[Groucho]

This lens seems to be a pretty unusual beast; there are plenty of shots of Nikon and Canon-mount versions around the internet, and even a few Sonys, but try as I might, I couldn't find any evidence that anyone actually OWNS it in a Pentax mount. The review page here is pretty much just a placeholder and in the lens group at Flickr, I didn't see any Pentax shots, and I couldn't find anything anywhere else.

Well, I love fisheyes and being the new owner of a K-1, I was dusting off my old Zenitar (which then proceeded to shed the rubber on the focusing ring, most of it seems to have completely disappeared and I can only find a small section of it) and had forgotten that it lacked an "A" setting, which is not a HUGE deal but definitely an annoyance. I am looking forward to Pentax's upcoming (in the roadmap) full-frame fisheye zoom and PLEASE Pentax, make it WR! I considered shaving the hood off my 10-17mm but I'm concerned that the value of the lens will drop significantly, and lets face it - there's a LOT of purple fringing in that lens. Plus, it had six aperture blades - lots of my fisheye shots are at night on a tripod with bright lights and I was craving the starburst that you get off an odd number of blades, or at the very least, eight blades. This is something that I think isn't available in any Pentax-mount APS fisheye at any price.

Well, the Samyang has seven blades - and yes Virginia, it does have an "A" setting on it (as I suspected but no one seemed to know for sure!), so it's easy to live with.





I just received it tonight and the sun was almost completely set so I didn't have a chance to do more than take a few quick pictures just to get a basic idea of it, but I thought some people might be interested. If you want to see better photos, it should behave about the same as the same lens on a D810; that combo should be fairly easy to find, and I'll surely be giving it a lot of use in the future. These shots are uncropped and just have some basic quick Lightroom adjustments for exposure, WB, contrast, etc.

[normhead]

And how is the purple fringing?

[stevebrot]

Looks good! Will you be submitting a full review for the third-party lens database on this site? For the benefit of those who are unfamiliar with the Samyang line, the 12mm f/2.8 is a current product offering and is readily available in Pentax-K mount under one or more of the usual brandings (Samyang, Rokinon, Bower, etc.). B&H has the Rokinon-branded version for just under $500 USD.


Steve

[Adam]

It's definitely available for Pentax

Rokinon 12mm f/2.8 ED AS IF NCS UMC Fisheye Lens 12M-P B&H Photo

Great write-up! Please be sure to share your thoughts on it in the review DB as well.

Adam
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[stevebrot]

And how is the purple fringing?

I was wondering the same thing and am also curious about the infinity stop and focus scale calibration. Samyang ultrawides are sort of legendary for "creative" focus scale calibration.


Steve

[Groucho]

And how is the purple fringing?

Too early for me to have a worthwhile opinion, but initial observations look decent. I know it's virtually impossible to get a really wide angle lens without PF so I don't expect miracles - but in the second shot I posted, there is a little bit on the farthest left white column where it's contrasting with the sky, but it's fairly minimal. There's a little around the leaves, too, but not bad. Once you get to the next set of columns, you really have to pixel-peep to see any purple. I have found Lightroom's defringe using the fringe color selector to work really well for PF so it's not the mess that it once was, but I still like seeing as little as possible!

Looks good! Will you be submitting a full review for the third-party lens database on this site? For the benefit of those who are unfamiliar with the Samyang line, the 12mm f/2.8 is a current product offering and is readily available in Pentax-K mount under one or more of the usual brandings (Samyang, Rokinon, Bower, etc.). B&H has the Rokinon-branded version for just under $500 USD.


Steve

It's definitely available for Pentax

Rokinon 12mm f/2.8 ED AS IF NCS UMC Fisheye Lens 12M-P B&H Photo

Great write-up! Please be sure to share your thoughts on it in the review DB as well.

Yeah, I know that it should be available, and it's in stock at certain places, but I haven't seen anyone write that actually own it, and even the final word on whether or not it had auto-aperture, so I figured it was worth posting about it.

