| Author: | | Veteran Member Registered: March, 2012 Location: Melbourne Posts: 432 | | Review Date: December 13, 2012 | Recommended | Price: $300.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Too much to mention.. | | Cons: | Cheap front cap, non removable hood. | | Sharpness: 9
Aberrations: 8
Bokeh: 7
Handling: 9
Value: 9
| |
The 8mm fisheye from Samyang is a smashing little lens, despite its massive angle of view it handles flare well, produces nice sharp images and the shape of the distortion is even desirable. Great lens.
| | | | | | | Veteran Member Registered: December, 2009 Location: USA - Delaware Posts: 435 | | Review Date: October 22, 2012 | Recommended | Price: $300.00
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | Super wide, very fun, sharp, price | | Cons: | flare, manual focus | | Sharpness: 10
Aberrations: 9
Bokeh: 7
Handling: 10
Value: 10
| |
I have the Rokinon verson of the lens. I really like it. It is very sharp in center wide open and the corners are sharp starting around F5.6. Super fun to play around with. Tends to flare if you are not careful, thought I think thats pretty natural with round front element. Very good quality build.
What I love about it is that it is one of the few modern lens which are IR compatible with no hot spots. I have converted K10D and this baby produces some stellar results. 2 things to be aware of. Flare is 10 times more prominent in IR (which is not necessarily bad). Sometimes it creates really interesting results in photos. Also, almost all lens are optimized for the visible spectrum so they perform poorly in the corners when shooting in IR. This is no exception. The easiest way to get around this problem is to shoot with full frame designed lens. The 14mm Rokinon would probably be better wide angle for that purpose. Otherwise, really fun lens!  | | | | | Veteran Member Registered: January, 2012 Location: Milan Posts: 339 | | Review Date: September 8, 2012 | Recommended | Price: $281.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | flare, wide, build | | Cons: | filters | | Sharpness: 7
Aberrations: 8
Bokeh: 5
Handling: 10
Value: 10
| |
Very nice lens.
From the first day I bought this lens, I appreciate every time its results.
No flare at all, strong construction, super wide fov.
It's really a nice lens.
Negative side: you can't add filters. -edit- you can, but you have to buy its own filter carrier
| | | | | Junior Member Registered: May, 2010 Posts: 48
2 users found this helpful
| | Review Date: June 28, 2012 | Recommended | Price: $300.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Stereographic projection, crazy wide FOV | | Cons: | Lens cap, close focusing | | Sharpness: 9
Aberrations: 9
Bokeh: 5
Handling: 9
Value: 10
| |
I had the DA10-17 fisheye awhile ago and sold it for a Pentax DA15, which I later sold it for a Tamron 10-24mm f3.5-4.5. I found fisheye photos less practical than a rectilinear UWA, but deep inside me, I really missed the quirkiness of the fisheye lens.
I wanted something wider than my 10-24, and Samyang fit the bill. Reading the reviews of it's stereographic projection made it even more desirable for me!
Here's what I found from my experience with the Samyang vs the DA10-17.
Pros:
1. Stereographic projections made photos less squished at the sides, especially photos of people looked more natural
2. It's hard to believe the field of view of this lens! It's wider than any lens I've ever used, and more than the DA10-17 at 10mm!
3. It's well built and built to last
4. It's KA mount. One of the best things about the Pentax mount is that it supports full metering.
5. Better CA control than the DA10-17.
6. Value for money. No fisheye come close to this quality and price ratio
Cons:
1. Lens cap is not well designed and is not easy to put on. there are no 3rd party replacement cap at the moment (not even on fleabay). I would love to have a felt padded lens cap like the DA10-17
2. Close up. Compared to DA10-17 which can focus ridiculously close (0.1m), the Samyang only focuses at about 0.3m. That means, you can't take photos of objects up close and give it a crazy distorted feel.
Neutral:
1. No AF, but MF is easy enough. Set it at f5.6 and focus at 0.6m or f8.0 and focus at 0.4m. Almost everything will be in focus
2. No zoom. But for me, even when I had the DA10-17, i would mostly use it at 10mm. some folks may say that 15-17mm works like a rectilinear UWA, but I prefer to get a dedicated rectilinear for that kind of shots.
I would say that the Samyang 8mm is not as "fun" as the DA10-17 due to it's less aggressive distortions and not-so-close minimal focusing range (i.e. photos of your dog with a huge nose effect), but the novelty of these pictures wear off very quickly. Instead, the Samyang is a solid all rounder, which would work very well with landscapes and cityscapes.
