Canon 16-35 f4L vs Sigma 14-24 f2.8 Art

Ken60 wrote:

David those are great colours from the Rokinon, I read that the 14mm AF f2.8 is as good as the manual focus but with less distortion. For about £400 it is amazing.

I would love to see a "same shot" comparison from 14mmf2.8 Samyang and 14mm f2.8 Sigma 14-24. THis is such a hard area to choose from at the moment. When I tried the Sigma I found it to be better on distortion and vignetting than Canon's own.

I recently tried a bunch of UWA lenses (for astro) in a camera store and found;

Samyang 14mm f2.8 - not good at all (maybe a bad copy ?)

Samyang 14mm f2.8 AF - better than MF (by a fair bit)

Samyang 14mm f2.4 XP/SP - much better tha both the others. Better build, much less distortion (and more "normal"distortion), smoother action of MF and sharper (by a fair margin).

Irix 15mm f2.4 (both Firefly & Blackstone) - nice feel to the lenses, but QC issues, the infinity click stop isn't infinity and they got noticably sharper past infinity. Still not as sharp as Samyang f2.4.

Sigma 14mm f1.8 - nice and sharp, less vignetting than any others, relatively low distortion. The best lens I tried, but a beast of a thing (big & heavy) and much more $.

I bought the Samyang 14mm f2.4 and do not regret it. I have only had it a couple of months but have used it a bit for Milky way pics and some daytime (and dusk) landscapes. I almost just leave it on infinity and forget about focusing.

I didn't consider the Sigma zoom because of price and size/weight.

Colin