Tamron 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5 VC HLD Review

Dustin Abbott

April 11th, 2017

APS-C shooters can be forgiven for feeling like they sometimes get left out in the cold when it comes to quality development for their platform. Canon, for example, has an interesting dichotomy. Many of their lens releases for full frame are of the premium “L” series type, while it seems that an abnormal amount of their releases for APS-C are of the budget variety. The number of premium crop sensor releases is incredibly small, but third parties have jumped into that void. Most notable is Sigma with their 18-35mm and 50-100mm f/1.8 ART series lenses that were just as nice as any of their full frame designs save that these were designed for crop (APS-C). Tamron eyed a hole that was missing in the APS-C sphere: a stabilized, wide angle zoom with weather sealing and more premium performance. They have stepped in to to fill that void with the new Tamron 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5 Di II VC HLD lens (internally coded B023). The 10-24 VC comes to the table with a rich feature list, but how does it hold up in real world use?

Tamron introduced the first generation of lens in this focal length in 2008, the SP 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5 (B001) lens. Tamron has since relaunched the SP branding for its premium lenses (a smart move, in my opinion), so while the lens has lost the SP branding it has gained a number of important other acronyms. Among these are VC, or Vibration Compensation, which is Tamron’s image stabilization system. The value of image stabilization in wider focal lengths is increasingly appreciated for both video and stills, and I will note that the inclusion of VC makes this lens an interesting option for video. Tamron has also debuted a completely new focus motor on this lens, the High/Low Torque Modulated Drive Motor, or HLD. HLD is much catchier! We’ll deal more with this focus motor in a moment, but it’s addition is equally important both for improved focus and for its properties that also make it more attractive for video.

Tamron already boasted the largest focal range in the class, with the 10-24mm besting other 10-22mm variants. 10mm is the full frame focal length equivalent of 15mm on Nikon and 16mm on Canon, while on the long end it represents a 36mm equivalent on Nikon and 38.4mm on Canon. This is obviously a very useful focal range. Canon released a stabilized APS-C wide angle lens (the EF-S 10-18mm IS STM) a while back, but the 10-24 VC one-ups it in both focal length but also a much more serious build quality complete with weather sealing and (unusually for this class of lens) a fluorine-coated front element. The latter is an expensive addition to lenses that typically cost far more than this one. I don’t need to tell you that having weather sealing in a wide angle lens that might be used for landscapes, time lapses, or near splashing water is a big deal, and Tamron has managed to set itself apart in a more serious class by this inclusion. Has Tamron succeeded in bringing out the compelling option in this class? Is the Tamron 10-24 VC the new lens to buy for APS-C shooters looking for a quality wide angle zoom?

Prefer to watch your reviews? My full video review will give you all the details!

Build Quality and Handling

While the 10-24 VC is not a part of Tamron’s new SP premium line, it has inherited the sleek, modern good looks of that series. This is the first lens that I’ve reviewed from Tamron that inherits the looks but not the materials of the SP line. It looks a lot like those lenses, though with a slight bit less gloss due to being constructed from engineered plastics rather than the aluminum alloy the SP line is made from. The lens looks good, though, with a nice modern look that will instantly set it apart from the previous Tamron 10-24 lens. It is a moderately sized lens that is 3.3”/84.6mm long (a couple of millimeters shorter in a Nikon mount) and weighs in at 15.5 oz/440g. This is compact and light compared to most of the lenses I review these days, but is both longer (10mm) and heavier (200g) than the Canon 10-18 STM. That lens also has a much smaller focal range and lacks the higher grade build/weather sealing of the Tamron, so it isn’t really a completely fair comparison. I mention it mostly because it will likely be a lens that many Canon shooters will cross-shop.

The lens has a substantial but common 77mm front filter thread. Unlike any of the Canon APS-C lenses the 10-24 VC comes with a lens hood, and I found the lens hood shaped in a fairly useful way (wide angle lens hoods can be a bit ridiculous!). It also comes with Tamron’s newly designed front and rear lens caps, which are some of the nicest in the business (particularly the front pinch cap).

The 10-24 VC has a 7 rounded blade aperture, and I thought the sunburst/sunstars created with the lens stopped down looked nice. No lens like this will be a true bokeh monster, but if you are focused on an object at close to minimum focus distance (9.4”/24cm), you will be able to blur out the background somewhat. The lens has a useful maximum magnification figure of right under 0.19x, which is actually better than the Tamron 70-200mm f/2.8 G2 lens that I just reviewed!!

This is a variable aperture zoom (unlike Tamron’s 15-30mm f/2.8 full frame lens), starting at a moderately wide f/3.5 on the wide end and losing about 2/3rds of a stop of light with a maximum aperture of f/4.5 on the long end. As variable aperture lenses go, this isn’t actually too bad. The Canon 10-18 STM that I’ve referenced STARTS at f/4.5 and ends at f/5.6, so the Tamron can let in a fair bit more light across the focal range. The lens can stop down to a minimum aperture of f/22-f/29 depending on the focal length.

