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The SMC Pentax-DA 14mm F2.8 lens is somewhat of a mystery. It has been around ever since Pentax launched the DA lens series, but it doesn't get nearly as much attention on our forum or in our user reviews as the newer Pentax primes do. So, we decided to take a closer look at this lens ourselves to see how it performs compared to the recently-reviewed Pentax 15mm F4 Limited, While we were at it, we had B&H send us a Rokinon 14mm F2.8 lens, which is affordably priced at just $399, to use as a comparative benchmark.
Read our in-depth Pentax 14mm review to find out how the Pentax 14mm matches up against the Rokinon and the 15mm Limited!
And I owned 3 brand new copies with many chart and outdoor tests before I ruled out bad copies and test error. The DA14 is ok for close distance snaps but sucks big time for landscape or anything requires even sharpness.
Finally a test that confirms my finding.
Thanks for the review - interesting discussion and findings.
Someone please loan pentaxforums some good lenses for review. Please. This is getting embarassing if you ask me lol.
Sounds like a bad copy. Increasing fstop should have improved things significantly imo.
The test indicated that the DA 14 improved little when stopped down. If the problem were curvature of field (the image does not lie flat at the focal surface)stopping down would increase the depth of focus at the sensor, thus masking the curvature of field error. Since this lens improves little with stopping down, there is something else going on here.
samyang is much better, I already knew, but now I have confirmation
I use the DA14 without the hood which makes it a great carry around lens with a lens cap to protect the lens. I also prefer a fast lens with close focusing ability. If the reviewer thinks the Rokinon is a better buy even though it is a manual focus lens with a permanent large hood and no way to protect the lens then I can't understand that logic. Look at the lens flair, I don't use a hood with the DA14 and have not experienced any significant flair.
to: Doanh
maybe that's why Samyang released multicoated version - UMC, that lens is perfectly usable in sunlight, even against the sun
Thanks for the lesson in Focus Field Curvature! Seriously one outside IQ crop, no way are all three lenses focused the same.As for your CA, I can only achieve that through over exposure wide open. If you wanted to show some Bokeh, how about close focusing! Rubbish review!
Pentaxforums, you suck again in your review. The DA14 is not as soft as you show. Clearly you did not manage to focus it correctly.
So in other words, just buy a DA15 Limited.
OTOH, the Rokinon, Bell & Howell, Samyang...pick a name, all the same lens from Samyang, would be terrific for night sky photography with the K5 and the GPS tracker. The wide angle Pentax lenses are all a bit soft on the edges, although some are better than the Canon offerings. The issue of flare aside, the reviews on PHOTOZONE.DE pretty much track with the review here. The Pentax 14mm 2.8 is simply awful. Photozone provides resolution measurements and at 2.8 the Rokinon is close to F4 and beyond in performance.
I think the reviewers got the aberration rating in the Conclusion page reversed. The DA14 should have been a 6 and the Rokinon should have been a 9. This would change the overall ratings for the lenses: Pentax lower to 6.3 and Rokinon higher to 8.8. :/
My goodness, the Rokinon flares so bad that it is practically useless in sun light. I'm not sure if the scoring takes flare into account.