Image courtesy Photozone.
Those guys from Samyang are my favorites! They have a history of extremely well made lenses for a very low price. And I was pretty sure that their first Micro Four Thirds lens, the 7.5mm f/3.5 would have a decent image quality. While I am by no mean a Fisheye fan at least they really designed that lens for the m43 sensor! Unlike Sigma that in order to save costs designed the 30mm f/2.8 for m43 and NEX and the result is a big and slow lens 🙁
So it that lens really good? There is now a full review at Photozone (Click here): “the dwarfish and very light-weight Samyang is not only a pretty good lens it is also a very affordable one and as such we can recommend it to all ultra-wide angle enthusiasts out there!“. And the lens gets “highly recommended” which doesn’t happen very often! Go Samyang! Make more lenses like this! 😉
Now to buy this lens you have to keep in mind that the name changes depending from the country:
In USA it’s named Rokinon 7.5mm and you find it on [shoplink 29105 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink], Amazon (Click here) and BHphoto (Click here).
In Europe it’s named Samyang 7.5mm and you find it on [shoplink 29106 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink], Amazon (Click here),
In UK it’s named Walimex and you find it on [shoplink 29109 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink] and Amazon UK (Click here).
Same non sense goes with all very nice Four Thirds lenses. Just click on the name to see Olympus four thirds lenses: [shoplink 20647 ebay]Samyang [/shoplink], [shoplink 20684 ebay]Walimex [/shoplink], [shoplink 20649 ebay]Rokinon [/shoplink], [shoplink 20650 ebay]Opteka [/shoplink], [shoplink 20651 ebay]Falcon [/shoplink], [shoplink 20653 ebay]Vivitar [/shoplink] and[shoplink 20652 ebay]Bower [/shoplink].
49 Responses
Since I own the lens, I can second photozone’s verdict. It’s really a very good lens, even wide open. Great job, Samyang!
Totally agree! And it’s also awesome for doing panoramica forography! U can achieve a 360 just with 4 foots around 1 zenith and one nadir! +1 and sincerely for a kind of lens you don’t really need autofocus 🙂
Yes, this lens is a little gem. I got it for only €269, and have some fun with it from time to time. I can support the test results of Photozone. Really nice!
The cheaper alternative (for people with an Olympus 14-42mkII kit zoom) is to use the FE adapter for €149. A comparison between those options would be interesting.
It’s a very good and very fun lens. It’s not easy to take good shots with a fisheye though, as you have to think very differently from a normal lens. Here are some pictures I shot with it (you can appreciate the quality of the lens, more than that of the photographer):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stmsat/tags/fisheye/
Some I do like, some I don’t (but posted them anyway just to check my progress in the future).
UGHHH I hate the name change game for products. It’s like GMC cars.
Anyways looks like a great lens for some fun shots.
New to the photography game and got a dSLR(Nikon d5100 which was great starter) but prove to big for my needs and caused me leave it at home more often than i used it, which was a shame :(. mFT looks like the system for me cause i do want something be crative with when i got the time in the (distant) future… but small enough to go use for movies/pictures of my son for now
I’ve just switch from a e-620(olympus) to a micro G3(pana) and the result worth my bet!
I always have it near and it’s pretty fast to get in focus, no more trouble/hunting in low light with the 45mm 1.8 and good result at 3200iso.
Also goes under the name of “Bower” in the US
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/833415-REG/Bower_SLY75B43_7_5mm_f_3_5_FISHEYE_LENS.html
It looks like the new Sigma lens were for the DP-1 and DP-2 and the other mounts are to spread the costs around. If they sell many, that is!
What a gem – on my short-list for sure 🙂
Are you sure that lens is not a Canon?
lol
I have always admired this lens… too bad I don’t have much desire for fisheye effect.
I wish they would build a wide angle like this.
From what I have read on here from people FAR more into the techincal workings for lenses is that when you get to about 10mm or below for a wide angle, the shear phyics of it all is hard to overcome without the lens being some freakish massive monster of a thing.
what they need to invent something works like the iris of your eye. A flexable membrane that can focus out to wide angle yet extremely compact. in the words of top gear “how hard can it be” 😛
It allready exists in labs but isn’t ready for production yet. It’s the fluid lens.
I’d guess you haven’t seen, handled or shot with the Panasonic 7-14mm ultra-wide angle lens. It’s neither large nor heavy.
I finally got my hands on one of these last weekend while doing some shooting in San Francisco. I couldn’t agree more . . . small, light, well-made and takes great pictures.
…My sisters have been bugging me to shoot family portraits, and this just might be the right lens for the job!
Hmm, you have a very large family, or are you people just… sort of wide? lol
LOL
LOL
I got one of these a month or so ago. I must say, after all of the positive reviews on how sharp it was, I was very, very disappointed with it. I’m hoping I just got a bad sample and I can exchange it.
I take my hat off to Samyang. Congratulation! Great job indeed.
Then I wish they will release 17mm, 25m, or 45mm for M4/3 in the near future.
Samyang already has a €600 24mm/1.4 — for 4/3. If it is a manual focus lens, is it essential to get it with m43 mount?
Yes of course. Why not?
On on the top of my list but definitely there.
These days there are too many more important lenses
that came out and let’s face it, a fisheye will rarely
be on one’s top list.