The lens has the two basic switches: AF/MF (although it does boast full time manual override), and an ON/OFF switch for the VC. The two rings (zoom and manual focus) feel pretty good, and operate smoothly. The lens focuses internally, so nothing extends or rotates when focusing. It is not entirely internally zooming, and it actually moves in and out with the fully retracted position being in the middle of the focal range and with a tiny extension (only a few mm) out at both the wide and telephoto ends of the focal range. The manual focus ring is fairly narrow, but it easy to find by touch. The action of the focus ring won’t be mistaken for a Zeiss lens, but it moves nicely. The key feature for me is that with Tamron’s HLD motor there is actually direct control over focus as opposed to the detestable focus-by-wire MF of STM lenses.

Another key upgrade is that the 10-24 VC is fully compatible with Tamron’s Tap-In Console, which will allow users to fine tune autofocus (at different focus distances and focal lengths) along with tweaking other functionality (VC behavior, MF ring behavior, etc…). Perhaps most important is that you can install firmware updates to the lens through the Tap In, helping to assure that your lens is future proof.

All in the lens is both attractive and functional with a build and moisture resistance that is superior to other APS-C wide-angle zoom options.

Tamron 10-24 – Now with VC

By popular request the new B023 now comes with Tamron’s Vibration Compensation (VC). While telephoto lenses have the greatest need for stabilization, I’ve used several full frame wide angle lenses with stabilization (Canon 16-35mm f/4L IS, Tamron 15-30mm f/2.8 VC) and do find the stabilization useful. That stabilization not only allows you to keep the ISO setting down in lower light situations (when you don’t need to stop action) but also gives you some creative options. I’ve handheld shots where I blurred water or a moving subway car, for example.

This is another nice implementation of Tamron’s VC. It is virtually silent in operation, and there is little sign of its operation other than the extra stability. No jerking when it comes on and off or any other negative behavior. The stabilization is rated for 4 stops, which means that you can handhold VERY low shutter speeds with such a wide focal length.

I handheld a number of low shutter speed shots while visiting Niagara Falls with the lens. I find APS-C’s grain at higher ISO settings more noticeable than that of my typical full frame bodies, so I’m a little more proactive about avoiding higher ISO settings when I use my 70D or 80D bodies. I shot a number of shots at shutter speeds like 1/8^th second when walking around at night (and at very cool, misty, and windy temperatures near freezing, so I’m sure I wasn’t at my most stable). Despite these factors I can’t recall one image lost to camera shake, which shows the value of that stabilization. It also gave me the ability to blur the cascade of the water and produce some very cool images.

The addition of the VC on the 10-24 VC is a very welcome addition.

New HLD Motor

The new High/Low Torque Modulated Drive Motor (HLD) is an interesting one. It’s clear from both the name and the operation that this is a hybrid focusing system somewhat similar to STM. It employs higher torque for fast autofocus when shooting stills, but also allows smooth (and quieter) focus transitions when shooting video. USM/USD motors typically excel in the first task but aren’t nearly as good at the latter. STM and Canon’s excels at the latter, but sometimes isn’t as fast to focus and robs you of the ability to directly manually focus. I’m not a fan. Canon’s new Nano USM is a significant improvement on STM, but still lacks the ability to truly manually focus.

Tamron has found a way to give us fast focus, smooth (and fairly quiet) video AF focus, but also give us real manual focus/focus override. I didn’t find the HLD motor to be as quiet as the best STM motors for video AF (but it’s close), and not quite as fast as Nano USM in focus speed (but it’s close), but I felt it was perhaps the closest I’ve seen to having these qualities without resorting to focus by wire. Kudos for Tamron; this motor is one of the underrated highlights of this new lens.

A wide angle lens with a not overly wide aperture puts relatively little stress on a focus system, but I did find focus accuracy to be excellent on the lens. It needed little calibration and just did its job. Focus was quick and confident, and I doubt that any will be disappointed with this aspect of the lens’ performance.

Interesting Video Option

The HLD focus motor combined with the VC makes this a very interesting video option anyway, but those of us that own a full frame 5D Mark IV ought to pay attention for another reason.

While Canon has slammed the door shut on mounting its own APS-C lenses on full frame (EF-S lenses won’t physically mount on full frame), they surprisingly have left the door open for third party lenses. The reason for this is that third party lenses use the EF and not EF-S mount. While prime lenses made for APS-C don’t cover the full frame image circle, it isn’t unusual for zoom lenses to cover the the full frame image circle over the latter part of their focal range. That is definitely the case here, and surprisingly you only need to zoom into a hair past 13mm before the 10-24 VC covers the full frame image circle (prior to this there is heavy blackening in the edges where the lens diaphragm is physically obscuring part of the image circle). 13mm is very wide on full frame (on Canon APS-C 10mm is the full frame equivalent of 16mm, so even at 13mm the lens is a good bit wider than on its native APS-C). Good APS-C lenses often look very good on the less pixel dense full frame sensor. Here’s a look at a shot on the 5D Mark IV – 13mm:

One of the most desirable applications for this is in the capture of 4K video, as Canon has a 1.7x crop factor when capturing 4K video on the 5D Mark IV. This would be a great place to use Canon APS-C glass, as they are designed for the crop factor, but as already mentioned they physically won’t fit. The 10-24 VC is a great fit here, as the crop factor means that the whole focal range is usable. 10mm with a 1.7x crop is 17mm, which is still nicely wide on full frame and very useful…more so, in fact, than most full frame lenses.

