wow! i just viewed the samples on swiatobrazu.pl... it makes you wonder why canon and nikon are charging so much. i'm sure auto focus doesn't cost 1500 extra :P
Benvision wrote:
...... it makes you wonder why canon and nikon are charging so much. i'm sure auto focus doesn't cost 1500 extra :P
Maybe Canon and Nikon have been influenced with Leica's little red dot - that red dot alone adds $1k to the price.
For Canon, the red line on their L's obviously is worth $1k+ --> probably very expensive paint..... and Nikon's just being Nikon... that's probably their justification for the high prices and the recent price hikes
No, it does not have AF, and you do not need AF with this lens. For all practical purposes, unless you're really interested in the object within 2m, you can fix the focusing ring just shy of infinity (NOT at "hyperfocal distance") and fire away at f/8 or so and everything will be in focus.
I looked at several sample pictures on Lenstip and was disappointed. Either they had a bad copy or the focus was set at "hyperfocal" and everything looked soft. With this superwide angle, it may be difficult to focus correctly, because everything can look in focus in the vewfinder.
PSquared63 wrote:
No, it does not have AF, and you do not need AF with this lens. For all practical purposes, unless you're really interested in the object within 2m, you can fix the focusing ring just shy of infinity (NOT at "hyperfocal distance") and fire away at f/8 or so and everything will be in focus.
I looked at several sample pictures on Lenstip and was disappointed. Either they had a bad copy or the focus was set at "hyperfocal" and everything looked soft. With this superwide angle, it may be difficult to focus correctly, because everything can look in focus in the vewfinder....Show more →
Aside from a possible misfocus, if i'm not mistaken, these guys at lenstip always turn all and any sharpening off in their sample photos, so that may be why it's a little blurry.
PSquared63 wrote:
No, it does not have AF, and you do not need AF with this lens. For all practical purposes, unless you're really interested in the object within 2m, you can fix the focusing ring just shy of infinity (NOT at "hyperfocal distance") and fire away at f/8 or so and everything will be in focus.
I looked at several sample pictures on Lenstip and was disappointed. Either they had a bad copy or the focus was set at "hyperfocal" and everything looked soft. With this superwide angle, it may be difficult to focus correctly, because everything can look in focus in the vewfinder....Show more →
I agree, I'm not really impressed with what I see thus far. At F8 with a lens this wide, there should be few issues with focus unless the lens was focused really close. A number of the Lenstip examples looked very soft to me... and noticeably softer outside of the central area of the frame. Perhaps it is a bad sample and perhaps this is one of those lenses that will suffer from extreme sample variation. That would explain the price.
Building a quality wide lens is an amazing feat of engineering, optical science, great glass and superb quality control.
I have a Sigma 14mm/f3.5 lens in the EF mount and it flares big time and is pretty soft overall. Its works on Canon EOS 1 series and other film cameras. But it will not work on digital Canon bodies. Firing any digital body will throw an error.
This is my second Sigma that I have owned and I was never really happy with either. I sort of vowed not to buy cheap lenses as a result.
Tariq Gibran wrote:
I agree, I'm not really impressed with what I see thus far. At F8 with a lens this wide, there should be few issues with focus unless the lens was focused really close. A number of the Lenstip examples looked very soft to me... and noticeably softer outside of the central area of the frame. Perhaps it is a bad sample and perhaps this is one of those lenses that will suffer from extreme sample variation. That would explain the price.
I think those pictures on the swiatobrazu site are very promising. It's the Lenstip pictures that I think are bad. It would be good to know whether it was user error or a bad lens. Which lens is typical of the lenses that wlll come out of the factory to be sold?
PhotoMaximum wrote:
Building a quality wide lens is an amazing feat of engineering, optical science, great glass and superb quality control.
...
This is my second Sigma that I have owned and I was never really happy with either. I sort of vowed not to buy cheap lenses as a result.
I agree with your first sentence. But, it can be done at a reasonable cost. CV 15/4.5 is a good example. Yes, it is a rangefinder lens (except the Nikon SL version) with a small maximum aperture and much simpler design. Nevertheless it's a quality lens that sold new for less than $400. (Newer, rangefinder-coupled M-mount lenses are about $550.)
It's obviously too early to tell whether this Samyang lens is a consistently good or bad lens or if its quality control would be all over the place. It looks like it can be a good lens by some posted samples, but time will tell.
I have used the Canon EF 14 and it spanked both of the Sigma versions of the 14 I have tried. The Canon was sharper but the other big difference was that it did not flare as much as the cheaper lenses. You would expect some flare when shooting into the sun but my Sigma would pick up big globs of flare light in all kinds of normal shooting conditions. You really had to shoot with one hand and use the other as a custom lens flag. I notice that there is some flare in some of the Samyang samples. See the middle and right rows of building shots here: http://www.lenstip.com/index.php?news=1761 Some of the "where did that come from" flare is the type of flare that drove me nuts with the Sigma. The couple of times I rented the EF 14 I really noticed how much better controlled this was.
Of course the big attraction here is the huge price difference with the Samyang as apposed to the Canon. It will be interesting to see when some early adopters from this forum get some copies of this lens for testing etc. I have the EF 16-35 II and its pretty decent in a non excellent kind of way. The super wide lens I plan on getting (might have to rob bank first) is the EF 17 TS-E.
Overall, the images there do look better to me compared to those on Lenstip which is why I am suspicious of sample variation. If you look at the crane shot taken at F8 (image #8) and scroll from side to side in the middle of the frame to the edges, you can easily see the sharpness fall off and CA become worse. Perhaps this is to be expected with such a wide lens. I don't know as I never shoot this wide on FF.
I'm interested in one of these too! At $400 or so USD, seems quite impressive. Will help if I try doing some architectural work with the 7D that is on order :-).
nureality wrote:
one word of caution, Samyang (and all its Sakar brand mates, ... Vivitar Series 1, Bower, Polar, Falcon, Sakar, Digital Concepts, Digital Innovations, Rokinon, etc.) aren't being honest about their Focal Length claims.
Careful. Bower & Rokinon (& Opteka, FWIW) aren't automatically the same lens. Case in point, the 85mm. The Bower, Rokinon & Opteka look slightly different, and sell for about $100 less.
I don't know about the 14mm, but I'd be very careful buying online.
