Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 IF ED Super Lens for Canon EF

Okay look, this lens isn't quite the walk-on-water miracle that many people are making it out to be. However, it is a fantastic little lens that can make a great addition to your kit if you know how to use it. It could also be a dust-collecting monument to buyer's remorse. That's up to you. Using the lens to its fullest capability can be hard. I'm saying that not as a professional photographer, but as an amateur photographer that has had one SLR or another in his hands since 1992. So I've got the experience under my belt, just not the paid gigs. Or some might say, the talent. Still though, I know my way around a camera. And this lens still took me a while to get used to. Especially hard is any type of focus at or around f/2.8, given the all-manual nature of the lens. Live View, even at 10x magnification, on the 5D Mark III sometimes does not provide enough zoom to accurately gauge focus (luckily, it does help when the subject is close to the camera - a situation that is likely if you're shooting at f/2.8). And besides, I'm not a big fan of Live View anyway because it messes up your flow by pulling your eye away from the viewfinder, making you press buttons to zoom, etc. By then the moment may have passed. Where it really shines is in that f/5.6 to f/8 sweet spot, where you can dial in to the hyperfocal distance and just go nuts. I put a chart up a while back that shows for any given aperture, where to set the focus to reach the hyperfocal point, and what the minimum focus distance is at that point (for full-frame and for 1.6x crops). Googling the phrase "Jitterypixel Rokinon" should get you there. Once your aperture and focus is dialed in based on that chart, it will tell you how far away your subjects need to be. For this reason, hyperfocal shooting is a bit backwards from normal lens operation: instead of aiming at a subject and attempting to focus on it, you're setting the focus and then framing the subject accordingly. Until you get accustomed to operating like this, you may find that you have a lot of stuff that looks slightly out of focus when viewed at 100% on your computer, especially if you don't have much experience with fully manual lenses. It can take some practice. Corner sharpness (in full-frame) is not as unbelievably insanely amazing as some have touted, but it is definitely workable. Honestly, the distortion is so bad by the time you hit the corners, sharpness is the last thing you're thinking about. You're thinking that the old lady you accidentally caught in the corner of the frame is melting into the sidewalk. Center sharpness is pretty great, and the lens responds well to the judicious use of sharpening in post. Most of the distortion can be corrected (at the cost of a few pixels around the outer edges) for free using the lens profile available for both ACR and Lightroom (the page that I mentioned above also includes info for how to get that profile, and a couple of before-after photos). Gloss-over stuff that I won't spend too much time on because hundreds of reviews before me have already gone into great detail: The build quality seems excellent, especially considering the price point. The focus is smooth and well-damped, and you won't be able to use a screw-on filter because of the lens shape and the fact that it would have to be HUGE in order to not get in the way of the ridiculously wide angle of view. The solid lens cap attaches to the permanent petal hood, and protects the glass very well. Final word of caution: Do not under any circumstances position any female (ESPECIALLY wife or girlfriend) around the outside portion of the frame when shooting. Doing so will likely jeopardize your permission to ever photograph said female again in the future. Ever.

First off, let me state that I am not a "professional" in that I do not perform photography for my career. I suppose you could say I fall into that (seemingly) ever-growing "prosumer" market point. I love to have nice, quality items, but at the same time I do not like to break the bank. I have always (and always will be) a very money conscious person that always looks to get the most for what money I am willing to spend. This lens by 14mm Rokinon (Samyang) is a great value when it comes to the always important image quality to cost ratio. The sharpness and performance of this lens is great, and I am thoroughly impressed. Comparing this lens to my Canon 24-105L (which is roughly 2.5x the cost) as far as sharpness, clarity, and color reproduction is outstanding. The sharpness especially is just as good if not better than the Canon. . .but obviously all of this comes at a cost. What cost is that, you may ask? The cost of luxury. . .pure, plain, and simple. This lens does not have any auto-focus, any image stabilization, any electronics period. Now to someone like myself who thrives on the technical aspects of most anything out there (engineer for a reason I guess, haha), this lens answers a call of the minimalistic nature - one where you have to take the time and think about what you are shooting with respect the environment (lighting conditions, subject matter, etc) you find yourself in. If you do take your time, are willing to work through a fully manual lens to match your shooting environment, you will be fully rewarded with your results from this wonderful lens. A point of note, and something that I took into account and kept in the back of my mind before purchasing this lens. . .there is apparently somewhat of a quality issue with improperly focused (de-centered) lenses, i.e. soft focus on one side or the other of the lens. I will admit that my copy is ever so slightly (and I do mean a very small amount) softer on the bottom right of the frame. Is it enough for me to notice? Not really. . .and I am a very analytical individual when it comes to scrutinizing just about anything (especially my pictures). The ever so slight de-centering was only noticed when testing specially for this. In real world testing, the de-centering is non-existent. Overall though, just something to keep in mind. Also, this lens does have some distortion - all of which can be fixed very simply with a program/plugin such as PTLens or other various lens profiles floating around out there on the internet for programs such as Lightroom or Photoshop. Summary? I don't think you can get a better lens in the $400 or below range. If you are wanting a lens for a walk around/point and shoot type, well this is obviously not your choice. If you like to shoot landscapes, or put emphasis on a subject with a larger background in view, well then this lens is definitely worth a look. On a scale of 1-10 I would give this lens about a 9/10. The one knock to me is the lack of ability to use a standard filter (i.e. circular polarized filter for landscapes). I will definitely keep other Rokinon (Samyang) products in mind on (seemingly inevitable) future lens purchases! Side Notes: I am shooting with this lens on a crop sensor, not full frame. & Look for my images watermarked "Down Scope Photography" in the sample photos for examples. *Edit* After viewing lens on full frame body, more de-centering is evident in lens (not noticed really on my crop sensor body). Just re-ordered a new copy to come while I send this one back. If I wasn't so particular, it would not be an issue. I still leave this lens at 5 stars for the moment, pending on how the new lens looks.

