Rokinon 8mm f3.5 Fisheye

[RichieRich]

I just purchased an 8mm Rokinon fisheye (it also goes by the name Samyang, in addition to a few others).

I'd read rave reviews of this fully-manual lens, however, I must say that I'm disappointed. The resolution at f3.5 really is poor, and although it becomes acceptable at around f5.6 (at which point the resolution has at least doubled!), it's still not fantastic.

Photozone managed to get hold of a good copy for their review, but I understand that they also had a couple of duds. Still, at £220.00 delivered I can cope with a couple of returns to Amazon if necessary.

This is a shame as in terms of distortion control the lens is great, and from a creative perspective it's the lens that action sport photographers have been waiting for.

I've heard that individual units can vary in terms of resolution and focus scale inaccuracies (clearly their manufacturing team attended the Sigma school of quality control), and I was wondering if anybody else has had problems.

 

[RichieRich]

Update:

I ended up sending the lens back and haven't ordered another one since after hearing that their quality control is rather hit-and-miss. I've just received delivery of a Canon 10-22mm. First impressions:

i) In terms of resolution is outperforms the Samyang / Rokinon 8mm that I owned significantly.

ii) Surprisingly, distortions were better controlled by the 8mm fisheye than the Canon at 10mm. Get it good one and the Rokinon would make for an interesting landscape prime lens - and is obviously great for certain sports.

Overall the Canon wins due to resolution and versatility, but I suspect that if I'd managed to get hold of a good Rokinon sample it would have represented an absolutely incredible lens at the price.

 

[Charlatan]

Im a huge Samyang fan. I own the 8mm and 85 f1.4 and both are faultless. Infact the 8mm is the only lens I have so desperately missed (opted for the Sigma 10-20mm instead) for my 8 month travels. So many perfect opportunities to use it and its sat at home collecting dust.

I have an old set of Berlin that I shot exclusively with the fisheye. I know its a little late now but a UWA is vastly different from a fisheye.

http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=302186

 

[RichieRich]

Great shots Charlatan - they really show off the Samyang's control of distortion. To be honest it performs so well in this sense that I'm not sure whether I'd classify it as an UWA or a fisheye! By the same token shots taken with the Canon can look rather 'fisheye' at times due to the distortion (when shot at 10mm with a close subject), although it clearly offers no way near the field of view of the Samyang.

I think that I must have got unlucky with my sample. I'll give them another try at some point.

 

[Charlatan]

Great shots Charlatan - they really show off the Samyang's control of distortion. To be honest it performs so well in this sense that I'm not sure whether I'd classify it as an UWA or a fisheye! By the same token shots taken with the Canon can look rather 'fisheye' at times due to the distortion (when shot at 10mm with a close subject), although it clearly offers no way near the field of view of the Samyang.

I think that I must have got unlucky with my sample. I'll give them another try at some point.

Thanks Richie. It really does excel for architectural shots. You can misuse a fisheye but with the even distortion of the Samyang it is very high on my list of favorite lenses. I really regret bringing my Sigma 10-20mm with me for my 8 month trip as I have longed for my Samyang fisheye more than any other lens that has been left at home. You can fairly easily de-fisheye the shots in PP so it was certainly an error on my part.