Rokinon HD8M-C 8mm f/3.5 HD Fisheye Lens with Removeable Hood for Canon DSLR 8-8mm, Fixed-Non-Zoom Lens

I just ordered this lens after ages of considering to buy a $1400< fisheye lens, and I DO NOT regret buying it. And so, to the point, by just looking at the box a million questions are answered, so I attached pics of every single side of the box. 1. Made in Korea 2. Rokinon: Technology by Samyang Optics. 3. Hybrid Aspherical. 4. For Canon angle of view is 167°, for all other manufactures available 180°. 5. As per Rokinon, low flare, ghost, Coma and Chromatic Aberration. 6. Internal Focus and Ultra Multi-Coating. 7. Hood is removable and is petal shaped. 8. Rokinon is a trademark of Elite Brands. 9. COVERAGE: APSC/Four Thirds (which means heavy vignetting on full frame... not sure if this would fit a medium format). 10. FULLY MANUAL Lens. Ok, now that I just posted the summary of the most important things, I shall proceed to write my opinion. I really love it and it has made me smile while using it. I saw all the negative reviews about the lense not being sharp and not automatic, but, I decided to give it a try because I know it is absurdly challenging to shoot with a non Image Stabilizer lens, and I can almost bet on that as the factor for not being sharp in some conditions. In low light, I found myself spreading my legs to lower my center of gravity, both hands on the camera while resting one elbow on my torso to try and use my own body as a tripod, as well as holding my breath while gently pressing the trigger to shoot. I absolutely loved the feeling of being that involved, plus everything is manual; And also leaning a post, pole, tree, wall, car, statue, or any type of object to make more stable. I agree with some reviewers that it is hard, but shooting with an all manual lens is like tasting photography as it was in its origins. I will not lie, I found myself not only trying to use my body as a tripod and leaning on walls, but using the Live View of the camera for digital-zoom-focusing a lot, but it doesnt bother me, that just means I have to shoot more pics to reduce the margin of error As everything, it takes practice to master a tool, and this is what this is, a tool, a vintage tool that makes me polish the most basic skills that we take for granted. I figure that out of the box, if someone is used to all auto everything, it will be intimidating and discouraging, but if you have patience and want to save 90% of an all auto zoom IS fisheye lens, this is the lens for you.

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Was very anxious to try this lens out, but ended up disappointed. I was never able to find any combination of settings to obtain an image in focus. I started out years ago on pre-digital old-fashioned film cameras so I understand manual focus and manual settings. Unfortunately I couldnt get this lens to focus close up or out to infinity or anywhere in between. An internet search reveals that apparently this lens has a well-known focus ring adjustment problem, although it is not clear to me whether that was the prior version or this later version. Either way, this particular copy was soft-focus at all settings. I know some people rave about the sharpness, but evidently its a crap shoot whether you happen to get a good copy, or whether it will be necessary *and* you are willing to attempt to calibrate the focus yourself. I ended up returning it.

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Overall great lens, exactly what I expected from Rokinon. Great build and quality glass for the price. Quite light for a fish-eye too. Ive found the sharpest aperture it runs at is f/5.6. Went getting into the more close numbers like f/16 and f/22 it becomes a lot less sharp, and f/3.5-4 is a little muddy around the edges also. Focus ring tends to work a little backwards, focusing to infinity pulls closer objects into focus and vise-versa; but this is easily gotten used to. Aperture+focus rings are smooth and consistent.

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I had the older verison of this lens - the one with fixed lens hood and i liked it very much. The ultra-wide angle shots it could get on my crop-body Rebel T1i were pretty neat. Then i upgraded to full-frame 5DII and sold the old lens as it does not quite work on it. Impressed by the quality and price/performance ratio of these Rokinon lenses, i bought the 14mm ultra-wide to be used on 5DII. It is also a very good lens but i found myself not using it much as i mainly shoot portraits. And when i wanted to do a landscape/ultra-wide shot, i like to have the fun prespective of a fisheye. Thus when i saw this new version with removable hood, i bought this one to replace the 14mm UWA. First thing i tried was removing the hood and using it on full-frame 5DII. It does work but produces a circular image with black border around it. See the customer images where i have uploaded an example. I can crop the center of this image and get same view as from a crop-sensor with no black border but then its easier to use it on a crop-sensor and let the camera do the cropping for you. Still if you have a full-frame, this works as a cheap fisheye/ultra-wide lens just fine. For crop-sensor owners looking for a fun fisheye and/or a super wide angle lens, this is just great. The image mostly is undistorted with only the objects close to the edges getting curved - and even that could be straighten out using prespective correction in post-processing (google defishing a fisheye image) if you need to.