Fisheye lenses are itself not very easy to use, due to the enormous canvas it captures. Here are some shots I took using the Samyang (they were taken with RAW, and post processed using LR to up the contrast, saturation, clarity). All in all, I highly recommend this lens to any fisheye and wide angle lovers!
| | | | | | | New Member Registered: June, 2010 Posts: 11 | | Review Date: April 12, 2012 | Recommended | Price: $299.00
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | Exceptional lens | | Cons: | none | | Sharpness: 10
Aberrations: 10
Bokeh: 10
Handling: 10
Value: 10
| |
I have this lens almost for three years now and I just love it. Works wonderful on Pentax cameras. Very sharp from corner to corner. The field of view is amazing!
| | | | | Site Supporter Registered: February, 2008 Location: Hawkesbury Posts: 1,899 | | Review Date: April 7, 2012 | Recommended | Price: $300.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Unique optics, sharp, good colour reproduction, great price | | Cons: | Poor lens cap and bag | | Sharpness: 9
Aberrations: 7
Bokeh: 8
Handling: 8
Value: 10
| |
Having heard such wonderful things about this lens and seen some nice examples of images, I had somewhat built up my expectations. Now that I have the "Bell+Howell" branded version in my hands, I am a little disappointed but still satisfied with the lens over all.
In almost all respects, the optics of this lens are unique and of good quality. Sharpness is very good across the frame. Colour reproduction is also generally very good and contrast is high. Unfortunately, my copy produces strong purple/green fringing on areas with extreme contrast. I know that LCA is a problem on many fish-eye lenses, but other reviewers have made a point of saying how well controlled these were on this lens. Maybe my copy is worse? I'm going to have to improve my processing to deal with this, as it can be overly distracting in what are otherwise eye catching, brain twisting photographs.
My copy seems to be quite resistant to flare. I only see obvious flare artefacts when a strong light source is just out of the frame or in a corner. Contrast remains good even when shooting into the sun.
The other area that the lens fails is in the method used to cap the lens. The 22 mm thick lens cap can only grip the lens hood if applied at exactly the right angle. What is more, the lens cap has a poor fit and additional gaps at the grips all of which does a poor job of keeping the lens face free of dust (particularly given the fluffy lens bag supplied). The cap needs to be designed tighter and could have a curved face like the hood to help users align it and help it slip into a pocket while the lens is in use.
Otherwise the lens handling is pretty good. The focus throw is about right (about 100°) and everything feels sturdy enough. The lens is much more compact than I expected.
Many photographers have commented that focusing is unimportant with this lens given its huge depth of field at most settings. I find it can make a bit of a difference due to how sharp the lens is for well focused objects, particularly when shooting in low light, however achieving the optimum focus can be difficult. I am unable to see any loss of infinity focus by setting the lens wide open and focusing at the 1m mark rather than at the infinity mark.
I particularly like the close focus ability. You could probably get a recognisable image of an insect on the lens face when it is stopped right down.
I'm sure I'm going to enjoy using this lens and will post some examples here when I have made more use of it. My rating of a 9 might be a little generous, but I can't help but smile every time I use it!
 | | | | | New Member Registered: February, 2012 Posts: 2 | | Review Date: March 4, 2012 | Not Recommended | Price: $390.00
| Rating: 3 |
| Pros: | stereographic projection | | Cons: | sharpness | | Sharpness: 4
Aberrations: 2
Handling: 10
Value: 3
| |
I bought it from a local official reseller. The package was a quite simple: thin carton and cheap plastic holder. Who cares? The pouch (an important part of the lens storage) looks like a very low quality velour - it leaves black hear all the time. Thus, I've threw it out to a trash and use one from Nikon. The cheap plastic nasty lens cap has two big holes (in places it clamp up to the lens hood). It looks like Samyang had especially cared to provide the dust to cover a huge lens surface. Very bad. The IQ of my first copy was absolutely horrible. It was not possible to get it in focus at any distance and with any f-stop. It should be pointed out that the lens is built pretty solid but I did not care to hammer in nails with the lens. OK, the first copy was replaced,thanks to my local Samyang reseller. The second copy was a bit better but still did not know to focus in long distance/infinity. The manufacturer's technical support was (in my opinion) absolutely useless and disappointed. The third copy of the lens (thanks again to the local reseller) was better then two former ones. Anyway, I liked a stereographic projection of this Samyang lens. In bottom line: it is a lens for the money you pay for it, nothing more and may be even less then that.
