Rokinon FE14M-C 14mm F2.8 Ultra Wide Lens for Canon (Black)

I love this lens! I bought the lens to supplement my UWA lens corral, having an 11-16mm for my Canon 7D and a 17-40L for my Canon 5D MkIII. My 17-40L works well for the Real Estate work I do but just not quite wide enough! 16mm is the sweet spot for me with Real Estate Photography. The 11-16mm f/2.8 Tokina won't work properly on my 5D MkIII, so I picked up one of these, liking the reviews and the price!The lens worked better than I expected! The colors was fantastic, the sharpness was amazing! Adjusting to shooting with a 100% manual lens was easy, they all used to be that way! I just focused using live view and it worked fine.Outdoor landscapes have a very special feel to them with this lens, especially when combined with a good ND Filter. The real estate shoot that I used it for indeed, also had an exceptional feel. The compliments I received on this Real Estate Shoot were some of the best I've ever received. That being said, I had issues with it. The Vertical distortion was just too much for me to resolve.Instead of the normal horizontal "mustache" distortion I was expecting, the images had a heavy vertical distortion on either side of the frame. I applied corrections in LR5 and with DXO but could not completely eliminate it. Too me it stood out like a sore thumb but after working them as much as I could, I had no choice but to submit them, as I couldn't get back to the site for another shoot, it was a once in, last chance in, type of arrangement. The images were fantastic in many respects but the curved side walls were unacceptable to me. Nevertheless, I submitted them.The compliments from the client were glowing!! In fact it led to a couple more shoots for them on some other properties. By then, I had already sent the lens back, deciding the amount of work needed to correct the images was way too much time to make it worthwhile for Real Estate imagery. And despite the glowing reviews, some of the best ever, I stand by my premise, it was way to much work in post, for the type of shoots I was using it for. Way to much...Needless to say, I ordered another one because despite not really being able to use it for Real Estate Images, the rest of options for me to use it are fantastic, I missed it and just wanted this lens to live in my bag for the landscape and other work I enjoy doing. As I mentioned before, coupled with a very good ND filter, this lens is fantastic for landscapes and gives the images a very special feel with an exceptional color rendition! It also resolves sharpness in at an exceptional level! I'm looking into adding an after market chip to add to it for AF and/or Aperture...Bottom line, if you've not shot Ultra Wide before on a full frame, it may take a little getting used too, with this lens you have to do a little work, photographer work, like "back in the day" but the results are worth it! Just don't buy it for Real Estate interiors! You'll love it!

Okay look, this lens isn't quite the walk-on-water miracle that many people are making it out to be. However, it is a fantastic little lens that can make a great addition to your kit if you know how to use it. It could also be a dust-collecting monument to buyer's remorse. That's up to you.Using the lens to its fullest capability can be hard. I'm saying that not as a professional photographer, but as an amateur photographer that has had one SLR or another in his hands since 1992. So I've got the experience under my belt, just not the paid gigs. Or some might say, the talent. Still though, I know my way around a camera. And this lens still took me a while to get used to.Especially hard is any type of focus at or around f/2.8, given the all-manual nature of the lens. Live View, even at 10x magnification, on the 5D Mark III sometimes does not provide enough zoom to accurately gauge focus (luckily, it does help when the subject is close to the camera - a situation that is likely if you're shooting at f/2.8). And besides, I'm not a big fan of Live View anyway because it messes up your flow by pulling your eye away from the viewfinder, making you press buttons to zoom, etc. By then the moment may have passed.Where it really shines is in that f/5.6 to f/8 sweet spot, where you can dial in to the hyperfocal distance and just go nuts. I put a chart up a while back that shows for any given aperture, where to set the focus to reach the hyperfocal point, and what the minimum focus distance is at that point (for full-frame and for 1.6x crops). Googling the phrase "Jitterypixel Rokinon" should get you there. Once your aperture and focus is dialed in based on that chart, it will tell you how far away your subjects need to be.For this reason, hyperfocal shooting is a bit backwards from normal lens operation: instead of aiming at a subject and attempting to focus on it, you're setting the focus and then framing the subject accordingly. Until you get accustomed to operating like this, you may find that you have a lot of stuff that looks slightly out of focus when viewed at 100% on your computer, especially if you don't have much experience with fully manual lenses. It can take some practice.Corner sharpness (in full-frame) is not as unbelievably insanely amazing as some have touted, but it is definitely workable. Honestly, the distortion is so bad by the time you hit the corners, sharpness is the last thing you're thinking about. You're thinking that the old lady you accidentally caught in the corner of the frame is melting into the sidewalk. Center sharpness is pretty great, and the lens responds well to the judicious use of sharpening in post. Most of the distortion can be corrected (at the cost of a few pixels around the outer edges) for free using the lens profile available for both ACR and Lightroom (the page that I mentioned above also includes info for how to get that profile, and a couple of before-after photos).Gloss-over stuff that I won't spend too much time on because hundreds of reviews before me have already gone into great detail: The build quality seems excellent, especially considering the price point. The focus is smooth and well-damped, and you won't be able to use a screw-on filter because of the lens shape and the fact that it would have to be HUGE in order to not get in the way of the ridiculously wide angle of view. The solid lens cap attaches to the permanent petal hood, and protects the glass very well.Final word of caution: Do not under any circumstances position any female (ESPECIALLY wife or girlfriend) around the outside portion of the frame when shooting. Doing so will likely jeopardize your permission to ever photograph said female again in the future. Ever.