Rokinon FE14M-C 14mm F2.8 Ultra Wide Lens for Canon (Black)

Rokinon FE14M-C 14mm F2.8 Ultra Wide Lens for Canon (Black)..

Buy Rokinon FE14M-C 14mm F2.8 Ultra Wide Lens for Canon (Black) By Rokinon

Most helpful customer reviews

146 of 151 people found the following review helpful.
One of the best wide angle primes at a bargain price.I
By K. Dardashti
I am using this lens on a Canon 5D Mark II. I have several zoom lenses in this range, but was looking for a fast, superwide prime. The choice would be this or the Canon 14L II. This is the same as the Samyang, rebranded.
After receiving the lens, I ran some tests against 16-35 2.8, and sigma 12-24, and was floored. The corner to corner sharpness of this lens is fantastic. I peaks at around 5.6, but the corners at 2.8 are better than the other 2 lenses at f11. the microcontrast and color is very good. The barrel distortion is hefty, and complex with a mustache distortion, however, often not well visible in landscape, but visible in architectural images. It is correctable using a $25 program called ptlens, and there is also a profile for acr 6.1 out there, which works great. It is an absolute bargain. I purchased a focus confirmation chip for 14 from ebay, glued it on, and I get focus confirmation too.

feb 2012 update
I have had this lens along side Nikon 14-24 2.8, adapted to canon with use on my 5d2, and at 2.8, the rokinon is sharper in the corners has less flare and less CA than the mighty Nikon. However the nikon has less distortion, and catches up by f 5.6 even in the corners. Additionally, do not rely on the distance markings on the focus ring. On my copy infinity focus is achieved at the 3 meter marking. 3 meters is achieved at 2m. for my style of shooting I dont find this troublesome at all. for landscape shooting I focus with live view anyway. for hand held, my focus is between 1 and 2 meters most of the time and it works fine.

71 of 77 people found the following review helpful.
Sharpest lens I ever used, but check for issues
By J. Kim
This is the new version with the auto-exposure chip (only for Nikon mount) and UMC coating. My impressions:

Pros:
-Sharp, sharp, sharp. Even at f/2.8, this lens is sharp. At its sharpest aperture, f/5.6, it's sharp corner-to-corner on an APS-C camera.
-Very good build quality. Solid weighty feel, brass mount, and smooth dampened focus ring.
-By far the least expensive 14mm around.
-No problems with auto-exposure or focus confirmation (including the electronic rangefinder function on newer Nikon bodies)
-FX or DX

Cons:
-Cheap rear cap fits a little loose. I swapped mine with a Nikon cap.
-Has significant mustache-type barrel distortion in the middle of the frame. Not a lens for architectural photography. However, this can be mostly corrected in post-processing (with the $25 software PTLens, or user-created Lightroom profiles on the net).

Some considerations:
-Like some other ultra wide-angle lenses, the front element is large and bulbous, and the hood is integrated and non-removable. You can't attach any filters, so this lens requires more care to avoid scratches on the front element. The lens cover should be kept on at all times when not in use.
-Although the lens works great with my DX camera, it's really meant for FX cameras. On my DX Nikon the full-frame equivalent focal length is 21mm, which sits in an odd space between UWA and WA. DX users should probably consider the Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 or Sigma 10-20mm instead for their UWA needs. However, this lens beats both for corner-to-corner sharpness.

UPDATE:
I sold my Nikon AE copy and re-purchased this lens for Canon mount, for a Canon 5D body. My new copy was just as sharp as my previous copy in the center. However the lens showed de-centering on the right side, which was significantly blurrier than the left even when stopped down to f/8 or f/11. This area would not be visible on an APS-C body, but was visible enough on the 5D that I returned it for a refund. I deducted one star from my rating until I can test another copy.

68 of 78 people found the following review helpful.
Excellent Value - the best in its class
By Sanity Advocate
I purchased this lens several months ago to use on my Canon 5d mark 1 camera. This is by far the sharpest, most flare-and color fringing-resistant lens in its class. I owned the Nikon 14-24mm lens and this lowly lens beats the Nikon hands down on all counts, exept vignetting (easily correctable in Photoshop) and distortion - but get a PT Lens software, which has this lens correction pre-programmed in its database and distortion becomes a non-issue.

