After hearing exceptional things about the new range of Samyang lenses to hit the market I was excited to try one out. I’ve been getting into more and more interior architecture photography, and night time sky photography – both require a very wide lens.
With my other lenses not quite fitting the space, I’ve been keeping an eye out for something very wide for some time. But I didn’t want a fish-eye lens.
When I first saw the price of Samyang’s 14mm f/2.8 lens (NZD$550-ish) it seemed to good to be true? Super wide, good in low light, and a fixed focal length. It’s then that you realise that Samyang has spent 100% of it’s time making the best quality lens and glass, and not bothered with “fancy” features such as automatic focus or even aperture settings from the camera.
Two manual rings allow you to control both the focus & aperture. At first I thought this would be a deal breaker, till I went into WPS and had a good play with one. I realised that for the times when I’d really be using this lens (night time skies & interior’s of buildings) I would nearly always be using manual focus anyway. It might be a bit tricky to focus it in quick situations (such as weddings etc) but the amount of use it will get in people-photography will be very limited.
It comes with a range of mount types – I’ve obviously got the Canon one, but I think it comes with a Nikon and Sony mount too.
So far I’ve had a blast with the camera. I love any types of photos that are far beyond what the human eye can (extreme wide, telephoto, and very low apertures etc).
If you’re tossing up whether to get one, I can highly recommend it. Reminds me of when I first got my Nifty-Fifty (Canon 50mm f/1.8) when I first got into photography.
Here’s just a couple of photos I’ve taken with it so far.
Have you got one? Are you thinking of getting one? Leave your comments and thoughts in the comments area below the photos.
