JemHayward
pfm Member
I treated myself to this lens for my recent trip to Croatia, and I'm very impressed.
I became obsessed with wide angle photography some years ago, and treated myself to a Zeiss 18mm f4 for my Contax RX. At the time it was regarded as one of the best super-wide lenses about, and I got some really good shots with it. It didn't really fit my Canon 5D, without some mods to the mirror frame, so I eventually sold it, and used the excellent Sigma 12-24 zoom instead.
My move to the Fuji X system left me without a proper wide angle option, the 18mm f2 was ok, and the 16-50 is a nice lens to carry around, but I wanted something more "extreme". A year or so ago, I bought a Samyang 8mm fisheye, which is great fun, and with de-fishing software can sort of do the ultrawide thing but thats not good for visualisation in camera. The Samyang 10mm is a huge beast, so I went for the 12mm especially as its also fast at f2.
It is an excellent lens, by any standards. Its less flare prone than my Zeiss 18mm, wonderfully sharp, right down into the corners, and open it up to f2 and you can shoot in the street at night, hand held. Well built with a really good lens hood that clicks securely into place and although I've not done a direct comparison, I would suggest its at least as good if not better than the Voigtlander 12mm and much faster, and I think its probably better resolution than my old 18mm Zeiss. That lens cost me £1k maybe 15 years ago, the Samyang was under £300.
Croatia_-1268 by JemHayward, on Flickr
I became obsessed with wide angle photography some years ago, and treated myself to a Zeiss 18mm f4 for my Contax RX. At the time it was regarded as one of the best super-wide lenses about, and I got some really good shots with it. It didn't really fit my Canon 5D, without some mods to the mirror frame, so I eventually sold it, and used the excellent Sigma 12-24 zoom instead.
My move to the Fuji X system left me without a proper wide angle option, the 18mm f2 was ok, and the 16-50 is a nice lens to carry around, but I wanted something more "extreme". A year or so ago, I bought a Samyang 8mm fisheye, which is great fun, and with de-fishing software can sort of do the ultrawide thing but thats not good for visualisation in camera. The Samyang 10mm is a huge beast, so I went for the 12mm especially as its also fast at f2.
It is an excellent lens, by any standards. Its less flare prone than my Zeiss 18mm, wonderfully sharp, right down into the corners, and open it up to f2 and you can shoot in the street at night, hand held. Well built with a really good lens hood that clicks securely into place and although I've not done a direct comparison, I would suggest its at least as good if not better than the Voigtlander 12mm and much faster, and I think its probably better resolution than my old 18mm Zeiss. That lens cost me £1k maybe 15 years ago, the Samyang was under £300.
Croatia_-1268 by JemHayward, on Flickr
