Samyang SY14M-E 14mm F2.8 Ultra Wide Lens for Sony E-Mount

Before providing my opinion on this Samyang Lens, I would like to describe myself as a middle aged advanced amateur photographer. I am not a pro but photography has been a hobby of mine for 20 years and in the last 10 years, I have been lucky to be able to purchase some professional L lenses and primes. Therefore, I feel I have some experience that I can draw upon to compare this ultra wide angle Samyang with other lenses in my camera bag. First off, I want to mention at the time I am writing this review (10/12/2013), the product photographs in the Amazon listing is incorrect. They have a 35mm focal length Samyang sitting in as the Canon version of the 14mm lens. I took a chance with Amazon and the lens that arrived at my door is the correct 14mm lens. Therefore, no worries you will get the right lens sent to you. Second, and unfortunately for me but perhaps fortunately for you ... The Samyang SY14M-C 14mm f/2.8 ED AS-IF UMC is optically identical to the Rokinon FE14M-C 14mm f/2.8. Unfortunate for me because the same lens branded with the Samyang name is or was at the time of my purchase about $60 more expensive. Had I known both lenses were identical, I would have gone for the Rokinon branded lens and saved some money. So if you could avoid the mistake I did, go for the Rokinon. Same manufacture, same factories, same workers make both lenses. But its just not worth my time to send the Samyang back and get the Rokinon to get the extra $60 back. Perhaps the prices and photos will be corrected by the time you read this review. Now for the lens. This lens is incredibility sharp and I am quite impressed at how sharp it is on my Canon 5D Mark 3. The closest lens I have to compare it to is the newer Canon 24-70 f/2.8 L Mark 2 and the Canon 50mm f/1.4. This lens, in terms of sharpness really can hold its own along these other lenses. I bought the Samyang lens to get something wider than the 24-70 and I am very happy I did. The lens is sharp from edge to edge on the 5D Mark 3 full frame body. The focus ring turns very smooth with long travel to obtain precise focus. The aperture ring feels solid and has no lose play in it. When you set the aperture, it stays put with confidence. The mechanics of the entire lens really gives the impression of quality just as much as the more expensive L lenses but in a plastic body of course. But the plastic doesnt feel cheap. Lens distortion can be easily corrected in Light room and Photoshop by installing the appropriate lens profile for the Samyang. Download the "Adobe Lens Profile Downloader" from Adobes website and then filter the profiles by your camera body (eg. Canon 5D Mark 2) and download the appropriate RAW profile. Google "Markus Keinath - Samyang 14 mm / 2.8 IF ED MC Aspherical" for detailed instructions. Even if your particular camera body isnt listed, if you know your camera body is a full frame, pick another full frame model, if your body is a crop sensor body, then pick another body with a APS sensor body and it should work just fine. My one gripe about the lens and it has more to do with me than the lens. If your eyesight is less than perfect, it is almost impossible to manually focus this lens looking through the viewfinder. Everything in the viewfinder seems like it is in sharp focus no matter how the lens is already focus. Using a magnified LiveView becomes essential in getting this lens in sharp focus. But you might also encounter additional problems both in bright sun and low lighting. Sometimes the bright Sun just washes out the LED on the back making the job of focusing the lens much more difficult. In low lighting condition, you will probably either have to temporary open up the aperture to let more light into the camera to be able to focus or decrease the shutter speed. Then remember to correct the exposure again before taking the picture, otherwise you will end up disappointed with over exposed photos. Because it is completely manual, you will not receive any focus confirmation beeps, chirps or indicators from the camera body or its viewfinder as you would using a Canon AF lens in manual mode. Focusing with this lens is exactly like trying to focus it when the camera body is off; there is zero assistance to guide you to getting a sharp image. It will be 100% on you to get the lens as focus as necessary. The plus side of this, because the lack of AF will slow you down, it will force you to think about composition within the frame. I think that is a great thing. In addition, this is definitely not the right lens to shoot fast moving subjects unless you have plenty of light that you can choose a small aperture setting for a deeper DOF. This is a great lens if you have patience, but if you do not, it will aggravate you quickly. I also recommend checking out some of the other views here on Amazon listed under the Rokinon brand name. Moreover, visit some of the popular photography forums on the net including Dxomark review. Best of luck. ===== UPDATE JULY 10, 2014 ====== I came back to my review today to pass on some helpful information that I uncovered this summer using my lens. Bright sunny days will be a challenge when you try to focus this lens outdoors. The glare from the sun off the back LCD will frustrate almost anyone, myself included. I began to have some fun with a firmware hack called "MagicLantern" popular with videographers. Google it to find the website and see if your particular camera body is supported, not all Canon bodies are supported. MagicLantern gives Canon bodies extra features that are not normally available. Among the many features is "focus peaking", basically a tool to help you focus a lens manually. Sony Alpha shooters are already familiar with this feature but MagicLantern provide this cool feature to Canon users. A second feature in MagicLantern is "Trap Focus". When Trap Focus is enabled in the MagicLantern menu, you can have your camera body trigger the shutter button when an object/subject comes into focus. I enable Trap Focus with AF ON button on the back of my 5D Mark III to prevent premature firing of the shutter. It will only fire if I am holding the AF ON button on the back and the subject comes into focus. Something else you might want to consider buying is a rear LCD hood loupe. There are many available, some more expensive than others. I personally chose the hoodman hoodloupe, but do your own research to find out which one is best for you. A hoodloupe improves viewing the rear LCD by blocking out the sun. Combining MagicLantern Focus peaking, Trap Focus and a LCD hood loupe will significantly reduce frustration in focusing this lens and it works well for recording video as well. I hope this information proves helpful for your photography. Best of luck.

