Samyang 12mm f2.0

I'm using xe1 with Samyang 12mm f2.0, using zoom image for focusing (focus peak helpless on this wide angle) and happy with the image Quality, need to take care on infinity and lens felt loose on my camera.

Yes. I'm really happy with the Samyang. Have used it on both X-E1 and X-E2. It's a great lens that give you something extra compared to Zeiss 12mm f/2.8 and Fuji 14mm f/2.8.

Thoug I feel a bit handicapped with manual focus at times, I think that at UWA it's least needed. F/2 vs F/2.8 gives it another dimention.

used it on my X-M1 and X-A1,,,,a very sharp lens at F5.6 across the frame...but too much distortion i see...manual focusing for landscapes, large scenes is easy,,,set it to infinity, and you're good to go...but in the streets, mf can be pain ...i returned it,,,AF is my way...

Andreasfe said:

Yes. I'm really happy with the Samyang. Have used it on both X-E1 and X-E2. It's a great lens that give you something extra compared to Zeiss 12mm f/2.8 and Fuji 14mm f/2.8.

Thoug I feel a bit handicapped with manual focus at times, I think that at UWA it's least needed. F/2 vs F/2.8 gives it another dimention.

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Just currious, do you own all three of the above lenses?

Also, I'd be interested to hear more about this "something extra" that you think the Sanyang 12mm has.

Thanks,

Andreasfe said:

F/2 vs F/2.8 gives it another dimention.

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Can you explain?

I nearly bought one from a friend,but when I did some tests on a tripod and careful focusing I found the corner performance terrible at all apertures.Decided to save for the 14mm.

Fenwoodian said:

Andreasfe said:

Yes. I'm really happy with the Samyang. Have used it on both X-E1 and X-E2. It's a great lens that give you something extra compared to Zeiss 12mm f/2.8 and Fuji 14mm f/2.8.

Thoug I feel a bit handicapped with manual focus at times, I think that at UWA it's least needed. F/2 vs F/2.8 gives it another dimention.

Click to expand...

Just currious, do you own all three of the above lenses?

Also, I'd be interested to hear more about this "something extra" that you think the Sanyang 12mm has.

Thanks,

Click to expand...

No. I don't own the Zeiss 12mm f/2.8 and the Fuji 14mm f/2.8. But I have tried both of them. With the "something extra" towards the Samyang, I mean the extra step with aperture with no increase of size. It's not just a gimmik. It is pretty good at f/2.

I'm a person that is not very into manual focus. So for me the Zeiss 12mm f/2.8 maybe would be the best lens. But it's quite expensive. So with the close to 1/3 price I can live with manual focus while I get the f/2 bonus on the Samyang. The Fuji 14mm f/2.8 is a little bit cheaper than the Zeiss 12mm f/2.8, but I think 14mm is not really wide enough when I wanna go wide. I have a great quality 18mm f/2.8 OIS on the 18-55mm-zoom.

John Gellings said:

Andreasfe said:

F/2 vs F/2.8 gives it another dimention.

Click to expand...

Can you explain?

Click to expand...

It's hard to find a UWA with that large aperture. So you got a lot more to play with on the Samyang 12mm f/2 vs. Zeiss 12mm f/2.8 in terms of DOF, even on an UWA.

For stars and astro-photo it's also usefull to keep the ISO down while you get a decent shutter to not get your stars to run into be star trails (if thats not your intention). With the Samyang you can get a step lower ISO, while still gettng sharp images, noise-wize.

ijustloveshooting said:

used it on my X-M1 and X-A1,,,,a very sharp lens at F5.6 across the frame...but too much distortion i see...manual focusing for landscapes, large scenes is easy,,,set it to infinity, and you're good to go...but in the streets, mf can be pain ...i returned it,,,AF is my way...

Click to expand...

I'm surprised you have trouble prefocusing for street photography. I use a 15mm Voigtlander and find it very easy to do. Probably not so easy at f2.0 but anything above f4 has such a large depth of field that it barely needs focusing at all. Setting focus for 2 meters puts everything from 1 meter to infinity in focus at f4.5. How can that be a problem? I barely even think about focus when using UWA lenses. I probably would if shooting very close at full open aperture but for typical exposure and subject matter it is really easy to just zone focus once and then forget about it.