Review on Rokinon FE75MFT-B 7.5mm F3.5 UMC Fisheye Lens for Micro Four Thirds (Olympus & Panasonic) - Black by Phil Show

The lens is actually made by Samyang and is probably sold under different brand names like other Samyang lenses. Bought my Rokinon brand here at Revain. Samyang has released a number of other rather exotic lenses, such as the acclaimed 35mm f/1.4 and 85mm f/1.4. They are all similar in that they contain no electronics and therefore must be used in a fully manual mode. With this 7.5mm Micro Four Thirds fish rig, that's not a problem, and I don't even see it as a disadvantage. MFT cameras like the Panasonic G-Series are ideal for this type of lens - just set the camera to No Lens in the menu and it will automatically take care of the exposure given the available lighting. My Panasonic G1 and G2 cameras can even use this fisheye lens effectively indoors under certain circumstances. Obviously, none of the optional flashes cover 180 degrees corner-to-corner to mount a fisheye lens, but if you're shooting a long living room with a Nissin Di466 flash, which is designed for Four Thirds cameras and has a zoom head that Covering the lenses as short as 12mm, enough light reflects off the cream colored walls and ceiling to give a fairly good overall exposure, just some darkening in the extreme corners. Some have complained about the difficulty of focusing this lens with manual focus. This isn't really a problem as the depth of field is so great, even wide open, that focusing can simply be neglected. Leave it set to infinity, or just slightly "cracked" from infinity, and you'll be fine under almost all normal circumstances. In the Micro Four Thirds format, the depth of field of a 7.5mm lens at f/3.5 set to infinity is 3.55 feet to infinity. At apertures up to f/5.6, the depth of field is 2.17 feet to infinity. Does anyone need a larger focus range than this? The Rokinon's 7.5mm fisheye is naturally focused; it focuses to 0.08 meters, a little closer than 0.3 feet. It's actually closer than most people think, as focus distance is measured the traditional and correct way - subject to focal plane, not subject to lens. At the maximum focusing distance, the subject is about a few centimeters in front of the lens. In fact, with this lens, the idea of focusing is pretty bizarre, except for some unusual circumstances that I can't even imagine. For most users, the best way out in normal use is to just leave the focus at infinity or very, very close to it. Trying to improve sharpness by fiddling with the focus ring is unlikely to improve anything and can make things look less sharp. Note: The distance marked near infinity on the focus ring is 0.25ft. But for example, at that distance and f/5.6, the estimated depth of field is only 0.23ft to 0.28ft. It would be nice if there was a hyperfocal distance mark at a useful aperture, but again such a mark would be very, very close to the infinity mark. Everything about Rokinon is quality. The construction feels very solid and the finishes are great. The focus and aperture rings rotate smoothly, but with plenty of dampening so they can't be accidentally moved out of chosen settings. The sharpness is just superb from edge to edge. This is not just my opinion and that of other users; The German lens test site photozone.de tests the modulation transfer function with sophisticated devices and gives Rokinon very good marks. One of them was mine, but I have as much faith in it as I have in any other. Highly recommended.