This really is a terrific lens. I had been on the fence about buying it for a long time then finally pulled the trigger. I'll keep this review short because I think this lens will attract people who already know the answer to most questions. I'll get right to it: this lens is easy to use and takes great pictures. Anyone reading this should own a full frame camera. If you do, you know a little more about cameras and are interested in being artistic. You can easily take great pictures at 14mm at a low price with this lens. "Manual" just means aperture priority with manual focus. If you own a full frame and want to shoot at 14mm, chances are you're going to be shooting with aperture priority or fully manual anyway, and half or most of the time with manual focus. At 14mm, depth of field is very forgiving. In other words, it's hard to really screw a picture up with this lens even though it's "manual" and 14mm gives you a world of options you never had before. As for optics, I don't own any of those fancy optics charts because my main concern is how my pictures look. They all look amazing, especially color saturation. There is just enough distortion that someone who is into photography can tell it's a wide angle lens, but not much more than when I'm watching a sports game and they pan around the stadium, in other words the pictures look great. Every time I have popped this lens on, usually at the golden hour or in the dark, I've had no problems getting great shots. I enjoy this lens so much, I think it is a MUST HAVE. Why four stars? Somewhere out there for the cost of a mansion's mortgage payment you can get another 14mm that has a little bit less distortion that I can notice when I squint and lots of automated features that I won't use that can outdo this lens by the numbers and is not worth buying for the vast majority of us. This lens probably deserves 4.5 stars. If you are even considering it for a second, get it!

This is a fantastic lens and an affordable way to get a very unique and useful focal length, as long as you can deal with the manual focus. But, I've had great luck with this lens by manually focusing in magnified live view. And, frankly, with a lens this wide, achieving perfect focus is not quite as critical since each subject in the frame is a smaller part of the image, and thus has less detail anyway. For wide landscape photos where most things in the frame are far away, assuming you have enough light, you can stop it down to about f8, set the focus between 10ft and infinity, and you are pretty much good to go, and you don't need to worry about re-focusing it for each shot. I've always been pleased with the sharpness of this lens. There is a bit of distortion if you're taking photos of straight lines, but you can find lens correction profiles for this lens online, and the distortion and vignetting correct pretty well in photoshop. Use this lens for wide landscape shots, or get very close to a subject to give a unique perspective. It's actually a very useful lens. And I love the way that the wide angle grabs so much of a scene and tends to pull the viewer into the photo. Last, a small note about this lens... After the fact, I ordered a focus confirmation chip for this lens with the idea that I could put it on it lens, and get the camera to recognize a lens was attached, so it would confirm focus. While this did work, the focus points in the viewfinder flashed, confirming focus, even when the image wasn't really in focus. I wasn't impressed with this modification to this lens, so I don't use it anymore. So, save your money if you're thinking of doing this. It seems that there is a reason Canon disables focus confirmation with a manual lens. It doesn't seem to work very well. I dunno, maybe it has to do with the wide perspective of this lens. But, sadly you are stuck focusing in magnified live view if you really want to nail focus with this lens.