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A night sky photographers dream lens. Affordable, sharp (even in the corners wide open), no coma, and f2.8. It adds up to a must have in the bag if youre shooting the milky way, static stars, or long exposure Polaris swirls with a full frame. The one tip I can give relates to the completely incorrect focal distance graph. Disregard it, and do a few test shots to nail down infinity (my lens is in focus skyward between 2m and 3m on the graph. Once youve established true infinity (which wont be the listed infinity on the graph!), mark with a bit of paint or nail polish, and youre set.

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I’m a retired professional photographer, which begs the question, why would I buy this lens? Since I don’t have a need for a super wide lens on a regular basis I have other things I would rather spend money on and since the Sony options are 6X the cost I decided to give it a run. The build quality is better than I expected, feels solid and the focus ring is smooth, so I give the build quality high marks. I’m old school, which means I’m old enough to understand the concept of manual focus and aperture settings. Actually, it’s kind of fun to be back in the drivers seat. These days I’m shooting with a Sony ar7iii. I don’t mind the weight of the lens when paired with the ar7iii. Let’s talk about sharpness and focus: like most super wide lenses there is considerable wide focus depth, so your long shots should be easy enough to achieve the best sharpness this lens will provide, and btw, so far I find it very acceptable. Now getting close to your subject or a close-in with a long view like two of my sample shots is another matter. One of my samples I have difficulty even finding the focus spot, but that could be operator error too. Time will tell, and I will update later. Close in subjects are tricky and take practice to achieve the sharpness you will want, all I can say is “bracket”. Bottom line: For the money it is perfectly acceptable, but be prepared to work on your technique. If you are of the auto focus and auto exposure generation this may not be your lens unless your willing to make the effort.

