Samyang goes four thirds

[lennert]

<p>A while ago, Samyang announced 2 four thirds lenses.</p>

<blockquote>

<p><strong>30.12.2009 - Samyang has informed that new lenses: Samyang 8 mm f/3.5 fish-eye and Samyang 85 mm f/1.4 with a mount for Olympus 4/3, have been released to the market. The lenses complete the series of mounts designed for Canon, Nikon, Sony and Pentax.</strong></p>

</blockquote>

<p>Here is the url to their website: <a href="http://www.samyang.pl/en?PHPSESSID=46cd863969ba3eb66af3090d04ed2fbb">http://www.samyang.pl/en</a><br>

I think it is good news an other company invests in 4/3 mount. And nobody mentioned these lenses on Photo.net... Why? <br>

Personally I am very interested in the 8 mm. The Olympus version is very expensive and it is not a lens I would use on a daily basis, just a few shots every month.<br>

What do you think? Is this good news or not? Would you buy one of these?</p>

[akira]

<p>The essential difference is that Oly's genuine 8mm/f3.5 is a diagonal fisheye with 180 degree angle of view and Samyang is a wideangle lens with pronouced distortion whose angle of view is unknown but definitely narrower than that of Oly's. Samyang's is designed as diagonal fisheye for "DX" format.</p>

<p>Fiseye's distortion is heavy but very simple as opposed to the mustache type of most of wideangles. So the correction of distortion in the post-process should not be too difficult, although the image resolution towards the corners of the frame should suffer.</p>

[lennert]

<p>Isn't the angle of view the same on each 8 mm lens? Of course the angle of view will change with sensor size.<br>

I understand The Olympus 8mm is designed especially for 4/3 bodies, but Samyang's lens was designed for bigger sensors than a 4/3. That would give a corner sharpness advantage over the other mounts.</p>

[yoshio]

<p>Hi</p>

<p>no, it also concerns image circle .. or how far the image can illuminate. I can put a 12.5 mm lens on my G1 but it only gives enough coverage on the sensor to make an image which has a much narrower angle of view.</p>

<p>I am sure I could also get my Olympus 21mm to focus on the film in my 4x5 camera, but the area of illumination on the film would leave much of it unexposed, meaning that I would not get a super wide image</p>

[lennert]

<p>excuse me for being persistent in my questions :-) I am learning here!<br>

I assume the G1 example is about the crop factor. your 12.5 mm lens becomes 25 mm on the G1. The 8mm becomes 16 mm. I am aware of that. But the Oly 8mm does the same.<br>

There would be no problem with illumination as this is a lens designed for a bigger sensor than 4/3. So it's the opposite than your 4x5 example.</p>

[godfrey]

<p>The Samyang is listed as a fish-eye lens, with focal length 8mm. Fish-eye lenses produce an image circle size dependent upon their focal length. </p>

<p>Whether it was designed for an "APS-C" format or not, I expect that its diagonal field of view is identical to the Olympus ZD 8mm Fish-Eye, if it is indeed designed as a true Fish-Eye. </p>

[akira]

<p>I think that is a tricky point. Both lenses are designed as diagonal fisheyes but for different formats, meaning different sizes of image circle, even though their focal lengths are identical.</p>

<p>So, Samyang's diagonal fisheye image is sure to be cropped by the 4/3 sensor, which should narrower the diagonal (or vertical, horizontal or whatever) FOV.</p>

<p>Am I missing something?</p>

[lennert]

<p>An 8 mm lens on DX becomes 12 mm. An 8 mm lens on 4/3 becomes 16 mm. I think it is that simple. <br>

The Samyang is designed to cover a bigger area than 4/3 so that would not be a problem. Mounting this lens on a full frame body would cause serious vignetting and lack of sharpness in the corners or even a circular image.<br>

An other point of interest is the distance between the back element of the lens and the sensor. This would also make a difference, but I think this is corrected with the placing of the bayonet on the lens. Otherwise, the focusing scale would not match reality.<br>

I would like to go back to my main question: I am looking for an extreme wide lens for occasional and recreational use. I could find a lens priced 1/5 lower than an equivalent Olympus lens. I know I would have to give up auto focus. Do you think, knowledge the above, the Oly would perform 5 times better?</p>

[godfrey]

<p>@ Akira: I don't think that's true for a <strong>Fish-Eye</strong> design. But I could easily be wrong. </p>

<p>@ Lennert: "<em>... an extreme wide lens for occasional and recreational use ...</em> "</p>

<p>IMO, you don't want a fish-eye lens unless you really <strong>want</strong> a fish-eye lens. ;-)</p>

<p>For rectlinear rendering, the best wide angle lenses for FourThirds SLRs are those designed for FourThirds. Nothing you buy in an adapted lens is going to outperform any of those. The price leader is the Olympus ZD 9-18, and it is one super performing lens for the money. </p>