B&H for this lens:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?sub=cpw&is=REG&Q=&A=details&O=productlist&sku=769532

 

[joshmurrah]

Price is the same at amazon (I imagine one of these two is matching the other).

 

[extremeinstability]

Can you please get a picture of the night sky with the lens fully open and see how the stars show at the corners? If the lens has coma (which even Canon L lenses have fully open) they will look like ... seagulls!

I can but I have to be motivated enough to drag it out after dark lol. I should have tested it for that before when I was testing all the other lenses. I think I can chalk that up to not counting on this to be much of a night sky lens due to all the light fall off/vignetting. I suspect there's enough vignetting at f2.8 with this lens that it will be hard to get bad coma issues with stars. But now I am curious what the distortion would do to a star trail lol. Anyway, I just kinda doubt the issue will be coma on a night sky with it F2.8 and as much vignetting as there is there(it's more than the 14L II...which also has winged stars/coma I guess). I have to send my 5D II in to fix the mount to sensor plane issue, which might happen today, so it'd likely be after that returns.

 

[tron]

Can you please get a picture of the night sky with the lens fully open and see how the stars show at the corners? If the lens has coma (which even Canon L lenses have fully open) they will look like ... seagulls!

I can but I have to be motivated enough to drag it out after dark lol. I should have tested it for that before when I was testing all the other lenses. I think I can chalk that up to not counting on this to be much of a night sky lens due to all the light fall off/vignetting. I suspect there's enough vignetting at f2.8 with this lens that it will be hard to get bad coma issues with stars. But now I am curious what the distortion would do to a star trail lol. Anyway, I just kinda doubt the issue will be coma on a night sky with it F2.8 and as much vignetting as there is there(it's more than the 14L II...which also has winged stars/coma I guess). I have to send my 5D II in to fix the mount to sensor plane issue, which might happen today, so it'd likely be after that returns.

Thanks anyway! Even the vignetting information is useful. Unfortunately there is no such thing as a "free lunch". I' ll check vignetting in photozone.de and the-digital-picture.com

 

[cayenne]

FYI, price drop to $359 at B&H for this lens:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?sub=cpw&is=REG&Q=&A=details&O=productlist&sku=769532

Aside from the obvious price difference..how does this lens stack up to the Cannon 14MM?

http://www.amazon.com/Canon-Ultra-Wide-Angle-Digital-Cameras/dp/B000V5P94Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1351707415&sr=8-1&keywords=canon+14mm

The description for the cannon says it is "corrected for rectilinear distortion"....is the other lens?

Can someone give me a good definition (noob level) for what rectilinear distortion is? I'm guessing that is something to do with correcting fish eye lens looks?

Anyway, can someone compare on these? I was looking at the Canon...to mess with, but if this cheaper one is in the ballpark, might be a quicker way to play with a very ultra-wide lens...

I'd also seen some non-cannon, I think a Samyang (sp?) what was a 8mm?

cayenne

 

[Drizzt321]

FYI, price drop to $359 at B&H for this lens:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?sub=cpw&is=REG&Q=&A=details&O=productlist&sku=769532

Holy crap that's tempting right now. Just got a couple of vintage m42 lenses off of ebay...so I'm going to avoid spending more money on lenses, even one this inexpensive.

 

[risc32]

I'm almost in the same boat as the OP, so i'd also like to hear what you guys have to say. I read a review somewhere, "lenstip?" that showed very little coma wide open. well below what my personal threshold would be for coma. the other option is to get an "astrotrac", for a bit more money, then shoot away at nearly any f stop i want, but then it changes things once you start having your camera moving on even longer exposures.. ay well....

 

[tron]

I'm almost in the same boat as the OP, so i'd also like to hear what you guys have to say. I read a review somewhere, "lenstip?" that showed very little coma wide open. well below what my personal threshold would be for coma. the other option is to get an "astrotrac", for a bit more money, then shoot away at nearly any f stop i want, but then it changes things once you start having your camera moving on even longer exposures.. ay well....

