After reading Lifehacker’s “2011 The Best Photo Gear of the Year” and only seeing one lens on the list, I knew I had to purchase it. That lens was the 8mm Rokinon Fisheye Lens (for Canon/Nikon/Sony/Etc Cameras) which was a great deal at $300.
Using the lowest aperture of 3.5, there is some difficulty taking photos in low light, but still works great in most night shots without the need for a stand. The 8mm viewing angle produces some great photos on my camera (Canon T1i), even on a cropped sensor. The lens also has very little distortion and no vignette on the edges, which was a surprise to me. The main buying point for this lens is the price sadly, for $300 it’s hard to beat such a cheap lens.
Since the lens is made for a variety of cameras, it doesn’t communicate well with the Canon T1i, meaning aperture settings need to be set on the lens itself and a lot of photos will appear under exposed or over exposed. The image quality of the photos produced by the Rokinon was also below the quality I expected, a lot of grain and unsharp areas were noticeable to me.
The Verdict
If you’re a photographer on a budget and need a great wide angle lens, you should defenently pick up the Rokinon 8mm.
View more images from my Flickr set here
Have you purchased a lens not made by your camera manufacturer?
let us know in the comments!
For 300 that’s really cheap – 3.5/f is okay and I think a good additional in the bag. I don’t have any lens that I want right now – I basically just use my kit lens, 50mm and my 200mm 4f L lens. I was looking forward to upgrade my camera body but not a priority 🙂
Love those 50mm 1.8mm/1.4 lenses, really looking to get more prime, how do you like the 200mm?