Rokinon FE14M-C 14mm F2.8 Ultra Wide - Is it an okay copy?

After years of procrastination, I finally picked up the 14mm Rokinon. The reviews kept scaring me: particularly when people would mention having to send a couple back before finally getting a good one.

I ordered the Rokinon FE14M-C 14mm F2.8 Ultra Wide, and I think that is the one I received. This one has no chip.

Here are two image samples from it. These have been processed in Lightroom. I just did a batch process to try to get them as close as possible. All of the vignetting hasn't been corrected in the F2.8 image. My tripod was set up about a 1/2 metre away from the wall.

What do you think? Do you see any issues? I think I might see an issue in one of the images, but I might just be over thinking it and not totally sure what to expect. Overall, I think it is okay. I don't know if this is as good as it gets or not.

Yeah, the "AE"14M-C is the one with the chip in it...I just received mine Friday but its at my office..picking up tonight... it does look like a little bit of odd vignetting is going on in the second photo, but at f2.8 its expected...(vignetting of some kind) looks like a little more to the right and softens going to the left...I found one on ebay for $455 new...I dint want to mess the manual selections other than just focusing by itself...I'll test mine out over the next few days, see how it performs...

Have you tried correcting in post with a lens profile?

I used Adobe's lens profile for the lens on the 6D, but I was using my 5D3. That could account for the poor correction on the f2.8 photo.

I'm going to be heading out in about an hour to test it out on a panorama. I'll test it on my 6D. I'll also be shooting the same panorama (with hopefully the same settings) with my 21mm Distagon. It isn't a fair comparison (the Distagon should kick butt), but it'll give me a better idea how it is performing.

My 6D is my manual lens camera (I have a different focus screen in it), so I should have done the test shots I posted on that. I was working with the 5D3 and couldn't be bothered with the 6D.

I think it is the diffraction in the f22 photo that bugs me. I'll test it at f11 tonight.

The top left corner looks too blurry to me in the f2.8 photo. But, that could be an issue with the vignetting.

neacail wrote in post #17990973
I used Adobe's lens profile for the lens on the 6D, but I was using my 5D3. That could account for the poor correction on the f2.8 photo.

I'm going to be heading out in about an hour to test it out on a panorama. I'll test it on my 6D. I'll also be shooting the same panorama (with hopefully the same settings) with my 21mm Distagon. It isn't a fair comparison (the Distagon should kick butt), but it'll give me a better idea how it is performing.

My 6D is my manual lens camera (I have a different focus screen in it), so I should have done the test shots I posted on that. I was working with the 5D3 and couldn't be bothered with the 6D.

I think it is the diffraction in the f22 photo that bugs me. I'll test it at f11 tonight.

The top left corner looks too blurry to me in the f2.8 photo. But, that could be an issue with the vignetting.

Why f/22? You will NEVER NEED f/22 with this lens. At f/5.6 and HFD, everything from 3' to infinity will be in focus. At f/8, it is close to 2'-infinity.

Bassat wrote in post #17990983
Why f/22? You will NEVER NEED f/22 with this lens. At f/5.6 and HFD, everything from 3' to infinity will be in focus. At f/8, it is close to 2'-infinity.

I just tested both ends. The extremes are usually where issues appear. I'd probably never use either f22 or f2.8. F8 and F11 will most likely be where it is used most of the time.

neacail wrote in post #17990973
I'm going to be heading out in about an hour to test it out on a panorama. I'll test it on my 6D. I'll also be shooting the same panorama (with hopefully the same settings) with my 21mm Distagon. It isn't a fair comparison (the Distagon should kick butt), but it'll give me a better idea how it is performing.

The Distagon did produce better results (contrast and sharpness), but the 14mm Rokinon performed quite admirably for a lens that cost a 1/4 what the Distagon did. The panorama stitched together well.

This has really been down sampled to get it under 10Mb.

Did you stitch these from vert. or horiz. shots? and how many stitched? whats the final WxH at 300dpi prior to saving down?..

I shot around with mine out back for a bit hand held on my 5D3 and was impressed overall with how well I was able to achieve a good manual focus at f8 and f11...
Still need to do some more testing but I'm primarily going to be using this lens for milky way and star shots...maybe some wide angle beach shots w stars and sky...

-Jason

NG8JGFX wrote in post #17992579
Did you stitch these from vert. or horiz. shots? and how many stitched? whats the final WxH at 300dpi prior to saving down?..

I shot around with mine out back for a bit hand held on my 5D3 and was impressed overall with how well I was able to achieve a good manual focus at f8 and f11...
Still need to do some more testing but I'm primarily going to be using this lens for milky way and star shots...maybe some wide angle beach shots w stars and sky...

-Jason

This one is a little over 55"x19" @ 300 DPI. There were 26 vertical shots, taken every 15° (I could have done 45° . . . 15° was a bit excessive). I used Photoshop's "content aware fill" on the sky to fill in the places where there was no data (along the "bumpy" top of the panorama). I cropped along the bottom, as the content aware fill didn't do a good job of dealing with the grasses and the fill was obvious.

For comparison, the one done with my 21mm was also built from 26 vertical shots taken every 15°. It is much larger at a little over 96x28 inches @ 300 DPI. I did the same thing with that one: filled in the bumps in the sky and cropped along the bottom. I haven't worked out the math to account for the discrepancy between the sizes of the panoramas, or determined if something weird happened somewhere in my process.

Here is the panorama from the Zeiss (heavily downsized). Interestingly, it flared worse than the Rokinon. When I shot this I was going for a blown out sun with sun and lens flares, and I thought the Rokinon would be the lens that would deliver the flares.