Footage from this combination looked nice and crisp and the quality focus and stabilization made it an intriguing option there.

Tamron 10-24 VC Image Quality

The B023 has a fairly complex optical formula with 16 elements in 11 groups. Included in that formula is one Low Dispersion element, one XLD glass element, one moulded glass aspherical element, and one hybrid aspherical element. These are designed to help reduce chromatic and comatic aberrations (more on that in a moment) and to help control distortions. Another update over the previous lens is Tamron’s new BBAR coatings have been applied, and my experience with them has been favorable. They are effective at reducing flare effects and helping with contrast. Tamron’s benchmark has been its own excellent 15-30mm f/2.8 VC (which I own). While that lens is made for full frame, it has been a showcase for what Tamron can accomplish in a wide angle lens. I’ve compared a number of new wide angle lenses to the Tamron since its release, several of which were far more expensive than it. While there is always some give and take, I’ve noted that the Tamron has held up very well to all challengers. In short, I think benchmarking the 15-30 VC is ambitious, but that gives a frame of reference to compare against.

Before I go further, I will add that APS-C is not my favorite platform for landscape or low light work. The rougher noise and the nature of the pixels to my eye produces less smooth results. It can be hard to communicate, but I just prefer the look of the images produced by full frame, particularly when viewing and processing them at the pixel level. I say that to say that when I first compared the lenses on their native systems (the 15-30 VC on a Canon 5D Mark IV and the 10-24 VC on a Canon 80D), I had a hard time separating the limitations of the platform (APS-C) from the lens. I decided that I would instead compare both lenses on the Canon 80D. What I saw in that test gave a truer representation of the performance of the 10-24 VC.

I compared the image quality throughout the focal range, but there is one fairly constant advantage for the 10-24 VC in that type of comparison – chromatic aberrations. The Tamron 15-30 VC controls longitudinal chromatic aberrations well (often called LoCA), but it does fall prey to some lateral CA along the edges of the frame. Lateral CA can be corrected for in software, but unlike LoCA it is not corrected just be stopping down the lens. I saw trace amounts of lateral CA in the images from the 10-24 VC, but overall it exhibits less chromatic aberrations than its big brother.

AT 10mm the 10-24 VC is very sharp from f/3.5, and the sharpness extends across the frame reasonably well. There is good contrast, with a bit of that lateral CA along the edges of the frame. As you stop the lens down at 10mm the biggest change seen is that vignette is reduced. Here’s a look at the image quality from left to right across the frame wide open (f/3.5):

The vignette wide open doesn’t produce heavily dark corners, but it does extend fairly far into the frame, so the image as a whole brightens when stopped down to f/4 and more at f/5.6. At 10mm the resolution is pretty impressive even at f/3.5, and stopping down to more traditional landscape values reduces vignette and slightly increases resolution. If you are shooting RAW the vignette issue is fairly minor, as it is well within the tolerance of being removed in post without destruction to the image. Here’s a look at the vignette difference between wide open and f/5.6 at 10mm:

Here’s a quick comparison of f/3.5 and f/5.6 in terms of sharpness at 10mm:

Comparing the 10-24 VC to the 15-30 VC at 15mm is interesting. Looking at the image quality globally you will see an obvious difference in the amount of vignette. The 15-30 VC is perhaps the best wide angle lens I’ve seen for vignette control anyway, but it also benefits on APS-C by having the edges of the frame cut off due to being a lens designed for the larger full frame image circle. Once again the amount of vignette is fairly light on the 10-24 VC, but it extends fairly far into the frame.

With both lenses wide open (f/2.8 for the 15-30; f/4 on the 10-24 VC), the 15-30 is sharper on the edges of the frame but the 10-24 VC has a [very] slight edge in the center of the frame. When the 15-30 VC is stopped down to f/4 and they are both compared at f/4 it has the overall sharpness edge. Here’s a look across the frame:

With both lenses stopped down to f/5.6 the overall resolution is similar, with a contrast edge to the full frame lens. The fact that the 10-24 VC stays this close at such a lower price point is impressive.

At 20mm the results with both lenses wide open (f/2.8 vs f/4.5 at this point) very slightly favors the 15-30 VC, mostly in the form of better micro-contrast. Off center the results are more standardized, though, which indicates the sharpness is fairly even on the 10-24 VC. Here’s a look:

With both lenses stopped down to f/5.6 the 15-30 looks a bit better with superior contrast and less light haze, but the lenses remain pretty close overall.

At 24mm we have reached the end of the focal range on the 10-24mm while the 15-30 VC has 6mm more, so its not surprising that the image quality edge favors the 15-30 VC. Overall it is still fairly close, but once again the contrast edge belongs to the full frame lens, though the absolute resolution is not overly different. Here’s a look across the frame at f/4 (f/4.5 for the 10-24):

If they are both stopped down to f/5.6 the superiority of the 15-30 VC shows up, though:

So in a controlled environment it is clear that the 10-24 VC has some serious optical chops even if it doesn’t quite match the 15-30 VC.

