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

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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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One star reviews are reserved for broken or substituted products. It is not easy for me to rate this lens as a one star, but my copy deserved it. I returned it because of an impending trip (and the fact that Amazon didn’t offer a coordinated return/replace option when I notified them of the lens’ problem). I have - and enjoy using - a Rokinon 8mm fish and a Samyang 85mm f/1.4 (Rokinon, Opteka, and Samyang, among other companies, belong to the Samyang Group). Neither of those lens have exhibited any problems, although both were inexpensive. They are well built, contrasty, and freakishly sharp (even) wide open. This is an older Samyang design, so there is less metal on the lens than newer models include. It’s mostly light plastic, although constructed to tight tolerances. The glass was gorgeous and the overall fit and finish was as expected. Upon mounting the lens there was no evidence of an issue: no rattles or unexpected noises. I used the viewfinder to compose and then focus...and the focus ring slipped, then stuck, then decoupled from the lens elements midway through its throw distance. That was it...totally non functional. Really, after that there was little to do. It’s a fully manual prime lens so there were no connections to check, no EXIF data to read. After the thunk, the ring freely spun, with “normal” resistance, to the marked near/infinity focus limits. The aperture ring was functional. In vane fashion, I unmounted it and remounted it, as if thirty years of photography had not taught me that it wouldn’t work. I suppose trying didn’t cost me any anything since I had so happily anticipated putting the 14mm through its paces. So disappointing. I bought the lens not because of the cost, but because I enjoy shooting manual. And I LOVE shooting wide: I use M, and frequently shut off autofocus. As it stands, I’ll be taking a heavy wide zoom to Iceland next week instead of this light prime. I would have enjoyed learning the lens during the trip. Sadly, that was not meant to be.

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Well this is a little hard to give a clear review . Im sure my Samyang arrived faulty & or miss-aligned. But lets start with my initial out of box check,,, Infinity point, all-though hard to find was closer to the 10m marking,, this did not bother me as other reviews also state this issue, It did seem quite sharp but on closer inspection was slightly soft & hazey in the centre & outer edges,,, outer edge aberration was not bad but I was expecting better,,, obviously a little worse @ F2.8 ,,, I threw on my Canon 16-35 as a bench mark,, the stark difference was apparent, especially the centre focus area, my Canon was so much sharper.. I decided it was a cheep lens and I would put up with it,,,, Then, over a two week period with this lens in my Carry Kit & rarely used seemed to be changing between use,,, it became much worse,,, Infinity point was moving ! & the outer aberration was getting much much worse,,, central haze now through all F stops. Infinity was now between .5 m & .7m Something must be coming adrift internally ? So my end result was to return this lens as it was now quite unuseable,,, I would love to try a good one of these,, but after paying very expensive return post from Australia,,, well Im not keen on getting another with same possible issues,,,, It does seem quality control is very hit & miss. I will take a deep breath & decide what to do after the return process is complete.. Cheers Craig

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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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This is the second lens I received from Amazon after returning the first for the same issues (only this one may even be slightly worse). When using the live view function of my camera zoomed all the way in on a distant point source of light like a star, the light gradually gets smaller and smaller, but does not quite make it to "pinpoint" focus before the focus ring runs up against the stop. Most lenses will actually focus PAST the infinity focus point, but both of my examples exhibit this same behavior where they do not quite reach infinity focus. The next big issue is the coma that is apparent (likely because they cant completely focus) at f2.8 wide open. this disappears completely if you stop down to f5.6, but that totally defeats my reason for buying this lens, which is a fast, wide angle lens for astrophotography. I have 18mm f3.5 zooms that can focus to a pinpoint that would be better than stopping this lens down to f5.6, so its totally useless for my purposes. I did rate it a 4 out of 5 for material quality as it appears to be solidly built, but I gave it two stars for image quality and two stars overall. The reason I even gave it two stars is as a landscape lens stopped down to f5.6 it should be a great performer, but I didnt buy an f2.8 to use f5.6 all the time. These lenses generally get good reviews so Im sort of sad that I got two duds in a row. Another odd effect is that the coma-like distortion appears to all run in the same direction (but does not appear to be astigmatism) regardless of the position within the frame, and it should be noted that the image I attached was taken on a crop sensor so it would only be worse on a full frame.

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I bought this lens for a specific reason. I have a Ronin-M that I have been using with my 5dm3 and its kit lens. Although the image was good, I just felt that it wasnt smooth and stable enough. Many reviews online recommended the use of a wide angle lens to minimize the effects of shaky movements. Couldnt afford a Canon wide angle lens; so I went for this one after watching some Youtube videos. Verdict: After several weeks of use of this lens with the Ronin-M, I can say that Im super happy I made this purchase. I finally have the perfect combination: Ronin-M+5Dmark 3+Samyang 14mm. The image is always smooth, stable and in focus. The lens also performs wonders in low light situations. If you like putting motion in your videos and youre looking for a lens that can make your images look smooth, buy this baby and you wont regret it. From time to time, I snap photos with this lens and the results are always amazing. The sharpness is simply incredible. All videographers AND photographers should always carry this lens in their bags...no kidding!

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Was a bit apprehensive on this purchase, as some of the reviews mentioned the possibility of quality issues. But I decided to give it a try...... Manual focus is really a non issue on a lens this wide, using the simple hyperfocal settings. Thing is, the focus scale on this lens.......... as others have stated, glory be, I have no idea what they were thinking when it was laid out. Its........ a learning process for sure, not at all accurate. However, since I bought this for landscape work solely.......... I have to say this lens beats the pants off anything else I have in a wide angle, as far as corner to corner sharpness and colors rendition go. Using this on a full frame camera delivers simply stunning images....... I find that focusing the lens about 1/4" short of the infinity line, and stopping to f16.......... delivers incredible clarity from near to far when using a tripod and release. Very pleased with this lens....... very pleased.

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After testing the lens with both of D800E and D850, I found the lens I received has serious focus issue - it cant focus on anything beyond 10 feet before the focus ring stopped at its infinity hard-stop. It seems the lens infinity hard-stop is positioned too close. I have returned the lens, and are waiting for a replacement - hopefully the second one would be good. Update: Thanks to Amazons fast shipping system, got the replacement in 2 days. Ran some tests, the focus seemed working OK, but theres a new problem - the right edges of the pictures taken with the lens are much softer than the left, even with the aperture set to F8.0. The left and mid section are very good from F5.6 to F8.0, so it could be a very good affordable wide angle lens if it did not have this centering/alignment issue. Tired of trying - will return it and get my money back.

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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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