I bought this lens about a month ago to be able to use with my canon Xsi and also D5. This lens performs very well with Xsi giving about 22.4 mm equivalent. The main reason why I bought this lens is the capability of using F2.8 considering that most of the Canon lenses with this F stop and focal length are really expensive (at least 3 times). I used the lens for wide field astrophotography, land escapes and northern lights. The lens is fully manual so focus and aperture have to be set by hand; however, it can be still used with AV function of the camera. Pros Aperture ring sets very easily Optics are quite good, almost no flare when taken in front of the sun. E.g. Sunset or sunrise, moon set or moon rise Color is exceptionally good Distortion at F 2.8 is not bad and easy to correct using Photoshop if you are taking picture of buildings. No vignetting when used with Xsi So far I have not notice to much distortion at the corners Compared with my expensive L series lenses (F4). The distortion at the corners is surprisingly less Chromatic aberration seems to be well controlled. Actually, It seem very similar to canon L series. Cons Still significant vignetting when used with canon 5D. However, not worse than that for the 17-40 mm L F4 canon. It is hard to focus. Basically in Xsi, I can use the live view at 10X to get a sharp focus. The lens has focus measurements but they are not well calibrated so you need to find your own. To make your focus easy, you need to do it at maximum aperture to be able to get enough light then go to your desired aperture according to the deep of field you would like to achieve. You can't have a filter on top of the lens, so you need to be extra careful. However, I am not sure if this is a con, since night photography (including northern light) is all done without filter so this prevents me from forgetting taking the filter off. In conclusion This manual lens has very good optics. All very well corrected and not that different form the premium once or at least the canons F4 (17-40mm and 24-110 mm). It is one rare combination of quality and price because usually you get what you pay. Perhaps the fact that the lens is all manual makes it significant cheaper.

I have been shooting exclusively with this lens for around two months now, doing fine art landscapes, nature, and some artistic architectural images as well. This lens is fantastic. It is built like a tank. When you pick it up for the first time, it simply oozes quality, with extremely precise construction and movements, a buttery smooth and crisp focus ring, and a very nice heft. This lens absolutely does not feel or work like a budget lens. It feels and shoots like premium professional glass, playing in the same league as Carl Zeiss and Canon L. Do you get what you pay for? No, I would say in this case you actually get quite a bit more. The image quality I've been getting from this lens is absolutely superb. Mine is razor sharp across the frame in most shots, especially stopped down. You get creamy bokeh and some vignetting at 2.8. This is normal and desirable, and it looks great in real life. I seriously do not understand people who whine about these perfectly normal features that are essentially inherent to any ultrawide lens when shot wide open. They add a nice emphasis to the subject in most real-world images. As for the perfectly normal mustache distortion, it is only notable in images where you have a straight line crossing through the middle of your frame, such as a sea horizon at sunset. In most normal photos you will not see any distortion. You really need straight lines for it to be noticeable. Either way, this is easily corrected with one click in Aperture, Lightroom or Adobe Camera RAW with any one of the many free and excellent lens profiles available as a simple download online. Also note that moustache distortion is inherent to virtually all ultra-wide angle lenses, including Canon L glass. Overall, I love this lens. It is currently my favorite lens I have shot with in over 7 years of serious and professional photography, and I would highly recommend it to those who know how to shoot with ultra-ultra-wides (see Ken Rockwell's article on the subject, but disregard his inaccurate review of this lens which was based on a bad copy of the ProOptic version he got from Adorama). Basically embrace the stylistic nature of the lens, and do not merely use it to cram more stuff into your frame. It really is a majestic lens to have in your arsenal. The only reasons to consider the Canon L lens are USM autofocus and the electronic control of aperture (which enables program mode). You can shoot in Aperture Priority and Manuak modes just fine with this lens. If you just want AF confirm you can get a chip for that for about $10 or less on eBay. For doing landscape work, this lens will do the trick. If you are shooting people, you may want to consider an autofocus lens. Lastly, I will leave you with a quick tip: when shooting with this lens, it is best to shoot on a tripod if possible, and to check your focus zoomed in 10x on the magnifier in live view (tripod or not). Otherwise you may be blaming the lens for soft shots that were due to an easily avoidable user focusing error. If you focus properly, this lens will nail the shot every time. It's an incredible buy.

