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Samyang 8 mm f/3.5 Review Print E-mail
Written by samyang   

Introduction

Samyang is a diagonal fisheye lens with 8mm focus length and 180 degree field of view. This lens is approach for cameras with the APS-C sensor. This lens made on 10 pieces organized in 7 optical groups. Because of the aspherical hybrid lens and up-to-date multilayer antireflection coating, optical settings are the best. Protection against the Sun is made from thick plastic. The forward unit can be easy unscrewed. The groove is about 7mm length.

 


Patent
The manual says that this lens is possible to use on Nikon, Canon, Pentax, Konica Minolta,Sony. This instruction also says that the lens was patented opposite to Nikon (zoom 10.5mm), Pentax(10-17mm), Canon(zoom 15mm).

Construction quality
Construction quality is really great and its price is ? to ? rather to similar lens. The aperture and focus rings aren’t loose but aperture options spacing is ? stop (f/5.6 to f/22) on the final product. The corresponding scale and the focus setting ring are better than on the Tokina or Nikkor, but Samyang hasn’t scale for field depth.

Focal length

The focal length of Samyang is theme for discussion on photo forums: some people say Samyang is a 7mm fisheye lens but majority suppose it’s an 8 mm lens. There is no one way to define the fisheye focal length as projection isn’t precisely a canonical type (the options are somewhere between 2 canonical types) and practical focal length depends on the max angle of view also (which allowed by the gauge and the sun hood).

Image Quality

The quality of Samyang image is very good. Contrast and sharpness are great and can be corrected easily. Flashout and colors are good. Light fall-off is inappreciable. In my opinion Samyang fisheye lens is best lens for 3-shots panoramas on FF DSLR cameras.

The cap
The cap is good (as cap for other lenses that hold filter inside the lens). 2 radial buttons for push rigidly secure the cap inside the hood dimple. This option is neutralized without sun hood.

Samyang fisheye for sky watching at night and astronomy

Some astronomers like fisheye lens for shooting photos or video. If you want to do night photos with Samyang 8mm without IR filter you should use an optical corrected adapter.