Samyang 14mm f/2.8 AE

[Jan Anne]

I got the Samyang 14mm f/2.8 in mid 2012, as a former owner of the legendary Nikon 14-24/2.8 I was amazed that Samyang could make a lens performing almost as good for that kind of money.
 
Here's a mugshot on the A7R, coupled with a combination of two Noveflex adapter rings (a tripod mount can be attached to one of the adapter rings):


Its ultra wide angle FOV, fast aperture and excellent sharpness wide-open makes it a very good candidate for shooting startrails. One gripe is the lack of a hard infinity stop while not being able to disengage the focus ring (focus by wire does have its advantages) so the trick here is to bring gaffer tape and fix the focus ring once infinity is dialled in to prevent the focus to be shifted accidentally.
 
Startrails shot somewhere in the snowy Spanish Pyrenees (D800E, 20 minute exposure, f/5.6, ISO200)


And two shot on the Norwegian / Swedish border during a two week canoeing trip in september 2013, my last trip with the D800E before I jumped ship to Sony (half hour @ f/4 and ISO100)




Here's two from recent NG trip to Slovenia, shot on the Sony a7S:

[stenrasmussen]

I had that lens and must confess I miss it. Do you correct the distortion? If so, what software handles it well?

[Jan Anne]

My memory isn't the best but I can't remember ever using lens corrections with the 14mm, any lens for that matter.

Mainly because I usually shoot nature combined with me being too lazy to care

[Erik Lund]

The distortion of this lens is very little, quite impressive!

Super crisp images for such an affordable lens.

The 14mm Nikkor AF-D has the dreaded mustache distortion so not really usable for architecture. Although it works fine on DX with just the barrel distortion visible

[Gary]

Damn ... I love star trails. Good stuff.

[bendle]

Excellent photos, very temped to buy this lens.

[Jan Anne]

Damn ... I love star trails. Good stuff.

And huge fun to make, just position the camera somewhere in the field for half an hour and socialise

The first image was taken on a snowy field behind our mountain lodge in Spain, we took two carafes of red wine outside to get through the cold night while the rest went to sleep.

The shot from Sweden was just outside our wind shelter where we were sitting around the campfire enjoying some Jaeger tea a couple of Austrian kayakers surprised us with to thank us for doing the same with freshly made espresso that same morning when they came ashore near our base camp. I just wandered off each half hour to check the image and re position the camera for another shot. The orange colour in the trees on the left is actually from the campfire btw, the green is probably from some distant Northern lights.

With the shot from Slovenia we were extremely lazy, we left our tripods unattended in the field for half an hour while enjoying some beers and whiskey in our luxurious villa

[bobfriedman]

excellent compositions!...

[Jan Anne]

Forgot about this image from late 2013 when trying the a7R in my camera shop, performance should be pretty universal across full frame platforms.
 
Out of camera JPG, 100% crop of the most upper left corner, ISO1600, 14mm, f/2.8 (wide-open), 1/50th handheld.