Flare Resistance

One area that the 10-24 VC has no problem matching (and besting) the 15-30 VC is when it comes to flare resistance. The full frame lens has a bulbous front element with a fixed lens hood, but there are limits to just how much that lens hood can shade the front element. Tamron’s BBAR coatings have proven their worth in a number of applications, but they cannot completely overcome the 15-30’s propensity for showing flare/ghosting patterns from side light sources. If light comes from the right (wrong?) angle, the 15-30 is definitely vulnerable. Fortunately the less extreme nature of the 10-24 VC means that it has a flat front element and can use traditional filters (77mm size). It is also far less vulnerable to catching stray light from the side. In addition, it proved very flare resistant, maintaining near perfect contrast even with very bright sun in the frame. I was only able to produce the slightest of ghosting patterns that were negligible and definitely put this lens fairly high on the list of flare resistant wide angle lenses that I’ve used.

Stopping down the lens produced a nice if not spectacular sunburst effect with its seven-bladed aperture. All in all I found the lens produced very nice images when I put the sun into the frame…something I dearly love to do with a wide angle lens.

Distortion

At 10mm the lens isn’t distortion free, but the amount of distortion is minimal. There is a bit of barrel distortion noticeable on straight lines towards the edges of the frame, though when I shot a brick wall I saw little distortion throughout the majority of the frame. Most importantly is that there isn’t any odd “mustache” type distortion pattern that proves so difficult to correct. Here’s the distortion at 10mm, 15mm, and 24mm.

It seems to me that a number of lens makers have figured out how to better control distortion as of late, as I’ve seen fewer lenses with really hideous distortion issues as of late. This shot from the Chateau Montebello shows nice lines overall and a crisp result.

At 20mm there is only the faintest amount of barrel distortion, while at 24mm there is the faintest amount of pincushion distortion. All in all actual distortion is fairly well controlled on the lens. Note, however, that with any wide angle lens you can easily produce perspective distortion by the way you compose. Say you are in a forest, for example. If you attempt to hold the camera extremely level (not tilted up or down), you will find that tree trunks will because straight and upright in the viewfinder. If you tilt the camera up, however, it will look as if the trees are all leaning in towards the middle of the frame. This “keystone” effect is the result of perspective distortion.

Use this lens right and you will only encounter minor amounts of distortion that should be fairly easily correctable in post. You can see many more images, including a number of architectural shots, in the Lens Image Gallery.

Comatic Aberrations

Comatic aberrations, or coma, is an aberration that is particularly important to correct for in wide angle lenses. The most common application where this is important is for those that shoot the night sky. While the maximum aperture of f/3.5 is a hair slower than optimal, this lens is still a valid option for shooting the night sky.

The night sky did not really cooperate with me during my review period (it was a lot of overcast), so I couldn’t test coma in a traditional way by shooting nightscapes. What I did do, however, was set up a test of coma control using a laser pointer. I shot a variety of frames with the pinpoint light source (much like a star) in various points of the frame and then combined those shots together in Photoshop. What I found was that the “star points” looked sharp and precise across most of the frame, but in the corners I did see some comatic aberration. Star points grew a bit of what looked like wings. I’ve seen worse, but I’ve seen better too. I think the lens is usable but not optimal for shooting night skies.

Conclusion

It’s great to see lenses like this being built so that APS-C shooters have more quality lenses to choose from. Tamron has significant improved its 10-24mm lens, adding VC, superior performance, a new focus motor, and a weather-sealed build while somehow managing to not charge any more for it ($499) than the previous lens. Canon has its own stabilized APS-C lens (EF-S 10-18mm f/4.5-5.6 IS STM) at a lower price point ($299), but that lens has a smaller focal range, slower maximum aperture, and lacks weather resistance, so it is hard not to see a win for the Tamron here. Their EF-S 10-22mm lens lacks the weather sealing and image stabilization while costing more. The Tamron 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5 VC HLD seems perfectly positioned to offer buyers the best of both those lenses. It focuses quickly and accurately, the VC works exceptionally well, and the lens does what it should optically. I see no reason why this lens should not be seriously considered by Canon and Nikon APS-C shooters looking for a quality wide angle lens.

Pros:

Upgraded build quality
Highly effective VC system
New HLD focus motor works well both for still and video
Excellent flare resistance
Distortion quite well controlled
Moisture resistance
Good image quality
Compatibility with Tap In Console

Cons:

HLD motor slightly noisier than STM
Vignette noticeable wide open

Thanks to Tamron Canada for providing a retail-sourced copy of the lens for evaluation.

Gear Used:
Canon EOS 5D Mark IV (5D4): B&H Photo | Amazon.com | Amazon Canada
Canon EOS 80D: B&H Photo | Amazon.com | Amazon.ca |
Tamron 10-24mm VC HLD: B&H Photo | Amazon | Amplis Foto (use code AMPLIS52016DA in your cart to get 5% everything)
Adobe Lightroom CC Software for Mac and Windows (Boxed Version)
Adobe Photoshop Creative Cloud 1-Year Subscription
Alien Skin Exposure X2 (Use Code “dustinabbott” to get 10% anything and everything)

Purchasing your gear through B&H and these links helps fund this website and keeps the articles coming. Thank you for your support.

