markle wrote:
ok now I have a question (serious) :
if this is true how a korean small company can produce such a great glass with so little money?
now the real question:
it's not like canon and nikon and zeiss were all playing with us and laughing all the way to (their) banks with our money?
it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this out
no?
what are you suggesting ?( sorry I'm no rocket scientist)
If a small co. wants to produce something good and sell it a good price that attract users then fine.
To a certain extent the likes of canon and nikon and maybe ziess are laughing at us on their way to the bank but on the way they have to stop off at the R&D dpt then the Marketing dpt oh and also the shareholders banks first.
As for the lenses well I would like to get the 85 at soem point then maybe the 35 when it comes out, Not too sure I would have much use for the 14 but if the could knock up a good to great fast 135 I would be interested
I'd still have the canon zooms for AF but for MF and video these could make a killer set
drive_75 wrote:
Are you guys seriously considering samyang lens? It seems so difficult to use. It's manual focus, manual and manual everything. You have to focus first, then lock aperature, then meter. Here's the review for the 85mm Samyang and if the 14mm lens is the same, I would never consider it......
FYI hyperfocal distance (focusing your camera at the hyperfocal distance ensures maximum sharpness from half this distance all the way to infinity) on a full frame camera for a 14mm lens is so short that manual focusing is a non-issue :
f/2.8 : 2.32m
f/4 : 1.65m
f/5.6 : 1.17m
f/8 : 0.83m
f/11 : 0.59m
f/16 : 0.42m
I would personally not replace my 85L with the Samyang, however if the 14mm is good, manual focusing is hardly an issue really.
Well, the fact that Samyang can produce a well received f1.4 telephoto for around £200 does suggest to me that even superior products (with AF for example) perhaps shouldn't cost 9x as much! The cost of good Japanese primes has been rising dramatically for a long time, perhaps its time for an ambitious independent lens maker to shake things up a bit with a strong value for money ethos.
"Are you guys seriously considering samyang lens? It seems so difficult to use. It's manual focus, manual and manual everything. You have to focus first, then lock aperature, then meter."
Before digital I did quite well with my clockwork Nikon bodies, with manual focus. I would quite welcome the chance to resurrect my old ways of working which served me perfectly well before digital came along and convinced us that unless something involved electronic assistance photography was impossible. The Samyangs won't be for everyone of course, in which case buy Canon, but it would be nice to have the choice (for a change) of quality glass at a low price, just asking for a little effort to use in return.
Not having an automatic diaphram is kind of a pain when you are stopping way down, but for a portrait lens, you can set your aperture to f4 or below and focus freely... not a big problem... people compose shots just fine with something like a 17-40L at f4, right?
Just from the samples the 85 looks quite nice for portraiture IMO, and while I'm sure the Canon 85/1.8 is sharper, it's also harsher... real people aren't looking at 100% crops of an eye to ooh and aah over the sharpness, they want a pleasing portrait...
mh2000 wrote:
Not having an automatic diaphram is kind of a pain when you are stopping way down, but for a portrait lens, you can set your aperture to f4 or below and focus freely... not a big problem... people compose shots just fine with something like a 17-40L at f4, right?
Just from the samples the 85 looks quite nice for portraiture IMO, and while I'm sure the Canon 85/1.8 is sharper, it's also harsher... real people aren't looking at 100% crops of an eye to ooh and aah over the sharpness, they want a pleasing portrait...
Have you used the Rokinon yet? I don't think you should make the assumption it is sharper than the Rokinon/Samyang. A lot of users like myself find the lense sharper than Zeiss 85f1.4, and the Canon is not even in the same leaque as the Zeiss.
BTW, I paid $254 for the Rokinon, brand new. A brand new EF 85/1.8 goes for $589.95 at local shops. Whoever said the Rokinon is not half the price was right. It is less than half the price.
No, I'm just going by posted example shots etc... also that Canon attempts to design their lenses with sharpness being the prime objective. For a portrait lens, raw sharpness is almost secondary IMO... so long as a lens is "sharp enough," the other qualities that make it more or less pleasing overall are much more important to a successful final image.
