New Member Registered: December, 2017 Location: Kansas City Posts: 3
2 users found this helpful
| | Review Date: December 5, 2017 | Recommended | Price: $200.00
| Rating: 7 |
| Pros: | Sharpness, optical quality for the money | | Cons: | Build quality, can be hard to focus, distortion | | Sharpness: 10
Aberrations: 8
Bokeh: 7
Handling: 7
Value: 7
Camera Used: Canon 6D
| |
First, here's an imgur gallery of photos I've taken with the lens: https://imgur.com/a/FoM3S
I'm going to try to review this lens with a level head, but I have very mixed feelings about it.
I bought it as an open box item a few years ago for a couple hundred dollars. I did some research before choosing this model and some sources said it was a rebranded Rokinon / Samyang 14mm and some said it was a completely different lens. Who knows. In any case - I found one for a good price and figured it was worth a shot.
I was immediately impressed with the quality. It was sharp - even at 2.8. Stop it down to f4 / f5.6 and it's as sharp as you'd ever need. It has great color and contrast also.
There are some downsides, though. First, it's hard (for me, anyway) to nail perfect focus through the viewfinder. With such a wide depth of field, everything looks like it's in focus (unless the focus is waaay off). It's only until after you're looking at the photos on a bigger screen that you can see that focus was perfect or not. I would usually go by the focus scale on the lens or use the screen on the back of the camera to zoom in. I typically used it for landscapes - so that wasn't a big deal. I shoot mostly manual focus lenses, but I have a harder time determining focus on wider angle lenses since things don't clearly snap in and out of focus like longer lenses do.
Next is distortion - it's not terrible, but there is some mustache distortion - meaning it's not easy to correct. If it was just standard barrel distortion, you can easily just correct that after the fact, but the more complex distortion shape of this lens means some of your architecture shots end up looking weird. Maybe I only noticed it when looking for it, though.
Last is build quality. This is by far the biggest downside of the lens. First, the barrel just kind of feels cheap and loose. The focus scale on the lens is a good starting point, but it didn't feel exact - and infinity wasn't really infinity. At least with my copy - it was a fair bit past infinity, so quality control / sample variance might be an issue.
After having the lens for probably a year to a year and a half - the focus started getting worse. At first I couldn't focus to infinity anymore. It would max out at about 10 feet... then like 5 feet, then 2 feet, then only a couple inches. The focus throw was the same, I could feel things inside the lens moving around, but the close focus moved to closer than the front element of the lens (things basically touching the lens weren't quite in focus when set to the closest focus distance) and the farthest I could focus was just a few inches away.
I contacted customer service and maybe a week or two later I heard back and they asked me more questions. After back and forth over maybe 2 - 3 months, they finally suggested that it was the grease in the lens hardening or something and that I should work it loose by focusing from closest focus to farthest focus quickly over and over several times. I was very skeptical, but it actually worked. After doing that for maybe 30 seconds to a minute, I was able to focus farther away. Another couple minutes and I could focus to infinity! Yay! I fixed it! ... or so I thought.
I didn't use the lens for a couple weeks and when I picked it up - same problem as before. I had to focus min to max for a couple minutes and then I could focus to infinity again. The lens would go back to being broken after only a couple days without use. It was annoying, but I could deal with it. Then, after "fixing" it for the 5th or 6th time - the focus stopped working completely. Every time I did the "fix", I could feel a little more play in the focus ring. Finally I was able to turn the ring much farther than I was supposed to. I didn't know what to do - the focus ring was stiff, it feels like something is going on in there - but it's not - turning the focus ring had no effect on focus whatsoever.
Now, here we are almost exactly a year after my first email to customer service. Their latest response - I can send it in and they'll either repair it or replace it, but they reminded me that the lens only has a 1 year warranty... well, isn't that great? Clearly the warranty period has ended if I started talking to customer service a year ago...
