No love for the Kamlan 15mm F/2.0

Please excuse the click bait title. But I can't seem to shake the feeling that this lens was never well received by the Fuji community. I literally can't find any photos made with it on Flickr, and none of the renowned Youtubers have reviewed it. And I can understand why -- the competition is fierce, and the seemingly dated optic formula and manual operation certainly doesn't help.

But it has its charm, and I can certainly recommend it if you can't afford the Samyang/Rokinon 12mm MF (hereby dubbed SY). It's actually very sharp, and the edges and corners are sharper than on the SY. The sun stars are much nicer as well.

On the downside, the close focusing distance is abysmal, and basically not really usable for interesting up-close photos. Additionally, it has that bulbous front element that crushes any hopes of mounting a screw-on filter. And the front cap is probably the worst I have ever seen.

Anyway, enough about the lens. Here's a photo I took this evening here in Trondheim, Norway. I used the Kamlan 15mm F/2.0 @ F7 on my Fujifilm X-S10. Hope you like it!

Hi andrerav

andrerav wrote:

Please excuse the click bait title. But I can't seem to shake the feeling that this lens was never well received by the Fuji community. I literally can't find any photos made with it on Flickr,

I mean you know it; the lens does not transmit any Exif data. Don't know about the search functions on Flickr but If photographers enter the lens name manually, the names they enter will differ. Some certainly won't enter anything.

and none of the renowned Youtubers have reviewed it. And I can understand why -- the competition is fierce, and the seemingly dated optic formula and manual operation certainly doesn't help.

But it has its charm, and I can certainly recommend it if you can't afford the Samyang/Rokinon 12mm MF

I think 12 mm vs and 15 mm in the fl makes too big a difference to see them as direct competitors. And is the price delta between the two that big?

(hereby dubbed SY). It's actually very sharp, and the edges and corners are sharper than on the SY. The sun stars are much nicer as well.

Your sample photo shows that well. The performance in the corners is really good!

On the downside, the close focusing distance is abysmal, and basically not really usable for interesting up-close photos. Additionally, it has that bulbous front element that crushes any hopes of mounting a screw-on filter. And the front cap is probably the worst I have ever seen.

Anyway, enough about the lens. Here's a photo I took this evening here in Trondheim, Norway. I used the Kamlan 15mm F/2.0 @ F7 on my Fujifilm X-S10. Hope you like it!

I like it. The sunstars are also nice.

Thank you for your little review

Martin

Rightsaidfred wrote:

Hi andrerav

andrerav wrote:

Please excuse the click bait title. But I can't seem to shake the feeling that this lens was never well received by the Fuji community. I literally can't find any photos made with it on Flickr,

I mean you know it; the lens does not transmit any Exif data. Don't know about the search functions on Flickr but If photographers enter the lens name manually, the names they enter will differ. Some certainly won't enter anything.

100% agree with that, but comparatively it seems to be less used since I can usually find at least a few photos if not a dedicated group when researching odd lenses.

and none of the renowned Youtubers have reviewed it. And I can understand why -- the competition is fierce, and the seemingly dated optic formula and manual operation certainly doesn't help.

But it has its charm, and I can certainly recommend it if you can't afford the Samyang/Rokinon 12mm MF

I think 12 mm vs and 15 mm in the fl makes too big a difference to see them as direct competitors. And is the price delta between the two that big?

Ah yes, when I wrote that the competition is fierce I had lenses like the Fuji 16mm F/2.8 in mind, for example. The Sammy 12mm MF is the only lens I could think of (of course not forgetting offerings from Brighting Star a.o) that is a fast wide angle manual focus. But you're absolutely right, the difference in focal length is significant in practice.

(hereby dubbed SY). It's actually very sharp, and the edges and corners are sharper than on the SY. The sun stars are much nicer as well.

Your sample photo shows that well. The performance in the corners is really good!

Definitely. It also has fairly low distortion. The photo I posted is not distortion corrected at all, in fact.

On the downside, the close focusing distance is abysmal, and basically not really usable for interesting up-close photos. Additionally, it has that bulbous front element that crushes any hopes of mounting a screw-on filter. And the front cap is probably the worst I have ever seen.

Anyway, enough about the lens. Here's a photo I took this evening here in Trondheim, Norway. I used the Kamlan 15mm F/2.0 @ F7 on my Fujifilm X-S10. Hope you like it!

I like it. The sunstars are also nice.

Thank you for your little review

Martin

Glad you liked it!

It is one stop faster and only one mm wider than the Fuji 16f2.8 - with the Fuji lens being much smaller.

Absolutely, and the Kamlan is manual focus as well. As already mentioned, the competition is fierce! I don't own the 16mm myself, but if I get a hold of a copy I will definitely make a comparison between the two.

andrei1989 wrote:

i didn't even know this lens existed...

I know, right? It's not even listed on Kamlan's own website. But you can buy it on Aliexpress and Ebay for around €150-200.

do you have the samyang 12mm as well? i'd like to see a short comparison of the two in terms of FOV and maybe some astro landscapes as that's what i use the 12mm for...it's sometimes too wide and i'm considering getting the 18mm f2 for a bit tighter perspective (can't justify buying the 16 or 18 1.4)

Actually I own both the 12mm MF and the brand spanking new 12mm AF. If the skies clear up here in Norway I will make an attempt to compare the three for night sky photography.

Thanks for sharing, Andre. This lens really is flying below the radar - although apparently it was already released in 2019(?!).
Quite an interesting lens, and a potential alternative to the XF 14/2.8, where most other third party lenses are wider <12mm or narrower 17mm+ and up.

Since I own the latter, I was curious to compare the two.
I mostly came across Chinese tables of specifications - and even those weren't included in many places.

Table commonly featured in Ali Express offers

I'm not quite sure about the second to last line, whether this is the number of aperture blades. If it is, the lens compares as follows

Not bad for a lens that is offered at under 200 EUR. Despite the faster max. aperture, the lens is only marginally heavier than the 14/2.8 and indeed physically marginally more compact.

I can confirm that it has 10 aperture blades. However it does not have filter threading, so it is not possible to mount screw-on filters on this lens.