Great News! I can now offer a 5% discount on all purchases at Amplis Foto, Canada’s Leading Photographic Supplier. Please enter discount code: AMPLIS52016DA in your cart. It is good for everything in your cart, and is stackable with other coupons, too! It will take 5% off your entire order! Proceeds go towards keeping this site going and providing you with new reviews!

Check me out on:

DISCLAIMER: This article and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Sigma 24-35mm f/2 DG ART Review

Dustin Abbott

August 31st, 2015

Sigma continues to think outside the box with many of its newly released lenses, and the one I have in hand is one of the most notable examples of that creative thinking. A few years ago Sigma awoke from their third party slumber and realized that they were capable of making better products than what they were currently building. They began to target a more premium place in the market, and their new “Global Vision” was introduced. New optical and cosmetic designs, new branding (Art, Sport, and Contemporary lenses), and a bit of attitude in going after the big players, particularly with their ART series lenses. They released the 18-35mm f/1.8 DC HSM ART lens a few years ago (read my review here), and after their success with a completely different kind of zoom lens, they have now addressed the full frame market with the new Sigma 24-35mm f/2 DG HSM ART. The 18-35mm f/1.8 ART lens broke the unspoken rule that zoom lenses generally have a maximum aperture of f/2.8 with a constant f/1.8 maximum aperture throughout the zoom range. The 18-35ART isn’t small or light, but neither is it exceptionally large or unwieldy.

(Prefer to watch your reviews? You’ll like this one!)

But that lens was a crop sensor specific lens, and the smaller sensor gives lens’ manufacturers more leeway to take chances. Sigma stuck to a small (less than 2x) zoom range on that lens so that they could maintain consistently excellent optical performance. Despite that limited range, however, the lens covered a number of important focal lengths like 18mm (28mm FF), 24mm (right around 35mm FF), and 35mm (50mmish FF). It’s f/1.8 aperture is 1 1/3 stops faster than any other zoom lens, and because its sharpness was excellent wide open, there was very little aperture penalty compared to primes. The more demanding nature of the full frame sensor that the 24-35 ART is designed for (even more true with so many high MP bodies being introduced) means that Sigma had to adopt more compromises, including smaller zoom range (only 12mm instead of 19mm), smaller maximum aperture (f/2 instead of f/1.8), a lens design that is both heavier (130 additional grams for a total of 941 grams…ouch!), longer (only by 1mm, though), and more expensive ($999 vs. $799). One definite plus, however, is that Sigma elected for this lens to go wider (24mm vs. 28mm equivalent), which makes it a more logical choice for landscape work…and it turns out that this is an area where the lens shines.

My concern going into this review is that the advantages of such a lens, while tangible, may be viewed as being of only marginal value compared with either options…and there are more of them when you enter the full frame lens arena. This little series from a portrait session (black and white conversion along with tone curve adjustment applied) shows that there isn’t a huge difference between 24mm and 35mm out in the real world:

Is there enough of an advantage in the limited zoom range to choose this lens over a smaller, lighter, cheaper, and potentially sharper prime like the Canon EF 35mm f/2 IS (which has the advantage of an image stabilizer)? Is there enough of an aperture advantage to choose it over a not much more expensive Tamron 24-70mm f/2.8 VC which is lighter, shorter, has a more useful focal range and a very effective stabilizer to help offset the aperture advantage? I use both of these lenses in my own kit, so part of what I will attempt to do in this review is to answer these questions. I have seen photographers asking for a 24-70mm f/2 lens from Sigma; will they be as excited by this lens? Can Sigma strike gold once again by thinking outside the box? We’ll find out!

More Build Info

The 24-35mm ART has Sigma’s now familiar (but still excellent) current design ethos. I’m very partial to the look of these lenses with their black on black look with a variety of texture and gloss finishes. I love the rubberized surface of the transition to the lens hood and both the focus and zoom rings are nice and wide along with being nicely damped. The zoom ring, while not light, has a very definite, precise feel. The focus ring moves more easily, and my only (minor) criticism is that I miss the more definite feel of the stops at minimum and infinity focus like a true manual focus lens (like a Zeiss).

This is a large(ish) lens. It weighs in at a hefty 941grams (33.2 oz), which means that it outweighs all the 24-70mm f/2.8 variants save the very hefty Nikkor. I use the Tamron 24-70 VC, and despite that lens having an image stabilizer and a much greater focal range it weighs 136 grams less than the Sigma 24-35mm. The Sigma is also an additional 5mm longer (about 4.8″/122mm), but this is fairly negligible. Sigma’s own ART series 35mm f/1.4 weighs 665g (a good third less) and the Canon 35mm f/2 IS weighs a paltry 335g (only a little over a third of the weight).

[Show as slideshow]

The lens features a fairly complex 18 elements in 13 groups. It has a nine rounded blade aperture iris that retains nicely circular highlights even when stopped down a bit. It has a minimum focus distance of only 11’’/27.9cm, giving a maximum magnification figure of right under .23x, which is certainly useful. The Canon EF 35mm f/2 IS has a slightly better .24x, but Sigma’s own 35mm f/1.4 and the Tamron 24-70 trail this figure at .20x. My shots near minimum focus suggest the Sigma performs very well at minimum focus distances.