I have not used the Zeiss, but I have used the Canon 85/1.8, 90/2.8 and 100/2... so yes, I based my assumption off what the people on the web who *didn't* find the lens as sharp as the Zeiss or Canon... but didn't mean to come off damning the lens. I could easily see myself ending up with the lens... but I keep thinking I'd rather just get the older Summicron-R 90 for a little more money (if I could find a good deal)...
The real intent of my post was to say that for most portrait settings that not having an auto stop-down aperture was not a big deal...
Tri Tran wrote:
Have you used the Rokinon yet? I don't think you should make the assumption it is sharper than the Rokinon/Samyang. A lot of users like myself find the lense sharper than Zeiss 85f1.4, and the Canon is not even in the same leaque as the Zeiss.
mh2000 wrote:
No, I'm just going by posted example shots etc... also that Canon attempts to design their lenses with sharpness being the prime objective.
actually had always been known for designing, especially their L's, more for high general contrast than fine micro-contrast sharpness.
mh2000 wrote:
Sorry, those images don't really convince me one way or the other on sharpness... but they do show what I stated... that the Canon is much harsher.
I don't really care about minor differences in sharpness anyway...
Yes, the harshness of the Canon 1.8 is obvious. Why do you say you don't find the results convincing? They are 100% crops of each of the respective lenses, at various apertures. As you can see, the Rokinon easily resolves as much detail as either of the Canon lenses.
cogitech wrote:
Yes, the harshness of the Canon 1.8 is obvious. Why do you say you don't find the results convincing? They are 100% crops of each of the respective lenses, at various apertures. As you can see, the Rokinon easily resolves as much detail as either of the Canon lenses.
Why do the images say FD 85/1.2 if we're talking about the EF 85 f/1.8?
I have trouble believing lens testing on uncontrolled subjects. Even with a tripod and target, getting absolute perfect focus is nearly impossible.
Yes, the samples make the Rokinon look like it's in the same league as the Canon lenses you put it up against, but beating a legendary Zeiss lens? Dunno.
I'm not trying to slam what looks like a very nice lens in all respects...
Yes, I am convinced that the lens is sharp enough to move on to more important aspects of the lens... and it seems to shine IMO.
mh2000 wrote:
I have trouble believing lens testing on uncontrolled subjects. Even with a tripod and target, getting absolute perfect focus is nearly impossible.
Yes, the samples make the Rokinon look like it's in the same league as the Canon lenses you put it up against, but beating a legendary Zeiss lens? Dunno.
I'm not trying to slam what looks like a very nice lens in all respects...
Yes, I am convinced that the lens is sharp enough to move on to more important aspects of the lens... and it seems to shine IMO.
Manual focus bracketing was used with each lens and the shots with most precise focus with each lens were chosen for the comparison. They are all focused on the same plane, which is obvious if you look closely at details in the crops.
The "legendary" Zeiss lens you speak of is the 85/1.4 ? Neither the new or old Contax version is very sharp wide open. That's well-known. The three lenses shown above can easily beat either Zeiss wide open. In fact, the Canon SSC Aspherical gives the (real legendary) Contax Zeiss 85/1.2 a serious run for the money.
Then consider that the Rokinon wide open is keeping up with the SSC Aspherical stopped down to f1.4.
I should also mention that at the time of the test my full intention and expectation was to show how much better the SSC Aspherical was over the Rokinon. I had heard so much about the Rokinon and I was very skeptical, so I purchased one myself. I made every effort to keep the test as objective and fair as possible and then I was shocked at the outcome.
The SSC Aspherical is now sold, and the EF 85/1.8 is for sale. I would not make such decisions if I did not have full confidence in my testing methods and the subsequent results.
If I sounded like I was saying your tests were garbage, I wasn't. All lenses look roughly in about the same league, so I think it is hard to say any one is better than the other from your test, that's all I'm saying. From what I'm seeing it would be hard to conclusively test out which is better IMO... and really I don't think it matters much. The lens looks like a winner... not just in your tests, but in much that has been posted. I would probably own one right now if I didn't have the TS-E 90 for that FL in MF... and don't really need f1.4 much...
