Lens advice Tamron 10-24mm + Samyang 8mm

Seventen · Jan 18, 2015

Hello,

Am looking for some advice on these lenses if anyone has used would be nice to hear some opinions please.

I have been using a 35mm 1.8 on a Nikon d5100 for landscapes and shots of the night sky and would like to move towards a bit more of a wide angle lens. Both these lenses I have mentioned are priced Samyang 180 euro, Tamron 220 euro. to me this seems like a good deal. I cant get to try them out as they are both located more than 200km away and by the time I drove there to test its a bit waste of money. So trying to get some advice and buy blindly.

Before people start saying by the Tokina 11-16 I would if I had the money but trying to get 500 euros to buy it used is not going to happen for quite some time. (Like a year)
In my price range the Sigma 10 - 20mm also pops up at around 200 some times so that could also be another choice if the other ones are really that bad.

Thank you.

wfooshee · Jan 19, 2015

The 8mm is a fisheye and has extreme distortion of the image. I have one (look at my avatar,) and it's fun, but it's not a "wide-angle" lens, it's a fisheye. For extreme wide angle, you'll want the 10-20 or 10-24, which keep a more rectangular image.

Seventen · Jan 20, 2015

Ok thank you, I was aware of the distortion was hoping it could have been fixed a little on lightroom, or just try to get a little creative with the shot to make it work. But if it is too difficult maybe the Sigma or Tamron will have to do.

wfooshee · Jan 20, 2015

Use a fisheye for its effect, don't try to just make a wide-angle out of it.

You CAN use Transform, Warp in Photoshop (not a LR user, don't know if that's in LR....) to stretch the corners out and pull in the center edges to reduce the curvature, but it's a lot of work to make it look right.... In this example, the full fisheye looks better to me.

I've also been known to crop a fisheye shot top and bottom to make a panoramic out of it..... in this one I included a warp to flatten the horizon, and with no other horizontals or any verticals, there's no fisheye look to the result.

bigal1000 · Jan 23, 2015

Forget the fisheye it's not what you want at all !!!!!!!

wfooshee · Jan 23, 2015

That's what I was saying.

My examples were posted to show how difficult it would be to "fix" the distortion, which was asked about in post 3.

A fisheye is an effects lens, and can be used creatively, but it is NOT the same thing as a wide-angle lens.

Seventen · Jan 24, 2015

Thanks, the images made it quite clear it is really not what I need though the creative side to it could be useful, I however have purchased the Tamron for 200 euros and hope to have it soon. Thanks for the help there.