| | | | | Veteran Member Registered: July, 2009 Location: Minnesota Posts: 1,520
3 users found this helpful
| | Review Date: January 19, 2012 | Recommended | Price: $239.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Proportional projection, edge sharpness, build & assembly, flare resistance | | Cons: | Stop-down aperture shift (confirmed) | | Sharpness: 7
Aberrations: 8
Handling: 7
Value: 9
| |
First and foremost, this is a near-stereographic projection lens, appropriately termed as a proportional projection lens. As such, spheres are round as they should be nearly from edge to edge (not fat at the edges as in severe rectilinear distortion, or a bending oblong present on conventional fisheyes). Simply put, if you wanted to take a picture of 75 people in a living room, this lens will outperform in terms of portrayal accuracy compared to any other ultra-wide lens currently in production - and by a very large margin.
Its build and assembly quality are on a level with a typical A-series prime (which it somewhat resembles). Its CA/PF is like most ultra-wides and fisheye, but more easily cleaned up than most (currently I have a Tokina 12-24 - which is much worse, a Zenitar 16mm - about the same); flare resistance is better than anything else I've seen in the ultra-wide category - even shooting with the sun in the frame. I rated bokeh as about average simply because it really isn't a factor in this lens. (Any shallow depth of field you might want to introduce would have to be shot at f/3.5 - and this is just too soft a setting compared to the much-improved sharpness at f/5.6.)
Some creative testing confirms that the lens is not assembled by monkeys. In fact, every one of these lenses shot at f/3.5 will be most sharp at infinity when set to 0.7 meters - this is intentional due to a design flaw. As it works out, if you shoot the lens at f/11 it will be sharpest at infinity (focus scale is correct). Based on my testing, here's another way to look at it: the closest marked focus is 12 inches: at f/3.5 the lens focuses sharpest at 14 inches; at f/11 the lens close focuses sharpest at 12 inches; and at f/22 close focus is sharpest at 9-10 inches (and is far out of focus at 14 inches where it was sharp when wide open). Something had to give in designing such an exotic lens at a low cost, and this variable focal-point phenomenon is the culprit. Not much of a challenge to correct once you are aware of the problem. Whatever you do, it is a mistake to recalibrate the focus barrel. You will not be able to focus at infinity stopped down if you calibrate only at the wide open aperture setting (which is optically the weakest setting).
| | | | | Veteran Member Registered: September, 2010 Location: Manchester, UK Posts: 2,653
4 users found this helpful
| | Review Date: November 13, 2011 | Recommended | Price: $290.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | Designed by a genius | | Cons: | Assembled by monkeys | |
A well designed fisheye. As good, if not better, optically than the Pentax 10-17mm, with a better projection.
Sharpness not too bad once set up correctly. At f3.5 it is quite soft, things improve by f4 and get best somewhere between f5.6 and f8. CA is low and predictable - much better than the SMC Pentax DA 10-17mm fisheye - and the lens is quite immune to purple fringing and flare. Colours and contrast are very good. On a K-7 it gets recognised as an auto aperture, manual focus lens and catch-in-focus works (not that you'll need it given the enormous depth of field of a 8mm lens).
Build quality and 'feel' are good. There is no DoF scale, but since most of the time everything from a few inches to infinity will be in focus you won't miss it. The lens cap is a kludge but liveable with. As with all of these custom lens caps, if you break it or lose it be prepared for a hefty replacement cost.
The focal length is probably just over 8mm on a K-7, wide enough to be able to do 360 degree panoramas in four shots plus a zenith shot. The projection used helps here as the frame edges are not as squashed as with the Pentax fisheye.
Overall it is a fun lens to use, once you figure out which fisheye shots work and which don't.
Unfortunately Samyang do not have any concept of QC. My copy was one of those where the distance ring was set so that best infinity sharpness was really when at 0.7m. Easily (and reversibly) fixed.
Some sample shots :
  
  
   
And some 360 degree panos here : http://www.360cities.net/search/@author-kh1234567890 | | | | | Loyal Site Supporter Registered: October, 2009 Posts: 137
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: April 22, 2011 | Recommended | Price: $240.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | a gem; great value for money | | Cons: | none | |
this 8mm samyang is a gem! indeed with distance set at 1 meter it is sharp and exciting! specially with street phtography at events like this Flower Park in the Netherlands....