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Love this lens. When I upgraded to a full-frame DSLR, I sold this lens to help finance the upgrade. Now I wish I hadnt sold this lens! My copy was surprisingly sharp. Distortion is quite heavy, this is a fisheye lens. With practice youll learn how best to manage and/or manipulate the distortion (and fix in post-processing). Watch your feet, you may have to change your stance to avoid getting shots of your feet in the frame. Great landscape and astrophotography lens. It was my favorite hiking lens.

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This lens is amazing. Ive had it for almost 2 years now, so Ive had plenty of time to use it. Im not a professional, but Im an enthusiastic hobbyist. I use a Canon 70D with five other lenses from Canon, Sigma, and Tamron. This was my first manual lens, and it definitely took some getting used to. Once I started to get the hang of it, I was taking some amazing pictures with it. The picture quality is amazing for a lens of this price. I think Ive found the sweet spot for this lens around f/8 to f/11 so I usually try to keep around there. I ALWAYS have this lens in my bag, and I actually find myself using this more than most other lenses in my bag (besides my Sigma 30mm f/1.4). Its really great for wide angle stuff, but it does have a huge lens distortion. Some people like that distorted look, but I actually find it nice to take it into Lightroom and apply a lens profile to it to reduce the distortion and "stretch" the edges of the frame to give it that "sweeping" look (the pictures in this review have had lens distortion reduced in Lightroom). I absolutely recommend this lens to anyone looking for a great wide angle lens at a very cheap price.

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This is a great lens, build quality is solid and everything works like it should the f stop ring has very definate clicks and the focus ring is smooth from start to finish. I bought this to shoot stars with using both a full frame and a crop frame Canon camera and both turn out very good and sharp. You must remember that this is a completely manual lens just like we had back in the film days and if you dont like to think and do things then you dont need to buy this but you will be missing out on a bunch of fun lenses that would cost you a fortune buying brand lenses. The best thing to do is find your hyper focal distance and shoot around f/11 and you shouldnt have any trouble. I added this to a recent purchase of the Rokinon 12mm for my Fuji X-mount and I will get others.

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I wanna start by saying that Im not a professional or anything. Im a novice at best. I just use my camera on vacations almost exclusivity. Im still using a t3i rebel Canon that I got About 6 years ago so take what I say with a grain of salt. I think this lense is amazing. Its so wide. Its capturing things Im not even pointing at. (which I guess is the point, right?) But its great. Again, Im not a professional but Id say that its capturing everything within 150 degrees, maybe. The clarity seems fine. The only thing that I dont like is that there isnt an auto focus. But maybe wide angle lenses just dont do that? Or maybe just not at this price? I dont know. Anyways, this lense is great especially for the price. I recommend!

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Few of my concerns about this product before the purchase: 1) "Third party" quality - build, sharpness, looks 2) Manual focus and aperture setting 3) Image distortion 1) This is a Korean lens - I actually think it has better built than my L lenses. There is very little focusing involved because past 5 feet, its infinity. But, everytime I use the focusing ring, its a pleasure to use. Also, it looks better than the L lens. Image is super sharp even to the outermost corners. BTW, Im using it on Canon 7D. Even the hood and the lens cap are of high quality. I like EVERYTHING about this lens. 2) I just set it to infinity and do not touch the focusing ring. For aperture ring, I set it to 5.6 inside and 18 outside. Set it to P and camera will set the correct shutter speed. Those of you who never used manual focus lens DO NOT HAVE TO WORRY! Youll figure it out within in 1/2 hour. 3) Image distortion - Its rather pleasing. It also adds to the creative dimension to your image. Look at Gene Hos youtube video on Art of Fisheye and youll get lot of ideas of how to creatively use this lens. If you are considering buying this product, you wont regret it.

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Bought this for astro photrophy in Glacier MT, but sadly was too tired most days to stay up and use it for its intended purpose. That being said during the 57 miles backpacked this lens was on my canon 80D about 55 of those miles. For the price the pictures are pretty dang good. Also I know its considered cheap but the manual controls are easy to use and work really well. Lens cap stayed on through thick and thin...when it was supposed to (i did lose it over the side of a cliff but that was operator error and not the fault of the lens design by any means)

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