Anyway - the point is - this lens is great, but the build quality and customer service are suspect at best - which is a problem with several third party lens companies - I've heard similar stories about Sigma (and Rokinon/Samyang). They're great lenses when they work. My problems with this particular lens are not unique to me. I've mentioned it on Rokonon's facebook posts about this lens and other people have chimed in with similar stories. When looking for a cheap, used replacement on ebay, I've seen several listings saying the lens won't focus.
If you get this lens - use it as much as you can because you never know when it's going to just stop working. The optical quality is great. You'll love the photos you get from it and you'll be as bummed as I am when it stops working.
| |
Site Supporter Registered: June, 2008 Location: Idaho Posts: 2,379
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: June 20, 2017 | Recommended | Price: $250.00
| Rating: 10 |
| Pros: | Very Sharp, Very large field of view | | Cons: | No provision for filters, Manual focus, hard to get visual focus | | Sharpness: 10
Aberrations: 9
Bokeh: 9
Handling: 8
Value: 10
Camera Used: Pentax k-1
| |
I may have gotten one of the last new copies of this lens. When I purchased my K-1, I also wanted an ultra-wide and saw good reviews (fenwoodian here included). I saw one listed in the K mount on ebay and purchased it. Right after that, all listings disappeared (I also had difficulty with the supplier being able to carry through - though they did after a month delay).
This lens is sharp. I recently did a panorama with stitched 28mm shots taken with my Pentax 28-200mm zoom and one shot using the Vivitar. The details in the Vivitar were significantly better despite having a lower pixel density and the chromatic aberrations were very slight, not the case with the Pentax zoom. Sharpness was good to the edge of the frame (shot at f8).
Of course a downside is the requirement for manual focus, but with this lens, I will usually be manually focusing it anyway using the x16 magnification that the K-1 allows in liveview. Trying to focus through the viewfinder is difficult because of its depth of field. I imagine if the lens had been autofocus that might have had some trouble also.
The front element is unprotected since there is no filter provision. On that note, it is possible to fabricate a small doughnut with a gelatin filter and use double stick tape to secure it over the rear lens element so filtering is possible - good since I plan to do some Infrared shooting with this lens.
Exposure coupling worked fine and exposures were spot on with this lens and the K-1.
The lens has a hard slip-over lens cover which slides over the lens barrel (that barrel also serves as a lens hood) and latches on the inside threads. That works well and keeps fingers away from the exposed front element. It's best to mount the lens to the camera when the cover is in place since the front barrel is used to rotate and lock it in place and one would surely touch the front lens if the cover weren't there.The literature says the front lens has a coating designed to repel dirt??? Will find out when I get some dirt.
I've seen some reports that discredited this lens sharpness, but my copy counters those reports. Too bad this is no longer in production. Great lens for ultra-wides. | |
Pentaxian Registered: April, 2015 Location: USA Posts: 2,875
5 users found this helpful
| | Review Date: January 14, 2016 | Recommended | Price: $300.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Super sharp, good color | | Cons: | Manual focus, large/heavy | | Sharpness: 10
Aberrations: 10
Bokeh: 9
Handling: 9
Value: 10
Camera Used: Pentax K3ii
| |
This ultra wide angle lens can be used on APS-C or full frame Pentax cameras.
It is large and somewhat heavy. I prefer to use it on a tripod. I mainly use it for landscape photos.
I also own a Pentax SMC Pentax-DA 15mm F4 ED AL Limited. Last weekend I did a series of rigorous tests comparing the Pentax 15mm Limited lens to this Vivitar 13mm (actually 13.8mm) lens. Was I surprised when I viewed the results!
I have to say, that in every way, the Vivitar 13mm lens bettered the legendary Pentax 15mm lens! It was not even close. The corners of the 15mm were mushy compared to the razor sharp corners of the 13mm lens' images. Color and contrast were also better with the 13mm Vivitar lens.
I decided to keep the Vivitar 13mm lens and sell the Pentax 15mm lens. The Vivitar 13mm lens' IQ is in another class that's well above the Pentax 15mm Limited. Also, I will be able to use this Vivitar lens on the Pentax full frame body when it comes out.
| |