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First off, this is the wrong picture! The real thing is longer but has the same built in hood and giant front element. This lens is very cheap in comparison to other lenses of similar image quality for a number of reasons. Its sharp and produces excellent photos if you get a good copy. Ive had very mixed experiences with owning Rokinon/Samyang lenses, with 2 out of 5 living up to the promise of high image quality. Ive made a number of returns. The distortion is quite strong. If you shoot interiors or architecture where straight lines really need to look straight, this lens will disappoint you, shell out the money for a Zeiss. If you shoot landscape, the distortion is less of a problem, and if you shoot astrophotos, distortion is almost not a problem. This lens is cheap because its manual focus, manual aperture, lacks image stabilization, has strong distortion, and getting a good copy is a gamble. If none of these bother you and your willing to deal with making a return or two, this is the best ultra wide lens to buy without paying a fortune. I would give this lens three stars for the quality control and distortion, but that price is hard to argue with. I recommend this lens, but know what youre getting into and be prepared to hunt for a good copy. My good copy is an excellent lens - except for the distortion.

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Im not a pro photographer. Its a hobby. But I am a pro specifier. I get a lot of comments after putting my hands on my own copy of this lens and shooting with it this week. I have everything from $20,000 cinema lenses to $50 ebay primes from 1975. 1. This lens has a long focus movement. It is VERY hard to detect the focal plane with a modern digital camera. That is because your viewfinder is not high enough resolution for such a wide lens. The lens DOES focus trust me. If it doesnt focus you probably need glasses.. and it takes a lot of spinning to do its job.. but it does it. 2. This lens is 1/3 the price of the obvious equivalent. It is fairly sharp with about the same lens properties one could expect from a superwide. If you want a L go buy it. If not this lens is a great 3. The lens feels cheap. It feels like a typical sub $1k lens that is a value lens. If you dont abuse it and you get a good copy (mine was fine, and i cant speak for others) then you probably will have a good piece of glass that will do you justice. -1 star for the cheapness of the lens.. the quality is as good as I can expect and I cant detect softness on my "measly 12mp a7s2"

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Okay this is not the highest end lens you can buy but for the price, it does a really good job. First of all, there are a bunch of different versions of this so the picture that you see may not be the same that you get because it depends on the camera body and mount style you are buying it for. When I first got mine, I was very surprised at how large it is. Its about 5.5 inches long and 3.5 inches wide at the end of the lens. Mines much longer because it has an extra adapter built into the end of it to fit a Sony E mount. Because of its size, it also has some significant weight to it. As far as pictures go, it takes a great photo. The 14mm has a such a large field of view that this lens works great for landscape photos. It also works amazing for astro-photography and when you mix them together, you can get some really cool effects. That being said, it also has some negatives. The edges of the photos are always very dark. I also had to do a lot of test shots to figure out how it focuses. Since this is a manual lens, the focus ring has to be used to focus the image but Ive found my infinity point to actually be almost an inch away from the furthest focus for infinity on the lens. This basically makes the markings for distances they put on it nearly useless. Lastly, there is a ton of distortion with this lens. You can easily correct it with post-processing but I do notice near the edges, can can still be there . Next to the focus ring, there is a second ring for controlling aperture. Since mine has the built in adapter for the e mount, it does not have any connections to relay information back to the camera and the camera is unable to store the aperture in the photos meta data so its been difficult to compare photos back in editing without fulling looking at them. All in all, this is a great value for the lens. I think its a good start, especially if your budget doesnt allow for several thousands. I hope to use this to get better and to make it worth upgrading to something more accurate and controllable in the future.

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Probably the best full frame nightscape lens for the dollar. Just be prepared to test your copy immediately upon arrival, and send it back until you get a sharp one. Quality control has always plagued these lenses.

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As others have indicated, this is a totally manual lens. Ive seen a lot of comments about soft focus, I myself did not experience this but it did take time to properly set up a shot. I was shooting with a 5D Mark IV on a Tripod, in Live View, centered on the brightest star and slowly magnified the display until I was at 10x. With lens aperture set F2.8, fine tuned the focus. Return to normal live view magnification, recompose the shot and did about a 30 second shutter speed. Captured this image in my driveway on my first attempts. Considering how much light pollution there is with Hartford to the SouthEast of our house, still was able to capture a bit of the Milky Way. That’s Mars just above the roofline to the left.

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