The 24-35 ART has a largish but not uncommon 82mm front filter thread. There has been a trend towards this larger filter size in the past several years, and the fact that it is now shared by a number of recent lenses means that the price of 82mm filters has drifted down. I used both a circular polarizer along with an ND1000 (ten stop ND filter) that allowed me to do some long exposure landscape work with the lens. I didn’t detect any unusual vignetting caused by my filters (it helps to be stopped down – eliminating the already heavy natural vignette at wide apertures).

I continue to be somewhat surprised by the fact that Sigma is not making any weather sealing claims with the ART series. I recently reviewed a $249 Tamron zoom (18-200 VC) that made a “moisture resistance” claim (which usually the only real visual evidence of is the rubber gasket around the lens mount). You can debate how much of a difference “weather sealing” makes, but I know there are a number of working professionals and amateurs alike who prefer the peace of mind of weather sealing. Sigma definitely makes such claims about weather sealing in their telephotos, and it seems like these ART series lenses should have some attempt at some moisture resistance.

I say it in every Sigma review, but it bears repeating. Sigma always includes a nice, useful padded case for the lens. If you travel with your gear, this can be very valuable, and it saves purchasing something similar on the aftermarket. Sigma cases are the best OEM padded cases (other than high end Canon telephoto cases), and are infinitely more useful than the “suede” sock that Canon L lenses ship with.

AFMA and Autofocus Observations

Going into Sigma reviews I expect two things: some impressive optics and some kind of quirk with the autofocus. I was happy and relieved after my challenging session trying to calibrate the 18-35mm f/1.8 that while the 24-35 ART did require a significant amount of AFMA adjustment (for me the numbers were -14 on the wide end and -12 on the ‘telephoto’ end – but these numbers probably won’t work for you) the lens consistently and repeatedly showed those same numbers. I have taken to running both an automatic AFMA through Reikan FoCal and then a semi-automatic test where I spend some time both eyeballing the results (the chart as well as numbers) and making sure they are highly repeatable. By the time I finish I usually feel very confident that I have dialed in the right result. As a matter of preference I prefer numbers that are closer to zero in an AFMA (people without an AFMA function on their camera bodies need lenses that ship well calibrated), but I am encouraged by the fact these numbers were repeatable. Early focus accuracy seems pretty good.

The advantage of purchasing one of Sigma’s modern releases is the ability to use Sigma’s USB dock to fine tune focus for several specific distances. There will be a learning curve as you learn how to properly utilize the dock (an additional $60 charge), but my feeling is that it is worth the effort to get the best results from your lens. This is doubly true if you have a body that does not support AFMA – you can still calibrate the lens for the body with the USB dock. The USB dock will also enable you to load firmware updates to your lenses (helping to prevent incompatibility issues with future bodies) and will also work with most other newer lenses from Sigma. Spending some time with the dock and fine-tuning this lens will help you get the best results from it. I personally spend a fair bit of time calibrating each of my lenses; if I have invested in them, I want the confidence that I am going to get the best performance possible out of them. I don’t spend quite as much time with review lenses because I typically have them for only a month, but I am willing to invest some serious time in the equipment I personally add to my kit. Calibrating a lens properly doesn’t make the lens sharper (those optics aren’t going to change!), but it will make more of your pictures sharp as the lens AF will more reliably achieve optimum focus.

All of this being said, I noticed a big difference in the focus accuracy of this lens vs. the older 18-35 ART lens. The 24-35 still isn’t as good as my best lenses, but misses were far fewer and never completely off. The biggest challenge is in doing portrait work at wide open apertures, and particularly in that region from about 10-30 feet. Many lenses have fairly little “throw” or travel in that region. Look at it this way: this lens has a manual focus ring with a distance window and roughly 100 degrees of rotation. Of that 100 degrees, about 90 degrees of that rotation are from minimum focus to four feet. That means that there are only about ten degrees of rotation from 4 feet to infinity. Adjustments within that range are VERY finite. It is unsurprising that this is where most of the lens’ misses happen. The misses that I got during a brief portrait session were small enough to only really be apparent at pixel level examination and would still be usable for most applications. Because of this, I feel that some time spent with the USB dock would help to improve that accuracy to reliable levels. The shot and crop below shows that for the most part I was getting “nailed” focus results, and when properly focused, the lens is very sharp!

This has been the Achille’s heel of the Sigma ART series (for me and many others by internet reports), but this lens feels like progress in the right direction. The personal challenge for me is that my Canon EF 35mm f/2 IS happens to be one of my most accurately focusing lenses; it just doesn’t miss, period. I personally still favor it over this lens for that reason although this lens may just be a bit sharper. But that is just a personal anecdote, and for this review I am happy to report that I have no real concerns about autofocus accuracy.

Focus speed is good (particularly for a lens full of large glass elements like this). I sometimes find with a few of my Tamron lenses that you can perceive the force needed to move those big elements (like a bit of lag), but I don’t notice anything like that here. This lens, like many other Sigma lenses, is among the quietest focusing lenses.

