Menu
What's new
The GetDPI Photography Forum

Great to see you here. Join our insightful photographic forum today and start tapping into a huge wealth of photographic knowledge. Completing our simple registration process will allow you to gain access to exclusive content, add your own topics and posts, share your work and connect with other members through your own private inbox! And don’t forget to say hi!

Samyang 14mm

Guy Mancuso

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Okay I'm nuts but read a few pretty good reports on it so i ordered one last night. I am going straight to Zion with it so next week i will post some shots and give you some thoughts on it. I also picked up the Sigma 150 2.8 macro and 1.4 converter to go with it. Also replaced my Zeiss 18 ZF with the ZF.2

Once again i'm playing the guinea pig role. Does this ever end. :wtf:

BTW the Sigma 150 2.8 at F5.6 is stellar. F4 its really good and 2.8 its good but 5.6 kicks butt.
 
D

D&A

Well-known member
Hi Guy

That's why so many have been proponents if the Sigma 150, especially when the non OS version was available at under $500!

You should see it's performance at 1:1 macro. That's where it really shines and is in the top 10% of macro lenses in the 35mm format.

The sample of the 14mm Samyang I shot with had very high central resolution with good sides and edges. Definitely a best buy. Of course in order to achieve this level of performance at this price level, something had to give and so it has an extraordinary amounts of barrel distortion which may or may not be an issue, depending what one uses it for.

Dave (D&A)
 
Last edited:
Guy Mancuso

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Dave from what read the distortion which is nasty no question can be fixed with PT lens plugin. I'll probably use this more as a creative lens than a rectilinear style lens if you know what I mean. The 18 for me is more the interiors style with a easy correction. This is very inexpensive and I figured worth trying it out . For 429 almost nuts not to try it . I think Jack ordered one too. LOL
 
D

D&A

Well-known member
For $429, it was a no brainer when used on a 12 MP full frame DSLR, as long as one knew of it's limitations. Of course for landscape work with no recognizable straight lines, esepcially near sides and edges, a lot can be done with the lens...even without use of the PT lens correction. The lens sometimes borders on being a semi fisheye. Yes, agree, for serious interior work, a better corrected lens like the Zeiss 18mm is in order.

Dave (D&A)
 
T

Tektrader

Member
I love my Samyang 14 it has fantastic rendering and is very very sharp across the frame.

Its just got that SOMETHING.

Hard to shoot horizons using the rule of thirds due to the distortion. But even if you do not use PT plug in's to 100% fix the distortion. You can do a good enough job just using the DIY distortion controls in NX2 without getting it perfect.

I think you will like it Guy. I do. Build quality is really nice and the focus control reminds me of AIS Nikkors. Very smooth and nice to use, highly geared.
 
Guy Mancuso

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Drove from Phoenix to St. George Utah this morning and stopped and shot some Joshua trees on the way with sunrise and on LCD looks wonderful. I did a couple test shots late yesterday and PT lens cleans it up nicely. So far very impressed.
 
Guy Mancuso

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Okay this was a very quick handheld shot at 5.6 . First one here is without any corrections



Now same image brought into PS applied the PT lens correction than went in and made a vertical perspective correction of -10 and it cleans up very nice without cropping very much to the image. I would say if i was on a tripod and leveled correctly I may not have as much vertical correction which crops more than the PT lens correction which seems very minimal image loss on just that alone but together here is what we get.

 
Guy Mancuso

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
As you can see I do lose a little but I'm willing to give up some with a lens this wide.

Now for the good news . Its exactly the same size as a Zeiss 18mm with the hood on and not looking at the specs it seems lighter to boot at just over a pound. Than kick in the fact its 2500 less than the Zeiss 15mm and 25 percent less than the 14-24 and getting very sharp images its a no brainer. I got a few more shots to load here/

BTW Im focused on the windows and even the foreground came up nice.

It does have kind of odd focusing if there is a downside and I may just have to get used to it. Hard to describe in short shooting time but give me another day or so and I will have a more firm opinion on that. I would say stop reading and order it. LOL
 
Guy Mancuso

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
These two are without any corrections shot at F8 or F11. I may have went a little cool here im on laptop in my hotel room at 3 am in the morning. My eyes maybe off here. LOL






This I did do PT lens correction on



Very sharp lens. And corners look very good. I need a building to fully test that but so far looking good. Also i am about a foot or so away from the decoration here and very close to those Joshua trees

Okay back to bed , long day ahead.
 
Guy Mancuso

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
It may. Thanks I will clean it before heading out in morning. I admit I'm spoiled with a 30 inch monitor. Lol
 
D

D&A

Well-known member
Guy, Typical performance from the Samyang 14mm. If one can work with it's limitations in some shooting circumstances and can work with its known distortions, it most definitely is a fantastic buy and useful lens to have in the bag. Nikon's old AF 14mm is long in the tooth and has lagged far behind with regards to needing an optical update for current DSL's, especially the newer high MP ones.

Thanks for posting these example Guy.

Dave (D&A)
 
Guy Mancuso

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
I'll have more later. I shot this morning with it and the Zeiss 18 same scene and 14 is really wide . Nice Drama lens why I bought it
 
D

D&A

Well-known member
What's interesting Guy is its a bit hard to know exactly just how really wide these two shots are, since recognizable points of reference with regards to subject scale and their relationship to other items in the frame is often not present in these types of landscape and nature shots. Different than say taking shots of a downtown city street with all the usual surrounding elements (cars, buildings people etc.). In these last two posted shots, I can imagine just how close you were to objects in the foreground.....in other words, your feet should have been soaking wet when taking that shot of the stream....LOL!

Dave (D&A)
 
Guy Mancuso

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Exactly when I get a chance I did the 18 mm also from same spot so I can show the difference . That water shot those rocks are about 1.5 ft away. The landscape the big rock on left us maybe 7 ft away. Your close to everything with this lens which takes a lot of care to deal with. Neither shot is corrected either. So sometimes you can use the distortion for effect.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top