I am trying to decide between these 2 lenses for my 5d mkii and have come here for advice/recommendations.
I am looking at the samyang 14mm f/2.8, also known as Rokinon or Bower. Same build and lens.
video:
stills: http://www.flickr.com/groups/14/ (http://www.flickr.com/groups/14/)
russian zenitar 16mm f/2.8
review: http://www.kenrockwell.com/zenit/zenitar-16mm.htm (http://www.kenrockwell.com/zenit/zenitar-16mm.htm)
video:
stills: http://www.flickriver.com/groups/zenitar/pool/interesting/
pros of the samyang are that the aperture controls would be read by the camera, and the zenitar is full manual so I would have to set aperture manually and guess. They say the zenitar is actually a 12mm horizontal and 14 vertical.
Price difference- Samyang 14mm- $296, Zenitar 16mm $189
I will be using this lens for skateboarding, music videos, and city landscape shots.
Has anyone used or know of someone using the zenitar or the samyang 14?
Zenitar is not the sharpest lens used all open and f4 it is sharp. I never tried samyang, but I advice going for the 10-22mm f3.5-4.5 and its much wider and can use on full frame just removing the top on the back.
I got the Samyang on my 6D and it's a blade.
It's sharp from 2.8 and mantains impressive quality throughout the corners even on FF.
I would have no hesitation, just remember that the Samyang has no chip for Canon, i guess, so aperture can't be read by the camera.
I can actually recommend the T3.1 Samyang if you're after a wide-angle lens. Downsides: all-manual which can get in your way if u're not used to it, pro's: long focus, focus ring ready for follow-focus, everything click-less... And you can use it on your FF Canon w/o hard-vignetting, etc...
+1 for the Samyang, I have one and it's a great lens! really resistant to flare for such a wide lens
Going by the flickrs the samyang has much better shots.
Quotef3.5-4.5
That's way slow.
I have the Samyang and it's good for the money. The only downside for me is the distortion. It has quite complex 'moustache' distortion of straight lines, so if you shoot a lot in cities or other places with lots of straight lines you might find it annoying. A possible life-saver is that if you shoot in raw and process with Lightroom or ACR, there is a custom made lens profile you can download which pretty much sorts out the distortion.
@Fergus Hey, would you mind sharing this custom profile?
Quote from: jose_ugs on November 07, 2013, 05:34:05 PM
@Fergus Hey, would you mind sharing this custom profile?
This is the one I used. Be sure to follow all the instructions. The effects are particularly noticeable if you have straight horizontal lines close to the top or bottom of the frame:
http://joopsnijder.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/lightroom-lens-profile-for-samyang-14.html
Hello folks out there!
@ilguercio
Can you confirm the 6D works fine with the _M42_ Version of the Zenitar 16 2,8 adapted to EF-mount?
I somewhere learned there may be issues with the mirror hitting the last glass-element, because it protrudes one milimeter or so beyond the edge of the EF-mount into the mirrorhousing.
Thanks
docwaechti
I had both.. You can not compare because zenithar is a fisheye and samyang or walimex is a wide angle lens. So the distortion is different. I sold my zenithar and bought the walimex 14mm 2.8 cause i wanted a wide angle lens.. Greets