[Wingincamera]

I thought I would give my evaluation of the Bower 14mm f/2.8 Ultra Wide Angle Lens (also sold as Rokinon & Samyang). This is the second copy of the lens; the first one had a de-centered lens which made it slightly soft at 2.8. This second copy is good; thank you B&H for your easy return policy.

Photos were taken with a K-5 II, raw DNG files, processed in LR4 and exported as jpegs. No lens correction was made. I probably should have shot as jpegs so no processing would be required.
I took photos of a checker board pattern at minimum focus distance, and then similar photos at about six feet away. I also found a brick wall to take some photos, at about two feet away and about eight feet distance. These photos were taken starting at F2.8 through F8.
I took some photos around downtown Tacoma, original purpose was for sunrise photos, but morning fog descended and prevented that ideal.
What I did for most of the Tacoma scenes was to focus the lens for about eight feet and left the lens at that, no further focusing made, until I was shooting at the brick wall.

The distance scale is not even close, as with the first copy I had. I am not too concerned about this, as I plan on using hyperfocal distance.

Results for me were good at all apertures, maybe if really nitpicking at F2.8 was very slightly soft at minimum focus, but easy to correct and from F3.5 everything is sharp.
I will post a few of the photos here in reduced size; all of them can be seen at my Zenfolio site. I have also enabled ability to download the original size jpeg file.

All the photos can be seen here:
Zenfolio | Will Edwards | Bower 14mm lens-Tacoma

NOTE: I sometimes have trouble with links from Zenfolio. Sometimes they work, other times they do not. I tried to resolve the issue, bu no luck.

[tcbubbleleo]

nice pics and lens, I loved my Vivitar 13mm too b4 sold it