Samyang 8mm F/3.5 Fisheye Lens Review w Sample Pictures

An independent review of the Samyang 8mm f/3.5 Fisheye lens. BONUS CONTENT: numerous sample pictures are shown. View my Flickr page for full-resolution versions of the sample photos and many more: https://www.flickr.com/photos/petethe...

I welcome your constructive comments, questions and suggestions.

This lens was purchased from B&H Photo:
Samyang 8mm Ultra Wide Angle f/3.5 Fisheye Lens for Nikon w/Focus Confirm Chip
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product...

Defishing software:
ImageTrends Fisheye Hemi (I use "Fisheye-Hemi 2" for the Samyang 8mm)
http://www.imagetrendsinc.com/product...

Panorama software:
Kolor AutoPano Pro
http://www.kolor.com/panorama-softwar...

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Closed Caption:

hi I'm Pete and this is a review of the
samyang 8-millimeter f 3.5 fisheye lens
for epsc and some micro four-thirds
cameras my particular version is for an
icon and it has the the cheapest is
called it's chipped it's online it's
sold as a focus confirmed ship model but
in nikon terms that means it's a cpu
lens and that that makes it much easier
use on on the camera and I'm sure that
having it on other models of cameras
having that ship will make things a
little easier
what I'll do is I'll show you the box
normally i do unboxings but something
went horribly wrong with this unboxing
so you don't want to see that so there
you go it just it just sort of a generic
kind of thing it has a nice little on
data data panel here and i'll see if i
can get a shot of that for you
so that's the best i can do because
there's some glare from the light but
basically chose all the different mounts
and and the field of view which is a
hundred eighty degrees basically for
this which is a phenomenal now it
doesn't say anywhere on the outside of
the box what amount you gotta accept
that there's a sticker summary here the
item number sticker and i believe that
the dash and is probably means the the
nikon
mount now I'm the model i got is the cs
version with the chip and it means it
has the built-in hood the next model
which is cs2 is just a bit more
expensive not much and has a removable
lens hood the only reason I can think
that of that you would want to have the
removable lens with version is if you're
planning to use it on a full-frame
camera and then I think having the head
off with give you a bit more on thought
of the image but otherwise you can see
that the lens hood feel it protects that
bulbous lens element which is kind of a
nice thing to have in the hood is
actually quite substantial
it's not really it's it's it's pretty
thick plastic and it comes with Clippy
and cover which is is great and and it
just it just cooks on but it does
require it to be on a certain way or
else it falls off so something to
somebody watch for now i'll show you the
data on the actual lens body here
because once i put it on the camera is
going to be hard to to see so the you
have your focus ring here now this is a
mean annual focus lens but you know it's
not really focusing Egypt lens or a cpu
lens is not the ordeal that I think a
lot of people make it out to be and i'll
explain that a little bit one once they
put it on the camera and you also have
the aperture setting here it goes from
it's a 3.5 all the way up to f-22 you
don't use that when it's on on the
camera
it actually just have to set it to f-22
and then the camera controls the
aperture when you have to focus
confirmer to cpu version of it came so
that that's important it has to be on
have 22 I'll to get here so that's the
that's a lens and i'm happy with the
construction of it i'm really happy with
the image quality of this
and throughout this video i'm going to
be showing me he was showing pictures
that it made with the lens
so I'm just going to go ahead and put it
on the camera latika a test shot and
kind of show you how things how things
work now the the lens that i have on my
camera is EF this is the sort of that
the 35 millimeter nikon lens and it's
great for low-light a lot of the
photographs a taker in late and so when
you put it on the camera this one
doesn't have a . it has a line and but
it just it works the same way locked
into place now i'm going to double check
that it is set to f-22 if you don't set
at the f-22 then when you turn the
camera on I'll show you what happens you
get this error on the nikon you again
it's an fe error if you look that up it
says something about not being able to
control camera settings so you turn it
to on f-22 and now the aperture can be
controlled by the camera by just the
regular way just the normal way to do it
on the EXIF data is correct and
everything is fine when you do it now
the other thing that change your
supposed to change from autofocus to
manual honestly haven't found any any
difference and maybe someone will tell
me in the comments if you forget to put
the manual i don't know exactly what
that what that does
I haven't noticed anything so there you
go
now once you once you have this on your
camera when you go to take a picture it
is a manual lands but remember the
autofocus still works on your camera the
autofocus will do everything normally
does except physically turn this not for
you
so the way I work work out when I take a
photo then is I I just hit my subject is
fairly close when to turn it all the way
to the lowest distance setting then i'm
going to press the shutter half which is
initiates auto focus on my camera look
through the viewfinder and i'm just