I picked mine up from blattworld1 off eBay - just under $370. Unfortunately, they're in New York State so I had to pay tax, too, but it was still under $400 total. The downside is that after the initial acknowledgement of my order and that I wanted the K mount (it's a generic listing, you choose the mount after ordering), I didn't hear anything for a little bit. I finally called them a week after I placed the order and they said "yes, it's been shipped." A few hours later, I got a "shipped" email from eBay. It was shipped priority mail last Friday and I received it today, so that's not TOO bad, but I wish it had shipped sooner - I wonder if they had to order it themselves from a distributor? Anyway, it was reasonably well packed and in pretty much perfect condition - and it was, indeed, the K-mount. I had fears of opening it up and seeing a different mount...

One thing about the Samyang that had me a little concerned was that the center of the image is not as fishy as on normal fisheye lenses. Time will tell how I feel about that - I generally don't much care for UWA rectilinear lenses but I just love fisheyes. One more reason to keep the Zenitar around just in case!

So, soon my beloved 10-17mm will probably be going up in the marketplace, along with my K-3, couple K1000s, some other lenses... these full frame lenses are expensive!

---------- Post added 10-24-2016 at 10:17 PM ----------

One other note - it's easier to get your finger in the corner of the frame than with the 10-17mm, as you can see in the last photo.

[Ole]

This lens seems to be a pretty unusual beast; there are plenty of shots of Nikon and Canon-mount versions around the internet, and even a few Sonys, but try as I might, I couldn't find any evidence that anyone actually OWNS it in a Pentax mount. The review page here is pretty much just a placeholder and in the lens group at Flickr, I didn't see any Pentax shots, and I couldn't find anything anywhere else...

Cool, nice to see the lens in K-mount. I will add your photo of the lens to the database. If you could provide an image on a clean white or grey background that would be even better and much appreciated.

[kenspo]

Been using this on K-1 for a while already. Love it

[THoog]

it does have an "A" setting on it (as I suspected but no one seemed to know for sure!)

I haven't seen anyone write that actually own it, and even the final word on whether or not it had auto-aperture

All of the current Samyang/Rokinon/etcetera K-mount lenses have the 'A' setting. The persistent myth that some don't is because dealers use one product photo for all mounts.

(I do have a Samyang-branded zoom that lacks the 'A' setting, but it was made in the 1980s.)

[Edgar_in_Indy]

There's a glitch in the Matrix...

[THoog]

There's a glitch in the Matrix...

Yeah, must be Agents at work. I thought I only clicked 'submit' once, then got DNS errors on the site for several minutes. When it came back, triple posts!

[Groucho]

All of the current Samyang/Rokinon/etcetera K-mount lenses have the 'A' setting. The persistent myth that some don't is because dealers use one product photo for all mounts.

(I do have a Samyang-branded zoom that lacks the 'A' setting, but it was made in the 1980s.)

Yeah, I was about 98% sure that it had the A setting - but good luck finding an actual photo of the Pentax mount lens ANYWHERE on the internet. I couldn't, and my Google Fu is pretty strong. Now we know 100%.

Yeah, must be Agents at work. I thought I only clicked 'submit' once, then got DNS errors on the site for several minutes. When it came back, triple posts!

The site went down right as I was about the submit the post last night... I had to wait a while before it was working again; sounds like there's some ongoing issues!

[Groucho]

Here's a better photo of the lens itself, with white background. You're welcome to use it in the lens database.

I expect it to get a lot of use on an upcoming trip in a couple weeks, I'll be able to write more thoughts on how I feel about it then.

[kenspo]

I love this lense

[Edgar_in_Indy]

I love this lense

Awesome image and I don't blame you for showing it off! But it's so well done with the lighting, composition, subject matter, and timing that the virtues of the lens almost seem unimportant.

It does show off why I have come to love fisheye lenses so much though!