Rokinon 12mm f/2.8 ED AS IF NCS UMC Fisheye Lens for Canon EF Mount

At face value, this 12mm fisheye lens from Samyang would be good value if it was only half-decent, due to the low price and excellent build quality. The fact it is capable of producing images with outstanding sharpness and offers a unique stereographic projection, means that this lens should be high...

It would be difficult to asses the Samyang 12 mm f/2.8 ED AS NCS Fish-eye unambiguously. On the one hand it provides a sensational image quality in the frame centre; on the other hand its resolution on the edge is hardly impressive.

• +

  sensational image quality in the frame centre,, good correction of longitudinal chromatic aberration,, no symptoms of spherical aberration,, moderate astigmatism,, negligible vignetting on APS-C/DX,, very good work against bright light.

• -

  weak image quality on the edge of the frame,, too high level of lateral chromatic aberration.

This is my first non-Nikon, manual focus lens. While certainly not as point&shoot as Nikon, it forms excellent images.This is also my first fish-eye lens which offers its own challenges. With 180 capture, I had several images with my own feet or hands in the images.

Rokinon is known for making inexpensive lenses that are very sharp and this one is no different. While it is a flimsy build, I'm only planning on using it occasionally for astro photography and possibly some architectural work. So for this is a very impressive lens.

My other ultra WA is Nikon's 14mm AF-D F 2.8. I wanted to go 180 degrees and decided to get this Samyang. No disappointment optically and mechanically, especially considering the price.

I'm going to be using this lens primarily for landscapes, cityscapes and some astro photography. This lens has an incredibly wide field of view, with excellent image quality. I'm using this lens with a canon 5d III and I've included some unedited examples on how sharp the edges are!

The very first shots I made on my Canon 5Diii and 70D, I knew I had made the perfect choice for this lens. Yes, it's totally manualfocus and aperture, but then I pretty much shoot in manual mode 99% of the time. Images are sharp and delivers the wide angle I expected.