But after that, if I have the spare 350$ I’ll seriously
think about it.
+1
And a 14mm shift please 😉
Ugh .. that should be a reply to the comment above. Sorry.
saw a handful of videos using this lens. whoah nelly do not want. the harshness of the distortion will make you throw up looking at pans or dollies.
rokinon 8mm (with an adapter for MFT) is a much better choice.
All has it’s application.
This lens would be great for shooting extreme sports and in sea as well.č
Imagine shooting (both stills and video) from low position of things like: skaters, bmx, mtb, snowboarding, surfing, windsurfing, kitesurfing…
Hi Kai. Link?
Here’s the link to one of the horrendous videos with this lens: http://vimeo.com/29124039
Here’s a video using the Rokinon 8mm. Notice how there is plenty of movement here and you don’t feel like you’re tripping on acid. http://vimeo.com/29877403
But is it possible to compare the 2 in such different conditions? INternal & dark on the 7.5 and outside with the 8mm AND on a 600D Canon)
It would be a pity, I was seriuosly considering the 7.5 due to dimensions…. (I also have a Canon, thus not a bad idea to get the 8mm with an adapter)
The Samyang is much wider…
Well all the 7.5 mm clip show is the difficulty to shoot with an extreme WA : if you don’t keep the camera completely level, you get a very distorted picture with curved horizontals and verticals. Once you add motion you get seasick..
The 8mm video doesn’t show many straight lines, so that is less evident, plus on the few horizontals lines shown, the operator was clearly a better skilled cameraman.
So, no, you can’t compare the two to gt a good idea of what these lenses are capable of doing. My only remark is that the 7.5 mm seemed to be much sharper than the second one. However I’m not an expert in video format, so it could just be that the second clip was more compressed or used a lesser resolution. Anyway, it looked terribly unsharp to my eyes, although it is a very well shot clip.
well, you are loosing 40° angle of view if you do so.
Why would you use a fisheye on a crop sensor?
All you get is a heavily distorted wideangle.
Great stuff. More lenses like this please Samyang! A very compact 10mm f3.5 (or even f2.8) would be fantastic.
Is there a reason why it is not in the camera database?
twice the price to get AF may seem like a lot, if you compare to the Panasonic’s version. I guess it boils down to how easy it is to get critical focus manually at such wide angle.
Because I forgot to ad it 🙁
Well, nicht zu spät, ist es 🙂
Speaking of which, there is no emergency to revamp the website, but the camera database is not getting any smaller by any mean. A dedicated section instead of that left-right browsing might become an option soon enough.
And I will repeat myself, regarding the camera database: I believe in freedom, but I sometimes also believe in moderator. a few “reviews” really deserves to be deleted.
+1 for specially (µ)43 designed lenses. I have the Samyang 8 mm/43. It is quite big, does not cover 180° and is not sharp wide open.
I bought this lens as soon as it came out – and I absolutely love it! The image qualtiy is superb, and very sharp at the edges too. The 180° FOV creates some incredible images!
I’ve been looking for a cheap fish-eye for MFT for a long time as the Lumix branded ones are silly-expensive. Considering it’s a bit of a fun and playful lens, not something that has that many practical applications, I didn’t want to fork out too much cash.
There are so many haters bitchin’ about how useless fish-eye lenses are, but I find it to be a fun creative tool that can get some amazing results, if used thoughtfully.
You can see some of my HDR-Fisheye work on Flickr – for example http://www.flickr.com/photos/67653987@N07/6851217919/http://www.flickr.com/photos/67653987@N07/6851217919/
This is my favourite lens. Very small, very sharp, great colors, low CA – and cheap!
For making spherical panoramas, consider this:
http://thomashuang.net/products/nps75/nps75.html
(This is a lightweight panohead designed for this lens!)
Broken link….
Can anyone who’ve used it tell me how hard is to focus with it and what are the results after using some defisheye plugin/app?
Hi Miroslav
Not sure I got your question. What is defisheye plugin? Why do we need the defisheye plugin for a fisheye lens? or do you want to reduce the fisheye distortion?
In terms of focus, it’s extremely easy for the wide-angle lens. AF is not necessary at all.
Hi,
Thanks for the answer. Defisheye plugin is used to make rectilinear images out of fisheye, essentially to remove the distortion. You’d lose a bit from the edges I guess, but you’d get ultra wide angle anyway. There’s also a hemi plugin, which makes images with kind of circular perspective, ie removes only horizontal or vertical distortion from fisheye images.
I have absolutely no idea what I would shoot with this kind of lens.
Not a single idea when I would like or want a picture it produces.
This was posted here some time ago and I find it to be a very nice example of fisheye usage.
http://williamleong.blogspot.com/2012/01/fisheye-in-singapore.html
Another example:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/equirectangular/pool/
Nice lens, but why is Sony NEX version both wider and faster while similar in size? Theirs is 8mm F2.8 – 12mm F2.8 vs m4/3 15mm F3.5. I’m not so sure m4/3 version is native, more like tweaked 😉 NEX version.
“Unlike Sigma that in order to save costs designed the 30mm f/2.8 for m43 and NEX and the result is a big and slow lens”
I think its clear now, that the two Sigma lenses were not designed for Nex or M43rds. But to be for the new dp cameras. We will have to wait and see what Sigma really brings to the table.