Image Quality

One thing is certain – if the size and limited zoom range don’t throw you off, the image quality from the lens certainly won’t either. The amount of resolution that the Sigma is producing at each stop along the journey of its minor zoom range is impressive and certainly rivals equivalent prime lenses. That resolution extends across the frame, and I found the lens performed very well at infinity along with closer focus distances. Please note that unless specified, all images that I share in this review have received no processing. They were literally imported into Lightroom and then exported. No change to contrast, color, distortion, vignette, chromatic aberrations, etc… I used the 24-35 ART in a variety of situations, and here are a few of my observations:

The primary negative that I can find is a rather pronounced vignetting (particularly at 24mm) that is noticeable in most every shot at wide apertures. At times a natural vignette can be an attractive quality, but there are other times when it will give a “heavy” feel to your images that you won’t like. Since there isn’t a standard profile in Lightroom/Adobe Camera Raw available, I did a manual adjustment and found that I needed around a +87 figure with while moving the midpoint in +27 to completely eliminate the vignetting. P.S. That’s a lot! Here’s the example that I manually fixed before and after (shot is 24mm f/2)

Chromatic aberrations are really nicely controlled. I see only the faintest bit of green fringing at wide apertures, and that only when looking at a pixel level. It wasn’t uncommon for most primes prior to just the last couple of years to have a considerable amount of chromatic aberrations, but Sigma has found a way to control those very effectively with their ART series lenses.
Flare control seems a bit better than the 18-35mm ART lens. I got a tiny bit of ghosting, but very little veiling. Contrast remained strong when I got the sun into the frame. The bit of green ghosting on the dog’s ear below is the most egregious thing I saw…and it wasn’t much.

[Show as slideshow]

One very positive trait shared with the 18-35 ART is the excellent sunburst/sunstar created by the lens. This may seem like a small detail, but the quality of that sunburst can really make a landscape shot.
Distortion control is very impressive. 24mm is fairly wide, but even at 24mm the amount of distortion is nicely managed. I decided to do a comparison between the Tamron 24-70 VC at 24mm. I wanted to see directly how much distortion there was by comparison, and using a brick wall also reveals distortion patterns. The Sigma showed very low barrel distortion. There was a clear difference between it and the Tamron (which actually has less barrel distortion than Canon’s own 24-70mm f/2.8L II). Across the frame the Sigma is producing nicely straight lines. Little correction is needed. The first image below shows the comparison between the Tamron (right) and Sigma (left). The last two shots show the results from the Sigma at 24mm and 35mm respectively.

Perhaps the counterpart of this is that the Tamron is noticeably wider at 24mm. Still, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that you would have as much image left after distortion correction due to the higher distortion of the Tamron.
Color rendition is excellent from the lens as well. Colors are rich and yet realistic, and the images remind me a lot of those I got from 50mm f/1.4 ART (and that’s a good thing!). Contrast is very strong. The combination of good contrast, good color, and great sharpness give images a very nice “professional” quality that easily justifies the price of the lens.

[Show as slideshow]

The excellent image quality, very high resolution, low distortion, and ability to use traditional filters makes this a nice choice as a landscape lens. It isn’t as wide as many other options, but if 24mm is wide enough for you the lens will produce some very strongly detailed, beautifully colored images. It seems ready to be paired with some of the higher resolution bodies now on the market. If you aren’t comfortable composing at wider focal lengths and want excellent image quality in a moderately wide lens, this is a pretty compelling option as it can also function better as a general purpose/wide prime than some of the true wide angle lenses. The fact that it retains the use of traditional filters should not be overlooked, either. Finally, the excellent sunburst produced when the lens is stopped down is a great extra detail.

I should also note that the extra wide aperture (for a zoom) helps to create more options for storytelling. See the difference in perspective provided by my focus in these two 35mm f/2 shots. I prefer the one with the girl out of focus as it (to me) is more effective as a storytelling image (and would also make a great B-roll shot from a portrait session).

Although I’ve elected to share mostly images in this review without any post processing work, I should note that the images from the lens lend themselves to processing very well. They are sharp and have good contrast, and that opens up a lot of potential for playing with them. Here are a few images that I’ve added some post work to during my review period:

[Show as slideshow]

What else is the lens good for?

Pretty much everything that 24mm, 28mm, and 35mm prime lenses are good for. One great application is environmental portraiture. The ability to get sharp, crisp results at wide apertures (though one stop less than a 35mm f/1.4 prime) will allow you to include full body, environmental shots while retaining a bit of the 3 dimensional “cut-out” effect that is so valuable in producing professional looking portraits. Just don’t expect the kind of subject isolation that longer focal lengths provide. Pairing a lens like this with a nice telephoto will allow you to have some great variety in your portrait sessions. Here’s an example of an environmental portrait at 35mm f/2:

I enjoy getting close to flowers or other objects and being able to blur the background but still retain some storytelling context due to the wider focal length. You can get closer than a foot with the lens and get a nice bit of magnification. Here are a few examples of what you can do with nature shooting at close distances. I’ve included a shot of a bench at both 24mm and 35mm to show you the different perspectives available.

[Show as slideshow]

What is the Lens Not so Good For?

Some people enjoy this kind of focal length as a street or walk-about lens. I would suggest that a small prime might be better for this, however, as this lens is not particularly small or light. It probably isn’t the best choice for travel, either, as it is pretty large and heavy along with the fact that it isn’t weather sealed and has a confining zoom range. I still prefer a 24-70mm lens for travel; that focal length just opens up more opportunities.

