Review on Samyang SY12M Ultra Cameras Silver by Jay Blo

This review should cover both Samyang and Rokinon 12mm lenses as they use the same components (just labeled differently). This lens is NOT perfect, but it does its job EXCELLENT. What I mean? This is clearly a landscape and architecture lens and when the lens is set up for that purpose it performs very well. But as soon as you try to use it for different scenarios, its shortcomings become very apparent. CONS: 1) Manual focus lens: pretty much means that the entire fast moving image is impossible to capture (not a word but you probably get what I mean) 2) Since it's FULLY manual it doesn't even leave aperture metadata behind (not such a big deal that you should only shoot at f8 and f11. Photos will detail why) 3) My particular lens was off center but the left side wasn't. as sharp as right, but that has been corrected at smaller apertures4) I bought this lens for landscape and astrophotography (because it's f2.0), but f2.0 photos are far from sharp, which somewhat defeats its purpose for Astrophotography ADVANTAGES: 1) Exceptionally wide angle of view with no fisheye effect (I feel fisheye has its place, but not for my purposes) 2) Once the aperture is set correctly, lens sharpness increases A LOT! (see photos to see what I mean) 3) Affordable (subjective) 4) It's compact and relatively light and fits my a6000 very well, dare I say in a jacket pocket, but not pants pockets. FINAL VERDICT: If you want to shoot landscapes, this lens is VERY good at F8.0 and F11. Other bezels are pretty bad. It has a short minimum distance, which is good for getting some macro images. I don't think there is a better deal for landscape photography right now, and if that's your preference, there is now (my $3 1 9)! Look at the photo to see why extreme apertures are not recommended, but f8-f11 is best. Hope that helps! You can also check out my post-processed images I took with this lens on my k1ngkong Flickr account in case Revain doesn't resolve my links below.[.][.][.][.]