Advantages:

Solidly built, operates smoothly, light (under 450 grams), much more compact than Nikon 14-24mm, incredible resolution, color balance and color fringing resistance - simply crushes Nikon 14-24mm (my personal experience and comparison and also see independent reviews on the Net), no flare, even when shooting straight into the Sun.

Disadvantages:

Fully manual - no auto anything, including the aperture (not an issue for this ultra-wide lens and actually is an advantge, since it greatly improves reliability).

No depth-of-field scale - not an issue for this ultra-wide lens; setting the focus to 1 meter and stopping down to f11 gives you the maximum depth-of-field (o.5 meters to infinity) at best optical performance. For wide-open shooting focus the lens manually.

Vignetting, especially at wide apertures - easily correctable in Photoshop, and gone by f11.

Significant complex distortion (5%) - get a PT Lens software, which has this lens' complete correction pre-programmed in its database and distortion becomes a non-issue.

Aperture blades may become sticky in temperatures below 32 degrees F (0 deg. C) - no significant impact, because the aperture control is fully manual. If this occurs, rotate the aperture ring back and forth a few times to take care of this in the field; there is no need to even remove the lens from the camera.

I highly recommend this lens.

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Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM Ultra Wide Angle Zoom Lens

Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM Ultra Wide Angle Zoom Lens..

Buy Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM Ultra Wide Angle Zoom Lens By Canon

Most helpful customer reviews

275 of 285 people found the following review helpful.
Going on vacation?
By Eric Slay
Many people have stated the facts about this lens. Instead of restating them, let me add what I use it for:

For nature photography, this is the only lens I need. Just put something pretty in the foreground (flowers, rocks, etc.) and let the lens magically stretch out the horizon to add drama and flair to the shot. Makes beaches MAGICAL... Makes forests imposing. Adds desolation to the desert.

And from a business perspective:

As a wedding shooter, I use it to stretch out small/boring churches and make them more dramatic. It is also great to use from above for dancefloor shots and really makes the shots DYNAMIC and interesting.

And finally:
If you are deciding between this and the 17-40, let me save you some time... there is a huge difference between 16mm and 17mm. Don't waste time buying the 17 and then selling it at a loss to upgrade like I did.

If you're going to go wide.. go wide baby. ;)

119 of 121 people found the following review helpful.
Does exactly what its supposed to...a great UWA Zoom.
By Amazon Customer
I've read some pretty critical reviews of this lens; from my perspective some of these could be due to an occasional bad copy, but others are likely due to the owner expecting way too much from a UWA zoom lens. Most complaints center on lack of corner sharpness and/or light fall off/vignetting at the wide end and wide apertures. I've owned and extensively tested 4 high end UWA Zooms to date now; the Canon 16-35 f2.8 L II, the 17-40 f4 L, the EF-s 10-22, and the Nikon 14-24 2.8 ED (the accepted gold standard for UWA Zooms), and can tell you that the Nikon is the only one that can reasonably (but not perfectly) hold the corners at the extreme wide ends of FL and aperture. Not surprisingly however the Nikon is yet another $400-$500 more expensive than the 16-35II (even more when you factor in the adapter to shoot on a Canon). In real world shooting at f/8 to f/16 however, I can confidently state that you are not going to see any meaningful difference between the 4 lenses without resorting to some serious pixel peeping gymnastics, and even then I'll gladly take bets that most couldn't tell the unlabeled photos apart. So confident in fact that I finally traded in my revered Nikon for an excellent copy of the 16-35II.

