The Bigger (14mm) Picture, at last

Ever since getting my K7 & 18-55 early this year, I've been yearning for a wider view - keep stepping back and bumping into things!

After much deliberations and good advice from this forum, I took the plunge and invested in a new Samyang 14mm f2.8 IF ED UMC Aspherical. You can see how it pairs up with the Pentax here -










I have had it out a few times, and I am really enjoying working with it. This is a manual focus lens, with an aperture ring and 'A' setting, giving full camera controlled Av & M mode exposure control. Another factor I considered for the future was that it provides full frame coverage, if I go FF one day. It has a solid and professional feel in use.

Here are a few examples using it - I have made some distortion and converging verticals corrections on the shots containing structures at the edges, where these effects are more obvious.

The park and house is Canazarro, Wimbledon, the houses just the local area.

































I was worried that I might really need a zoom, but so far I've had no trouble getting the framing I want with a bit of footwork. Focussing can be hard to assess very precisely with these wide views, but I have found that picking an object a third to halfway into the scene and keeping aperture at 6.7 or 8.0 usually does it. Contrast I have found to be high with this lens, and this is helpful as I find I am catching a wide DR.

As always, any responses and comments much valued!

Hi Mc Greg, that certainly is a great matching pair with the speckled black on both camera and lens.
Honestly I have read rave reviews about this humble lens. Wanted to buy one but ended up with a used Sigma 10-20, which is a much superior buy at almost the same price as for the new Samyang. And getting older warrants an auto focus lens, as my eyes are failing me.
Your photos are a bit bright and the colors are slightly off, sort of blown. Do use a higher contrast with the Bright mode - Fn setting. Jack up your saturation and sharpness too - +1 and +2 points respectively from the factory preset.
Good luck and keep shooting as the pictures otherwise are very photogenic.
Bipin. camp: San Mateo, California.

Nice addition to your stable. I like the great sense of depth it is giving. Lots of potential by the look of it !
Pete

Nanhi, I toyed with the zoom idea as well, and the siggy 10-20 is well regarded. Guess I just liked the idea of a nice shiny new lens - the FF aspect appealed as well. The resolution of the Samyang was the main draw. I havn't found distortions to be too much of a worry for the stuff I taking, although on FF at the edges it'll be more of an issue, but I'm thinking then just shoot back a bit and crop some off.

Thanks for the settings advice - I presume you're referring to the custom image settings in the camera? Actually, I processed the shots in PDCU4 firstly, changing some Custom settings, but a lot of the contrast and brightness control has been done in Sagelight Editor 4. I was a bit disappointed at how the sharpness is rendered on this website - they are noticably softer here than when viewed directly through a viewer program on my laptop

Transit, good to see a Pentax shooter out in Aotearoa, you must have plenty of wide angle opportunities in your neck of the woods. Any Samyangs for sale there?

There are a few of us down here McGregNi
I used to have the excellent DA14 but sold it for the Sigma 8-16 so I could fit the view in
I imagine Samyangs need importing directly. Unlikely to be any in shops.
Pete

Looks like a promising lens Nigel! The images look detailed (as much as they can do on here) but I agree that the colours do look a little off on some of them. The yellows look a little high and that is making the grass too vivid - I don't know if this is the lens or the processing.

Regards
David

David, yes the detail you can get out of this Samyang is very good - its resolution is definately a big plus. I still have my concerns about how images seem soft on this website, wish they could look like they do in my viewing program.

I know what you mean about the yellows, but you know, I was there, and that was just what it looked like.