Great colours and nice handling
1 click on pic to enlarge
2 click on pic to enlarge
3
4
5
6
 | | | | | New Member Registered: February, 2009 Location: Malvern, PA Posts: 5
3 users found this helpful
| | Review Date: December 3, 2010 | Recommended | Price: $229.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Build quality, image quality, price | | Cons: | Cheap lens cap | |
Pros:
Excellent quality, even by professional standards. Solid overall build quality - metal construction, smooth focus ring. This certainly does not have the look and feel of a budget lens. Image quality is excellent and I don't just mean excellent "for the price"...it's a great lens by any standard.
Cons:
The front lens cap does what is designed to do, but the cheap plastic material and reverse clip design leave much to be desired. The large curved front element causes some flare in direct sunlight however, the level of flare is equivalent to most of the current lens offerings in this focal range - typical for ultra-wide optics.
Rating Details:
Sharpness (8)
---Center- Acceptable wide open (F3.5). Excellent stopped down (F5.6+)
---Corners-typical of fisheye lense, corners are relatively soft compare to center, although sharper than expected compared to other fisheye lense on the market.
Aberrations/Vignetting (8)
---Lens distorts perspective, as expected. Large curved front element causes flare in direct sunlight.
Bokeh (N/A)
---Depth of field at 8mm, even wide open, does not produce much out of focus area to critique. Fisheye lenses, in general, are not for bokeh connoisseurs.
Autofocus (N/A)
---This is a manual focus lens.
Handling (10)
---Build quality if superb. Focus ring is smooth throughout range. Slightly heavy due to metal construction, but compact in design.
Value (10)
---This lens is a serious contender for highest quality/price ratio on the market today.
Additional notes:
This lens is sold under various brand names (i.e. Rokinon, Bower, Samyang, Vivitar Series 1, etc.). All are the same lens manufactured by Samyang Optics of Korea. The Vivitar Series 1 version of this lens (labeled as a 7mm) comes with a redesigned exterior at the cost of around $100 more than all other rebranded versions of this lens.
| | | | | Junior Member Registered: February, 2009 Posts: 38
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: September 2, 2010 | Recommended | Price: None indicated
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | well built, good IQ | | Cons: | lens cap, DOF scale is missing | |
I was looking for a cheapo fisheye for quite a long time - you know... Zenitar, Peleng or something like that and then I discovered this.
Compared to these ex-soviet wonders this one has one big advantage - aperture control from the camera (K-mount-only feature, if I remember correctly). Then there is price - it is almost at the same price range as Pelengs and Zenitars.
When we add very good image quality and well controlled CA:s to the packages, this becomes almost unbeatable - I do not know, how these ex-soviet lenses could retain their prices compared to this one.
This manual focus lens has only one minor drawback - koreans had not bothered to put a DOF scale on it. It would have been priceless addition compared to its' cost. But no problem - I made the scale myself with two stripes of tape and pen.
Lens is mechanically wery well built, but the only obvious cost-cutting thing appears to be the front cap, which could rather be done of metal, than plastic.
| | | | | Veteran Member Registered: March, 2007 Posts: 3,381 | | Review Date: March 6, 2010 | Recommended | Price: $249.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Sharp, metering contacts, good build quality | | Cons: | flimsy lens cap and a bit of flare | |
I give it a 9 for sharpness and build. The lens performs very well, is almost always in focus, allows180 degree view. I have the Rokinon version which is produced by the same company. I have no hesitation in recommending it for anyone looking for an inexpensive, fun, fisheye.
| | | | | Inactive Account Registered: March, 2009 Location: Netherlands Posts: 1 | | Review Date: February 5, 2010 | Recommended | Price: $280.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | Cheap, 180 degree, sharp, nice color rendering, decent build quality | | Cons: | Prone to flare, lens cap | |
Fisheye lenses are really a specialty item. For anyone who wants to try them on a budget the current market basically offers the Zenitar 16mm, Peleng 8mm and the Samyang 8mm.
I chose the Samyang based on its KA mount, image quality and FOV.
Optically it is a really nice sharp lens (esp. stopped down a bit) that delivers contrasty images.
Mechanically it is a sound lens with little play in the moving parts. The construction consists of metal with decent plastics. The only let-down are the printed lettering that look like they might rub off some day (not happened yet-might never happen).
Due to the large front element it is prone to flare - but you can get around that if you know its limitations. The biggest problem I've found is the lens cap - it clips on to the build-in petal shaped hood and can knock itself off in your photo bag. Don't hold on to it when fetching your lens!
This lens is highly recommended to anyone who wants to try a fisheye.
| | |
;)
;)
