Tokina 11-16 or Samyang/Rokinon 14mm?

virginie24jb · Jan 27, 2014

Hi,

I would like to try to do more night sky photography (especially the Milky Way) and unfortunately my current lenses only have aperture as big as 3.5 or 4 so it's not that good. I'd like to have at least 2.8
At first I was undecided on whether I should go for the Samyang-Rokinon 14mm, f/2.8 or the 24mm, f/1.4 (twice the price but with a bigger aperture).

Problem is I have a T4i/650D camera so it's not full frame. 24mm means about 38mm for me, so I decided to go for the 14mm instead. Except that someone talked to me about the Tokina 11-16, f/2.8... and now I'm really undecided.

I'd use it mainly for night sky photography and as a wide-angle lens for city shots. The Rokinon is half the price and fully manual... It's a prime and that scares me a bit. I know it's supposed to be better because if does one focal length, it's supposed to be better at it. But I'm a little scared about having one focal length... and it being all manual. It's really not a problem for night sky photography but for the rest...

If you had to choose one, would it be the Tokina or the Samyang/Rokinon?

acparsons · Jan 27, 2014

I would choose the Tokina, since it is more versatile. I have a Tokina 12-24 and love it. I think that a prime that is 14mm really limits the things that you can do with it. Also, have you considered the Canon 10-20mm? Additionally, what I like to do before I buy a lens is to type the model of the lens in a Flickr or Google image search and see a lot of photos that people have taken with the lens. This might give you an idea.

Propsguy · Jan 27, 2014

The Tokina 11-16 2.8 is a gem... I bought mine for landscapes and interior architecture, but I find I use it far more often that I thought I would, and it is a great lens for night sky / astrophotographic imaging.

ruifo · Jan 27, 2014

I'd go with the Tokina 11-16.
in fact I really plan to buy it soon.

virginie24jb · Jan 28, 2014

Thank you.
You all seem to confirm my decision.

fokker · Jan 28, 2014

Personally, I would go for the 14mm, I am actually thinking of doing just that. But, in my situation I own full frame and crop sensor and the 14mm will work great on both, giving me an ultra-super wide angle on the full frame 5D, and I really just love wide angles. If you ever plan on going full frame the 14mm is more 'futureproof' in that respect. Plus, it's half the price.

Personally, I've had a couple different wide angle zooms before and I find I'm always stuck at the widest possible setting,
so my next purchase will be a wide, fixed lens.

pixmedic · Jan 28, 2014

are you going to use it for anything besides sky photography?
the Rokinon will be manual focus only i believe, and the Tokina will have AF, making it a little more versatile unless you like manual focusing.

virginie24jb · Jan 28, 2014

pixmedic said:
are you going to use it for anything besides sky photography?

Yes. As I said in the original post, I think I'll use it for cityscape as well. And I'd like to test some landscape too. That's why I'm a little anxious about the manual focus of the Rokinon...

jsecordphoto · Jan 28, 2014

Take it from somebody who is using a crop sensor body and owns both the 11-16 and the rokinon 14mm, get the tokina. With the rokinon I can't do exposures longer than 15 seconds without getting trailing in the stars. I know with the rule of 500 I should be able to do ~20 second exposures but even at 15 seconds I wasn't really happy. I just recently sold my tokina 12-24 and bought the 11-16 for shooting at night and I love it. I'm planning on upgrading to full frame soon so I'm keeping the rokinon, but for now it just takes up space in my camera bag mostly

virginie24jb · Jan 28, 2014

I think I don't feel confident enough yet to use a full manual lens. And having that little versatility that the Tokina offers reassures me a bit. No, I think I'll go with the Tokina.