going to turn and the manual focus style
until the phone
this confirmation . come on in the
viewfinder so i can't really show you
this but I got a little focus
confirmation . which means the cameras
in focus
so now I just go ahead and take my photo
and i'll see if i can show you what that
looks like
so there's there's the there's the the
display screen you can see it my all my
exif data is correct and when we go into
it would see that it's a it's you know
it's a fairly good
oops fairly clear picture i would
probably bump the brightness a little
bit but you know and there you go in the
center there it's very very regular you
don't see a lot of curved lines so if I
want to use this photo I could just
really crop the center and I you know
you'd be hard-pressed to tell it was
done with the fisheye lens
that's the thing about this particular
lens that it is quite regular and you
only see the curves looks at the at the
outside of the after the picture now
this is not igniting that you see this
actually is what my lighting setup looks
like so i just want to point that out
and in the sample photos i'll show you
you'll see that it doesn't it doesn't
have any igniting any noticeable
beginning so but you see the curve lines
just on the very very out edges and you
see the lamp here which has a straight
face
well actually has a curved top but but
here is supposed to be straight so if I
be if I didn't want to just crop the
center and use that or just use it the
way it is then I would just run it
through my ID fishing software and i use
image trends fisheye Amy and I use that
the heavy too and it works perfectly
just 11 click and it fixes it for me and
then it looks just like a wide-angle
image that was taken with you know it
and here nine millimeter lens
having said that what I found after
using this for about a month is that i
am not be fishing nearly as much as I
expected to I expected d fish most of my
images and just use a wide angle lens as
it turns out once you sort of build up a
sort of a sense of what would make a
good photo fisheye photo with this lens
it's really easy to take photos it don't
need any post processing don't need to
be fishing it works really well with
landscapes where there's not a lot of
vertical elements on the edges i use it
indoors the low-light capabilities i
keep class photos now unfortunately
can't show you any of those but take
photos of kids in a group and if I just
crop the center
you can't even tell it was done with a
fisheye lens but of course it's a lot of
fun in a classroom because they get the
kid to put his forehead right up against
the front there any couple shots and he
can see he's got a very big head on the
on the imager and they love those kinds
of the photos so um it has a lot of
creative options because the fisheye
lens has a very deep field
depth-of-field focus field you're going
to have a huge distance from the rate of
up close to the lens rate all the way
into the distance of very sharp focused
and one of the cool things to do is you
set your focus by you pointed at a
distant object to reset your focus using
focus confirmation . and then you can
actually stick to camera on the ground
and just tape it up a little bit and
take a couple shots you want to get up
down on the ground you don't have to
look through the viewfinder is going to
remain focused and that's the cool thing
about it and you can get some really
neat shots that way you can hold the
camera over your head take a bunch of
shots lots of creative possibilities
the other thing i've done with this
camera is that I fed some images right
out of the camera shy images rate to my
panel software made some panorama city
come on
week if stitches and perfectly i use
auto panel from kohler I think klo are
and it's it's really been not been super
so i'm still learning and that's really
the point of getting a lens like this is
to push yourself artistically and
technically and it certainly done that
but it's not been nearly as difficult as
i expected to learn to use fisheye lens
i thought it would be some sort of fun
house mirror that you you sort of have
to figure out you know how you get a
good image out of that but it's not like
that at all this this particular fish I
is very regular it has a really pleasant
I image property when when you're
looking horizontally landscapes come out
great Muslim don't need to be processed
be fished at all and and it's kinda but
it's been marvelous so that's that I'm
i'm really happy this lens obviously i
think it was a great bargain
image call is great low-light capability
works so well and again i want to point
out that the manual focusing on a modern
camera is is you still get all the
automation it just physically have to
twist the the ring yourself
so that's it for my review of the
samyang each millimeter of 3.5 fisheye
lens i want to point out that online
channel i am not affiliated with any
manufacturer I don't take freebies for
manufacturers anything that I review my
channel is going to be either something
I bought myself something had borrowed
from someone that I know but I'm not you
know not showing for anybody on this is
this is done my own stuff and stuff i'm
interested him so if you have any
questions any suggestions any comments
about my video please feel free i always
look forward to your your constructive
feedback so please let me know what
you're thinking and I will be coming out
with more videos on technology type
videos on my channel and next up will be
another same
a wide angle lens so look for that
alright well until next time thanks for
watching