I love this lens! I bought the lens to supplement my UWA lens corral, having an 11-16mm for my Canon 7D and a 17-40L for my Canon 5D MkIII. My 17-40L works well for the Real Estate work I do but just not quite wide enough! 16mm is the sweet spot for me with Real Estate Photography. The 11-16mm f/2.8 Tokina won't work properly on my 5D MkIII, so I picked up one of these, liking the reviews and the price! The lens worked better than I expected! The colors was fantastic, the sharpness was amazing! Adjusting to shooting with a 100% manual lens was easy, they all used to be that way! I just focused using live view and it worked fine. Outdoor landscapes have a very special feel to them with this lens, especially when combined with a good ND Filter. The real estate shoot that I used it for indeed, also had an exceptional feel. The compliments I received on this Real Estate Shoot were some of the best I've ever received. That being said, I had issues with it. The Vertical distortion was just too much for me to resolve. Instead of the normal horizontal "mustache" distortion I was expecting, the images had a heavy vertical distortion on either side of the frame. I applied corrections in LR5 and with DXO but could not completely eliminate it. Too me it stood out like a sore thumb but after working them as much as I could, I had no choice but to submit them, as I couldn't get back to the site for another shoot, it was a once in, last chance in, type of arrangement. The images were fantastic in many respects but the curved side walls were unacceptable to me. Nevertheless, I submitted them. The compliments from the client were glowing!! In fact it led to a couple more shoots for them on some other properties. By then, I had already sent the lens back, deciding the amount of work needed to correct the images was way too much time to make it worthwhile for Real Estate imagery. And despite the glowing reviews, some of the best ever, I stand by my premise, it was way to much work in post, for the type of shoots I was using it for. Way to much... Needless to say, I ordered another one because despite not really being able to use it for Real Estate Images, the rest of options for me to use it are fantastic, I missed it and just wanted this lens to live in my bag for the landscape and other work I enjoy doing. As I mentioned before, coupled with a very good ND filter, this lens is fantastic for landscapes and gives the images a very special feel with an exceptional color rendition! It also resolves sharpness in at an exceptional level! I'm looking into adding an after market chip to add to it for AF and/or Aperture... Bottom line, if you've not shot Ultra Wide before on a full frame, it may take a little getting used too, with this lens you have to do a little work, photographer work, like "back in the day" but the results are worth it! Just don't buy it for Real Estate interiors! You'll love it!

So when I saw all the positive reviews, I wasn't sure if it was about the value or the lens itself. Here is my take: 1) Construction: I would give the construction a 4 star. It feels solid and was a nice surprise. It didn't look weatherproof or anything nor was I expecting it to be. 2) F2.8 and aperture: A lot of vignetting at 2.8 in low light situations (indoor). There is an aperture ring around the lens and you will control aperture from there not the camera which is actually cool because you will see in real time how lower/higher aperture would impact your light. But that means you can only use Manual mode which didn't bother me. I would give it a 3 mainly for vignetting. 3) Filters: No front-side filters... which means I can't use any of my existing filters. Annoying but not a deal breaker by any means. 4) Focus: This is where this lens gets a 0 star. Yes I was aware that this is a manual focus lens when I purchased it. And yes I am a pretty serious hobbyist so manual focusing is not a challenge for me, and yes you can produce semi-sharp photos with this lens. In reality, the combination of manual focus and less than sharp photos (maybe I just got a bad copy), and wrong distance metering on the lens kills this for any real professional use. Problem is when manual focusing, you will never get a confirmation from the camera that you have the correct focus which means you have to rely on the little viewfinder to make sure you have a right focus. Now since digital cameras don't have the split image in viewfinder anymore (Now I miss my AE1), and since at 14mm you can hardly see enough details thru the viewfinder, it is almost impossible to be sure about a razor sharp focus at the time of taking the shot. I tried with tripod and was able to get sharper shots using digital zoom in live view, but that makes the use case much more limited. So what are you going to do as a safe bet to avoid blurry objects in your image? you are going to step down from f2.8 to 5.6 or more just to give yourself more cushion (which defeats the purpose of being a F2.8 lens) and you are going to take many shots and review one by one in the playback to finally settle on one only to be later disappointed when you see it on a large screen. I'd love to think that I got a bad copy but I am not convinced to give it another shot. In all fairness, the sharpness and focus limitations may not be as much of an issue if you are printing 8x11 or smaller, but will show itself for large canvas prints! That to me makes this an unusable lens for any serious photography. If you are doing milky way shots and such, it may not be as much of an issue. Overall, I decided to return this and will just stick to my 16-35mm to do the job. I thought I had found a good solution to go wider than 16mm without breaking the bank but I was disappointed. Overall, I would give the lens 2.5 star as a lens but gets a 1 star from purchase perspective.

Exactamente lo que quieras después de esperar mucho tiempo, excelente acabado y calidad suprema. Excelente trámite de envío

جودتها مقارنه بسعرها ممتازه اشوفها من اول العدسات الي ممكن المصور يشتريها في بدايه تصويره مع ال٥٠ بالذات اذا كان عليها عروض ، هذي النسخه مافيها شريحه ولا فيها اي شي يساعدك في تصحيح الانحراف او الفينيتنق كل شي تسويه يدوي لكن نتايجها ممتازه بالذات الي يبغا يصور مباني من الداخل او لاند سكيب او تصوير المجره فقط اعرف تعامل مع فتحه العدسه اليدويه والفوكس اليدوي وتصحيح الانحراف في البرامج يدوي وبتحصل نتايج ممتازه اقيم حدتها ٨.٥ من ١٠ ولكن تنافس عدسات اغلا منها بقرابه ١٠ مرات

Very nice sharp lens, great value for money. Fits well on my EFs mount.

The lens was the incorrect model of Rokinon. Retirurned for a refund. Awaiting Amazon to confirm.

No doubt very good lens for astrophotography