Samyang RF 14mm 2.8 AF Review

#samyanglens#samyang14mm#samyangpassionateartist2020

Video review (in Italian) available here:

Full Written review (English):

In 2018, Canon finally stepped into the Full Frame mirrorless world, releasing the Canon EOS R, which received both praise and criticism in a number of different reviews. On the other hand, what was definitely well accepted were Canon’s new RF Lenses, characterized by excellent optical quality, a new control ring and a few other surprises.

Still, building a new lens offering takes time and money, and third party producers are crucial to establish a new system more quickly, like Sony showed with their FE Mount.

Among these third party producers, Samyang has been the first to launch lenses for this new system, in the form of a 14mm and 85mm manual focus lenses, adapted from the originals for the EF Mount.

Still, what truly set Samyang apart was the release of the first autofocus lens in the form of the RF 14mm 2.8 AF.

As one of the selected photographers for Samyang’s 2020 Passionate Artist program, I had the chance to receive this lens for testing purposes and as a travel and landscape photographer I was particularly excited to try it out.

DISCLAIMER 1: Samyang sent me the RF 14mm 2.8 AF but has NEVER requested positive reviews, only requesting sample pictures and feedback on it. What is written in this review is my genuine opinion on the lens, with both its pros and cons alike.

DISCLAIMER 2: As I received the lens exactly when Italy went into lockdown due to the Coronavirus, the amount of sample images I can provide is fairly limited. Apologies for that, I would have loved to travel extensively with it!

Introduction:

First of all, let me start by saying that I believe Samyang made the right call when they decided to go for the 14mm focal length as their first Autofocus offering for the RF Mount. In fact, the RF 15-35 f2.8 IS USM is currently the widest first party native lens for this mount and, although it is an outstanding lens, it retails for 2699,99€ (in Italy): not something everyone can afford.

This Samyang lens becomes a fairly affordable option that’s even wider, at 14mm, an appealing option for architecture, night and landscape photographers alike.

Build quality and physical characteristics:

The RF 14mm 2.8 AF presents itself as a fairly compact lens, for a wide-angle optic.

Although not as small as something like the RF 35mm 1.8 Macro, it definitely is not unbalanced on the EOS R Body. Its weight, at 484g, is substantial enough that it doesn’t feel cheap, while still being hand-holdable for the whole day.

A welcome addition is the presence of weather-sealing. While it is not passion to soak expensive lenses into the pouring rain, I am happy to know that it will be able to handle some rain and snow. The lens has one single slider on its left side for switching autofocus on and off.

The focus ring turns rather smoothly: I haven’t found much use for it as the autofocus is fast and reliable, but it will definitely be a nice advantage when trying to focus for the starts during night photography. Still, as with all Mirrorless lenses, it is a focus-by-wire system which doesn’t give the same extent of feedback as a traditional mechanical focus system. The control ring, a new addition in RF lenses, is not present on this lens.

The last feature I wanted to point out is the presence of a gel holder in the back of the lens: I find that as a very nice addition as the 14mm has a bulbous element with a built in lens hood, meaning traditional screw in filters don’t fit on it. The problem is… I couldn’t find a compatible rear filter that would fit it. It might be due to my inexperience with these kind of filters, or maybe they still need to be released, but it creates a bit of a problem for long exposures during daylight.

Overall, the feature set and build quality make it a good lens, although not as advanced as some of Canon’s more expensive options.

Autofocus performance:

One of the first thing I wanted to test out with this lens was how its autofocus performance in both photo and video. Canon, contrary to Sony, has not divulged the characteristics of its RF Mount, meaning Samyang’s engineers had to reverse-engineer it in order to create an autofocusing lens.

The result is surprisingly good for a “first-ever” lens! In fact, I tried focusing in different situations, both in daylight and dusk, and it has always worked quickly and precisely. I shot an entire 15 minutes video using the Eye-detect function of the EOS R and the 14mm, and once again it was able to follow me with no issues. The AF is not completely silent, so you might hear a (very) slight sound when recording video, so take it into consideration.

Crop on the focus point: it nailed focus in the dark!

To be fair, it is harder to judge focus accuracy on wide angle lenses, compared to telephoto or portrait lenses, because we tend to shoot at tighter aperture values and the magnification effect is not as great, but I tried zooming in at 100% in pictures taken with it and I never noticed anything unusual.

Speaking of magnification, the lens is able to focus as close as 20cm (from the Sensor!) which means you can get extremely close and personal, being able to create interesting perspectives. Even so, its maximum magnification is 0.12x, so forget doing any sort of Macro photography with it, not that it is intended for it anyway.

