Rokinon 8mm F2.8 Ultra-Wide Fisheye Lens for Sony E-mount and NEX Cameras Silver

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Price: $279.00 $278.50   

Product Feature

• F2.8-22
• 8mm ultra wide fisheye lens
• minimum focusing distance of 12 Inches
• 10 elements in 8 groups (1 aspherical lens)
• Includes front and rear lens caps, lens pouch, instruction manual and 1 year Rokinon warranty

Product Description

The NEW ROKINON compact 8mm Ultra Wide Angle Fisheye Lens is the most affordable Fisheye Lens in the market for Sony E-mount and NEX cameras. It features an extremely wide field of view, it is small and compact, and its build quality and optical construction are superb. The Rokinon 8mm Fisheye lens was ergonomically designed by Rokinon for a balanced and comfortable fit on Sony NEX cameras. The lens exhibits exceptional sharpness and color rendition and is a perfect addition to your NEX and E-mount lens assortment.

Rokinon 8mm F2.8 Ultra-Wide Fisheye Lens for Sony E-mount and NEX Cameras Silver Review

This lens is small and well built, on part with all other extremely well built Rokinon lenses. Rokinon 14mm wide angle lens had sample variation, mostly problem with focusing labels, I did not encounter such problems with my copy of this fisheye lens. At the time of this review, I have 60mm Fuji and 35mm Fuji lenses, and this is the widest lens, and I have been using it exclusively for landscape photography (I know it is not a landscape lens for most part), since there is no other wide angle lens with Fuji X mount.

From what I know, fisheye can be very controversial lens. Many photographers use fisheye without even looking through their viewfinder, and manage to nail the composition. That means, composing with this lens is a piece of cake. This is the reason why many photographers discount this lens as less artistic lens (everyone can get good pictures with this). For the very reason, photographers on the other camp consider it a mush have in the arsenal. I personally find a middle ground between the two. I have seen beautiful landscapes and even portrait with fisheye lens, when used carefully and also have seen plethora of interesting photographs without any photographic merit but interesting just because of the distortion.

On my trip to Zion National Park and Bruce National Park, I used this lens 90% of the time, the 35 being the rest. I shot at f/8 or greater almost all the time with focus close to infinity, and the pictures came out sharp, even at 100% zoom level. I personally found it sharper than the 14mm Rokinon that I used with my 5d Mark II, and the images are usable. However, with 1500 fisheye landscape shots, I now am sick with the fisheye effect. I do not use any lens dedicated lens correction application to de-fish the picture, but have used lightroom lens correction to correct some, without much success. My intention was not to de-fish the images at the time of the purchase.

Although fun and interesting lens, the lens has severe limitation. I have heard people using it everyday for the first two weeks or month and then storing it and never getting back to it. If your work requires a fisheye (skateboard, selective landscape shots etc.), this is worth every penny. If you, like me, think it can be a wide angle substitute for the time being, then I discourage to go that route or wait for 14mm Fuji. I have since acquired a Voigtlander 15mm lens (have not got a chance to use it till now), and although it is nowhere wide to the fisheye, I am planning to unburden myself with the lens.

I have uploaded a few sample pictures, and in the Salt Lake Marina picture, you can see how the distortion of the fisheye adds to the landscape, but this trick cannot be applied to all landscapes. It was a mix of naivet and confidence that I used this 90% of the time when I visited those beautiful places on earth. I read a few articles about 'how to shoot landscape with fisheye' and thought I would get many stunning images and took this lens with me, my shots are not terrible, but would be better with a non-fish wide angle for sure.

Since, I have used it in all occasions, where 35mm is not wide enough, this being my only alternative. I feel it is time for me to graduate to less distorted wide angles. I also cannot comment of using the lens at 2.8 or similar apertures, because I never used it that way, although it can focus pretty close.

Overall I really like this lens. Here is a summary why?
+f2.8 means you can handhold it is poor lightning conditions.
+you don't have to see through the viewfinder/lcd to take a picture
+some landscapes can benefit from the distortion
+small, well-built, reasonably price (I got mine for $280 new in box - sheer luck), goes well with Fuji X pro 1. I like the red line as well (do not confuse this with L lens)
+great depth of field, f/8 and above focused to infinity produces sharp pictures.
+the most mundane things will look interesting (also a drawback).

What I dislike about this lens
-Nothing really. It is a wonderful fisheys. It doesn't have autofocus, but it doesn't advertise as a AF lens either, so not a lens disadvantage. You cannot use any filters with this lens.
-the must mundane things will look interesting (also a benefit)

Happy shooting.

Qualification: Amateur photographer [...]

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