I do have Astrotrac and I was able to take some nice wide field pictures of the sky. The problem is with Landscape Astrophotography where the camera has to be steady on a tripod. In addition I read many reviews where the buyers had exchanged their copies a lot until the got a good one (the main problem was decentering).

 

[Brand B]

The description for the cannon says it is "corrected for rectilinear distortion"....is the other lens?

The Rokinon is not. However, PT lens, the correction utility, fixes the images quite well.

 

[Axilrod]

I've heard nothing but great things about this lens and have considered ditching my 14L II for it. I think the Rokinon is just as good in pretty much every aspect aside from distortion. Pretty amazing that they can pump out such quality products for reasonable prices.

 

[Drizzt321]

I've heard nothing but great things about this lens and have considered ditching my 14L II for it. I think the Rokinon is just as good in pretty much every aspect aside from distortion. Pretty amazing that they can pump out such quality products for reasonable prices.

Except, of course, for the weird and difficult to correct distortion But I agree, it's fantastic they can deliver such great performance at such a price.

Now, the things we're lacking, is amazing build quality, and....I guess that's about it aside from the crazy distortion.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

I dug through the forums here, and I didn't see a dedicated thread (there was some good info in the 12-24mm thread tho).

You did not find anything, because Rokinon does not make lenses, they rebrand other makes. Search for Samyang.

 

[Standard]

I dug through the forums here, and I didn't see a dedicated thread (there was some good info in the 12-24mm thread tho).

You did not find anything, because Rokinon does not make lenses, they rebrand other makes. Search for Samyang.

That's absolutely right. Samyang lenses are also sold under other brand names such as Rokinon, Bower, Pro-Optic and Walimex Pro. Interestingly, the exact same lens cost less if you were to buy it under these other names instead of Samyang. For instance, the ultra wide angle Samyang 14mm for the Canon mount under the Pro-Optic label cost $359 while under Bower costs $384 at Amazon. At B&H, under Rokinon it costs $359, under Bower $384 and Samyang $399.

 

[chest]

I was looking for a very wide angle lens and read so many excellent comments and reviews for this that for the price it was worth taking a chance - and I'm glad I did.
The first thing you need to do is download lens correction software - I got PTlens - this corrects the slightly odd distortion (the main negative point against the Samyang 14mm).
The build quality - other than the lens cap seems very high for such a price - very smooth distance ring.
You will need to do a few quick tests with the infinity and distance markings - I have it set at the infinity mark - and at around f8 and above its very sharp.
I've found that rather than it being a lens to get 'everything in' it works best when you get very close up to something (in a landscape like a building etc)- the images are very dynamic.
The main problem I have is being able to focus on small objects like for example a wine glass on a table - it takes a lot of practise.
I've done a load of shots at f2.8 hand held at night at iso 3200 on a 5d3 on city street images and and was pleased with the results,
I would absolutely recommend this lens - it takes a little work at first but for the price - its around £1500 cheaper than the Canon - its worth the chance (even though Ken Rockwell's
review was not good - the only bad one i've read though).

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Personally, I much preferred the used Canon 15mm fisheye to the 14mm Samyang I bought and returned.
Here are images from the same point using each. Note that the fisheye shows a wider view than the Samyang and is not badly distorted on the left side.
I haven't tried the defishing software with the fisheye image.
Canon 15mm FE

Samyang

 

[Frodo]

Great lens, especially for the price. Indeed, it seems to be as good as the Canon 14mm 2.8 II and better than version I.
I process my photos in Lightroom and the profile I downloaded through the Profile downloader is good, but I found a better one I have yet to install manually. The existing profile corrects the wavy distortion fine and also the vignetting. There is no chromatic aberation to speak of. The profle is efficient, in that it crops very little of the image.
Here are a couple of photos. The first is on a 5D MkII 30 seconds at f2.8 at ISO 3200.
The second is at 1/40 at f8 ISO 100.
Cheers