Thoughts on Rokinon Lenses for Nikon

[Lonnie1212]

Hi Folks,

I just saw a new 14mm Rokinon lens for $145.00. It was new in a damaged box. New wide angle Nikon lenses can be $600.00 to $800.00 easily. Has anyone tried a Rokinon lens? The one on sale is a manual focus lens. I am okay for manual focus on landscaps or city photography.

Thank you,

Lonnie

 

[tirediron]

There's a reason that the Rokinon is 1/4 - 1/10 the price of a Nikon lens. The manual vs. AF is a big part of that, but there's also image quality, especially edge quality at larger apertures. If you're always going to shoot stopped down a couple of stops, and aren't going to pixel-peep the edges, then it might not be a bad option at all. One thing to be aware of is that there QA tends to be sporadic and the first lens off the line today might be a total POS, but the next five are fantastic... if you buy one, ensure you buy it from a vendor who will allow return/replacement if you get a bad copy.

 

[Lonnie1212]

You are probably right about the inconsistent lens quality etc... I feel better about not placing a bid.

 

[Designer]

I just saw a new 14mm Rokinon lens for $145.00.

Hi

This type of deal is one that someone might try just to see what kind of image quality it gives, and more like an experiment with an off-brand lens. Having said that, I think such a deal should be more like $30, not $145.

 

[480sparky]

Samyang, ProOptic, Bower, Opteka, Bell & Howell, Rokinon, Falcon and Walimex and some Vivitars today are pretty much the same lens, just different labels.

 

[Derrel]

Samyang, ProOptic, Bower, Opteka, Bell & Howell, Rokinon, Falcon and Walimex and some Vivitars today are pretty much the same lens, just different labels.

Yes, true. In Australia the Walimex brand is common...in N. America, not so much.Made in China (???) And sold all over the world . Buy only where returns are allowed.

 

[Derrel]

145 BUCKS for a 14/2 8... tempting...

 

[RVT1K]

I have the fisheye and the 14mm and love them both.

I may have more outright fun playing with the fisheye than any other lens I own. It is a fully-manual item so it takes a little time to set up a shot and get things right but step it down to f/9 or so and you've got what seems like limitless depth of focus.

The 14mm may not be auto-focus but the aperture can be driven by the camera.

This was taken with the fisheye and my old D90:

 

[Lonnie1212]

That is a beautiful picture! It looks familiar. Can you tell where it was taken? Thank you for sharing your experience with Rokin.

 

[RVT1K]

That is a beautiful picture! It looks familiar. Can you tell where it was taken? Thank you for sharing your experience with Rokin.

I've been on vacation...

It is a temple in Tokyo called Sensoji: Tokyo Travel: Sensoji (Asakusa Kannon Temple)

 

[Braineack]

no AF no care.

I'm curious about their AF line.

 

[LWW]

I have both a ROKINON 16 f2.0 and 8 f3.5

Both are tack sharp with great image quality. The build quality is IMHO as good as the main brands, reminiscent of the old lenses of the 60's and 70's.

They are both MF with no VR ... but if one can't handhold and focus 16 then they have real technique issues that they need to work on.

 

[Space Face]

I have both a ROKINON 16 f2.0 and 8 f3.5

Both are tack sharp with great image quality. The build quality is IMHO as good as the main brands, reminiscent of the old lenses of the 60's and 70's.

They are both MF with no VR ... but if one can't handhold and focus 16 then they have real technique issues that they need to work on.

With this I concur. I have a couple of Samyang lenses. A 50mm and 8mm fisheye. Both give good results and are sharp. For the money they're good bang for buck imo.