Still, close up quality is good and you can definitely create some nice images with it.

Image quality:

Finally, the part that everyone was waiting for: Image Quality.

We have to take into consideration that designing wide-angle lenses is not as easy as with standard focal lengths, as the light needs to be curved significantly more to reach the sensor.

Another consideration is that the lens does offer automatic corrections for distortion and aberration for both photo and video inside the camera, a particularly useful feature (especially during video!).

If you have never tried a 14mm lens, let me tell you that looking inside the viewfinder is surprising: it opens up completely new perspective, greatly exaggerating distances and being able to capture a field of view of 113.9º. It is a very interesting lens for shooting real estate, making even small rooms look spacious.

Landscapes and night sky photography also take advantage of it, although I would suggest finding a foreground subject, to avoid the risk of putting too much into the image without providing any real point of interest. By positioning it close to the camera and towards the center of the frame, it will take a great section of the frame and make for very interesting compositions.

The overall sharpness of the lens is very good: center sharpness is impressive enough (in the next image, you can see the individual bricks in the orange building when zooming in), while corners are, as expected, softer, although they improve when stopped down.

Here is a picture and its 100% magnification in both the center and corners of the image:

Crop from the center of the frame

Crop from the corner of the picture

Even at f/2.8, and in close-up situations, the sharpness is good enough for most uses and you won’t notice any particular problem unless you are creating huge prints.

Speaking of f/2.8, the lens can, as you can see from the previous images, create some extent of background blur. Of course, it cannot be compared to those of 1.4 and 1.8 portrait lenses, and it can become rather busy in some situations, but the blur is definitely there and if you control your background you can create some rather pleasing images.

Where the wide aperture comes handy is for nightscapes. The 14mm 2.8 MF has been considered one of the best affordable lenses for night sky photography, and this lens provides even greater sharpness and the bonus of AF (for greater flexibility), so I would definitely suggest it as a viable option for that purpose.

Distortion and vignette are present and noticeable, but for a wide-angle lens they’re definitely manageable. Vignette at f/2.8 can help drawing the attention towards the center of the image, in case you want to shoot some creative portraits. Still, it is technically a defect and you will need to correct it in post production.

Here an example of the distortion that you can expect from this lens:

Another aspect which typically plagues wide-angle lenses is later chromatic aberrations, particularly noticeable when tree branches are photographed in the corners of the image. In this lens’ case, purple and green fringing are definitely noticeable but at the same time they are not extreme and can be corrected easily in post.

Conclusions:

At first, since I could only try this lens at home (thank you, Lockdown) I wasn’t very impressed because I couldn’t really test it for what this lens is made for: don’t get me wrong, everything seemed pretty good on paper, but it’s a much harder lens to use when you can’t go out. As a reference, you could test a portrait lens at home by taking self portraits and photographing objects, but a 14mm doesn’t give you this option.

Once we were freed from our quarantine, my opinion on it improved considerably, and I had loads of fun shooting it.

Overall, I must say this is a very good option for anyone who wants a very wide angle of view but doesn’t want to reach the high price tag of the RF 15-35 2.8 IS USM L.

The Canon lens is more rugged, has image stabilization, a control ring, accepts screw-in filters and, ultimately and most importantly (in my opinion), provides much greater flexibility since it can zoom all the way up to 35mm.

This is, in my view, the biggest limitation of the Samyang 14mm AF: you need to buy it knowing full well what you’re buying it for, because it’s nowhere close the versatility of a zoom lens. Some prime lenses, such as the 35mm and 50mm, can be used in more various situations, but the 14mm isn’t one of those primes.

It will be a great addition to those wanting a great architecture, landscape and night photography lens, or for those wanting the widest possible lens for Canon RF. For those people, with its contained weight and size, great optical quality and fast autofocus, the Samyang RF 14mm 2.8 AF is a lens that’s hard not to recommend.

You can buy the Samyang RF 14mm f/2.8 AF here!

(I currently do not get any commission on sales or through affiliate links, so I’m providing a link for your convenience only)

I am very eager to try out Samyang’s new RF 85 1.4 AF: I’ve always wanted to dive a little bit deeper into portrait work and judging from its counterpart for FE Mount, and this 14mm, it could be an incredible option for portrait shooters too!

Here are some extra sample pictures ( some are cropped for better framing ):

For more pictures with this lens and to see the rest of my work, visit my instagram @gzroxas !