The distortion is very wave form near the edges so unlike a fisheye or any lens with simple barrel or pincushion distortion the actual image loss as well as pixel stretching and remaping that creates resolution loss is not that great. No doubt it could be done in-lens but not for this price. I doubt any major manufacturer would alow this kind of design onto the market - it's purley for people who understand the compromise and who have the knowledge to fix it in post production. I wonder as in-camera processing becomes more powerful how this will enable more exotic lenses with wider ranges and faster apertures if the geometric correction can be left to software. RAW shooters could still DIY but when shooting jpeg it's all done in-camera.
ZoneV wrote:
First I misinterpreted you sentence - and thougt other photographers do the same as I do:
I bought the lens via Ebay and payed with Paypal. Told my wife nothing.
I had some money left on my Paypal account so there was no bigger money transfer on my credit card - and because of this my wife didnīt realized my purchase.
Got the lens to work. Tested it mostly during the lunch break.
But I wrote about it on photo boards. And one evening my wife read on of my comments - and asked - "Whats a Samyang"?
Then I had to show here the lens - she doesnīt love wideangles.
But she didnīt argued and just smiled :-)...Show more →
LMAO...I do the same thing...it'll get me divorced someday though
Excellent information, thank you Shirozina. I agree that, for me, Samyang appeared to make an excellent compromise. 99.9% of the time I would use this lens stopped down to at least f/8 (and on a tripod). With that kind of DOF, I may as well tape the thing to the ideal 'infinity' setting you described above and not worry about it again.
Sounds like a nice option for landscape shooters who want the 14mm perspective, not just the FOV you can obtain by stitching. I had been thinking of the Sigma 12-24, but with the corners shown in the Samyang PZ review...
Out of curiosity, does anyone think Lightroom3's distortion correction is sophisticated enough to handle the Samyang's distortion?
Mine is taped up at 3m already. Lightroom's distortion correction should easily deal with the distortion as it can handle complex waveform and not just simple barrel and pincushion as the old lens correction did. Only problem is shooting the targets correctly with such a wide lens but someone may well post a distortion map for this lens in the near future. PTlens is the other option but it's obviously neater to keep it in the lightroom environment.
Didnīt test the Lightroom 3 geometric corrections. I corrected only one or two images for my Samyang testsite with PTLens - the others are uncorrected.
foxbat on my site you could see a uncorrected and an PTLens corrected version - side by side.
AhamB: I think I tested that some time ago. I thougt the field curvature is ok - didīt the test with a door - nearfield not "infinity".
Here a WARNING to the others Samyang 14 mm users: Please check if your on camera mounted lens has some conspicous play / tolerance. I tested my lens before a trip, and it had higher than usual tolerance. I took a screwdriver and fastend the three screws on the outer diameter - the play has gone. I fear (not tested!) that the front element could fall away. Furthermore this also has an effect on the focus accuracy.
ZoneV wrote:
Some new photos with the Samyang 14 mm/ 2,8
I know that taste is personal (and possibly also acquired) but shooting people with an UWA lens up close is definitely not my cup of tea. As always, YMMV....
shirozina wrote:
Mine is taped up at 3m already. Lightroom's distortion correction should easily deal with the distortion as it can handle complex waveform and not just simple barrel and pincushion as the old lens correction did. Only problem is shooting the targets correctly with such a wide lens but someone may well post a distortion map for this lens in the near future. PTlens is the other option but it's obviously neater to keep it in the lightroom environment.
The lens correction tool does seem pretty smart. I shot a target handheld with my fisheye and 20mm and it was able to produce pretty good results
Yakim Peled wrote:
I know that taste is personal (and possibly also acquired) but shooting people with an UWA lens up close is definitely not my cup of tea. As always, YMMV....
Happy shooting,
Yakim.
I agree for the most part, but some of those pictures make excellent establishing shots. Wish there were more from a different focal length though!
Just run a lens correction and the image loss is minimal when cropped to get rid of the wavey edges - on a 5DII it's about 90pixels on the long side and 60 on the short side. It is showing a very curved focus plane and I'm wondering if I should exchange it for another sample as best infinity in the center is at the 1m setting and at the corners it's at the infinity setting. Anyone else care to test their sample and report back - pretty easy to do with live view.
The samples are very nice indeed and the lens seems to be optically superb. I personally would feel uncomfortable buying/using a lens with the described mechanical/physical design shortcomings as described in some the posts but IQ wise the lens delivers much more than the price. Too bad Samyang didn't go for a better material as the price can easily be raised a bit and still considered a bargain.
thanks Edward. besides the distortion, which is easy to fix - i don't see any other issues so far w/ the lens.
Sharpness, contrast, colors etc are excellent - as is infinity focus.
Manual focus is really easy, just use the distance markings on the lens.
The only issue to point out is, sometimes the metering is off on the camera in Av mode. But this is not a big deal IMO and i have seen the same issue with other alternate/manual focus lenses.
it very much reminds me of the 14-24mm when used w/Canon. the IQ seems very similar (- distortion) and a lot smaller.
Mechanicaly /physicaly I can't see any problems with this lens - it's well built and feels like a quality item - what particular materials would you improve and how much extra would you be prepared to pay?
Epuja - have you tested the focus accuracy at the corners and the center using live view as I'm still thinking I've got a bad sample as it's best infinity performance in the 1m setting.
shirozina wrote:
Mechanicaly /physicaly I can't see any problems with this lens - it's well built and feels like a quality item - what particular materials would you improve and how much extra would you be prepared to pay?
Epuja - have you tested the focus accuracy at the corners and the center using live view as I'm still thinking I've got a bad sample as it's best infinity performance in the 1m setting.
The build quality seems good to me - i didn't realize its a screwed in hood until Edward mentioned it, not to mention the awesome lens cap design.
i think the jist of my opinion would be unless your using it for architectural photography, need autofocus, or are using film there is nothing wrong with this lens.. OTOH If you're a professional then $2.x K for the 14L II or 17 TSE should be a drop in the bucket.