Yes, this lens exhibits some corner softness and light fall off at the wide end and/or at f2.8, however this starts to clear up nicely even as low as f/4 and is gone by f/8. By comparison, if you really want an eye opener, look at the vignetting on the 17-40 wide open (f/4) - two thirds of the image is dark with only a small central spot unaffected (incidentally, those that post that the 17-40 suffers no corner vignetting are probably shooting JPEG and not examining the RAW image). Contrast this to the 16-35 wide open at f/2.8 where only the extreme edges and corners are dark. Same with corner softness, it does exist at f/2.8 but clears up nicely by f/8. In all cases, if you shoot this lens at the same settings as the 17-40, it outperforms its smaller cousin in all aspects (and the 17-40 an excellent lens in its own right). The 16-35 is more than just a 17-40 that goes to f/2.8, it is a significant improvement at all apertures and focal lengths.

I did some extensive testing with filters and found, contrary to claims in other reviews, no detectible difference in vignetting between a slim or regular UV filter at the 16mm wide end. Maybe there is a slight difference that some purists can see, but for the life of me I can't tell the difference, so I use a regular thickness filter for the convenience of being able to use the normal dust cap. The 82mm filter size is also often cited as a point of criticism. Yes, 82mm filters are larger and more expensive, but that's the price you pay for a lens with these specifications. At least this lens will accept filters, try that with the Nikon. Finally, I've also heard criticism that this lens starts to go soft above 24mm, but I personally haven't seen any evidence of this either. Maybe those are bad copy issues again? But mine is perfectly sharp (stunningly sharp in the center) throughout the entire range.

In short, if you absolutely must have a UWA Zoom that has razor sharp corners at f/2.8, you're going to need to go to other extreme measures such as the Nikon 14-24 or maybe a Zeiss, but then you've got all of the manual focus/exposure issues to deal with. In most real world applications at f/8 to f/16, this lens easily holds it's own against the Nikon 14-24 and definitely edges out the 17-40. In my experience, if I am shooting at f/2.8, I'm likely trying to blur the background anyway, so why would I care if the corners are soft? And if shooting in low light I can't notice the vignetting in the corners either. In any case, it's easily corrected in DPP anyway.

244 of 258 people found the following review helpful.
Modest improvement mostly for full frame users
By George
I have owned both this and the original version. The new lens is better in the corners and flares less but the corners are still a little soft at f2.8 and you can get the lens to flare a little if you try. I haven't seen the loss of clarity above 20mm that others reported. Perhaps you would see a slight difference in eyelashes if you did a lot of portraits but this is probably not the best choice for a portrait lens. It is a somewhat better lens for shooting landscapes and other shots where edge to edge clarity is important.

But the differences between the two versions are minor and in some instances irrelevant. If you don't shoot a full frame camera the soft edges don't appear in the photo. And flare is a minimal issue at most. It rarely appears and is easy to fix in Photoshop if it does. I would opt for the original if I didn't shoot full frame based on the price difference alone.

My only problem with the original was when I had to shoot hand held. Sometimes you can't bring a tripod along which rules out shooting at f16 or 22 so I occasionally ended up with shots that were soft in some of the edges. The new lens will solve that. That is the only reason I decided to upgrade.

I haven't used many other lenses in the same range so I can't compare quality with other makers but I'm not aware of anything reputed to be better. I have Canon primes as well as other Canon zooms and in actual use all are generally close in quality. I use the primes if possible when I plan to crop or enlarge a lot but I could still get by nicely with the zooms.

So, if you shoot less than full frame or if price is an issue, get the original. If you shoot full frame but need maximum clarity in the center (portraits for example), test both versions first. If you shoot full frame and need maximum edge to edge clarity, go with the new lens.

Update: Having shot this lens for a long period I would discount the comments about problems above 20mm. I owned the first version as well and I don't see a difference in the 20mm to 35mm range. On the contrary, I am increasingly impressed with the image quality and sharpness of this lens throughout the range. I recently used it into a very narrow slot canyon where I couldn't take more than the camera and the lens attached to it and took shots from 16mm up to 35mm that all came out very sharp and rich. Granted I wasn't shooting wide open because I needed lots of depth of field but the point is the lens delivered the best shots of that trip. In terms of versatility, this lens is unmatched for wide angle use by Canon owners. I also have the 14mm f2.8 II, 17mm f4. TS/E and 15mm fisheye for comparison. This is the one wide angle lens I always take along.

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