The lens is also not my top choice for astraphotography. The f/2 aperture is a big advantage, as it will enable you to get a lot of light to the sensor and enable you to use lower ISO settings, and certainly the high native sharpness is another advantage. There are two disadvantages, however, and one of them is pretty big. The smaller deal is the high level of vignetting at the wide apertures you are likely to be using the lens at for this kind of work. The bigger deal is that while coma isn’t terrible (not quite flying ducks or flying saucers), light points (stars) tend to be elongated and look more like the beginning of star trails normally associated with longer exposure times. The crop here is from a 20 second exposure (too brief for actual movement of the stars), and yet when I viewed the image I had to double-check the exposure time because the star points looked like the exposure was longer (more like 40-50 seconds).

This same trait was evident in all the night shots I took that included stars, regardless of exposure length. If shooting astraphotography is a priority to you, you may want to consider Tamron’s new 15-30 f/2.8 VC lens. After extensive testing it is my new lens of choice for this kind of work. That being said, don’t be afraid to pull out the Sigma 24-35mm at night, either. It’s behavior here is far from the worse I’ve seen, and it’s lovely color rendition will make for some beautiful images. You can see one of my favorites here:

The What and the Why (Conclusions)

I seriously doubt than many people will be disappointed by the “what” of this lens. It is a beautiful optical instrument, offering superb image quality with remarkably few defects. It is beautiful made, handles well, and is generally a delight to use in the field. As these images show, it can also be pretty bokehlicious when used the right way:

[Show as slideshow]

Where people may not buy into the Sigma 24-35mm f/2 ART lens is in the “why” department. The limited zoom range is going to cause a lot of people to wonder “why”, particularly when Sigma themselves have both excellent 24mm f/1.4 and a 35mm f/1.4 ART series primes. The 18-35mm f/1.8 ART has proven successful in part because there are relatively few quality alternatives specific to the APS-C market. Part of the challenge for this lens is the fact that full frame owners have a much broader choice of quality options. I called the 18-35 ART the Cadillac of crop sensor zooms. The 24-35mm f/2 ART is not only more limited in scope (slightly smaller aperture, smaller zoom range) but it faces a much stronger field of opponents. I own the Canon 35mm f/2 IS, which offers similar image quality at a lower price, much smaller size, and adds an extremely effective image stabilizer and higher focus accuracy. The tradeoff vs. many other 24mm or 35mm primes is that you lose a full stop of light to gain the small amount of zoom. You also get a larger, heavier lens.

The upside is that this lens gives up nothing in image quality to any of them and gives you the flexibility to zoom back to 24mm to provide a different perspective when things get tight. That may not seem like a big deal if you are working outdoors and it’s a matter of stepping forwards or backwards a few feet, but some of you work in tight spaces in a studio or interior spaces where stepping further back simply isn’t an option. I would consider this lens a better landscape option than 35mm lenses for this reason and better than a 24-70mm zoom because of the fact that distortion at 24mm is so well controlled (better than any of the 24-70mm options). If you view this lens as three quality primes in one, the convenience and image quality will probably be an acceptable tradeoff for the larger size and weight.

At a thousand bucks ($999 at B&H Photo), the lens isn’t cheap but is appropriately priced for its performance when one considers the number of primes that cost far more. The price is very consistent with the standard Sigma has set for the ART series…and they are selling a lot of lenses at this price point.

In conclusion, the only real thing this lens has going against it is the rather narrow terms of its existence. It is a large lens with a limited zoom range and an aperture that, while larger than competing zooms, is smaller than the primes it competes with. Sigma took a step into no man’s land with this lens, and ultimately sales success will determine whether or not it was a gamble worth taking. If you want both a 24mm prime and a 35mm prime, this lens is cheaper than purchasing the 24mm ART and the 35mm ART, although you will lose a stop of light gathering. If the terms of its existence are acceptable to you, however, the Sigma 24-35mm f/2 ART lens itself will be more than acceptable. It is very sharp, has great color, low distortion, low chromatic aberrations, and focuses more accurately than any of the ART series lenses I’ve used previously. The only optical mark against it is pronounced vignetting, and this is fixed rather easily in post-production. This optical excellence is packaged in a well-designed, well-engineered body that should serve you well for years to come. The only real question is whether this lens will be more useful to you than an equivalent prime or a standard 24-70mm f/2.8 zoom…and that is a question that only you can answer.

Pros:

Excellent sharpness at all focal lengths, even wide open
f/2 aperture is a full stop wider than other full frame zoom lenses at f/2.8
Great color rendition and nice bokeh
Chromatic aberrations well controlled
Very low distortion at 24mm – much better than 24-70mm zoom lenses
Beautiful build quality and design that functions well cosmetically and mechanically
Uses traditional filters (82mm) without apparent penalty
Comes with a nice padded case
Better focus accuracy
Ability to use USB dock (sold separately) to fine tune the lens

Cons:

Very narrow zoom range (12mm)
Large and heavy
Lacks any weather sealing
Heavy vignetting at wide apertures
AF accuracy, while improved, is still not top shelf quality
A less than amazing coma result

Big thanks to B&H Photo for providing me a retail copy of the lens for review purposes. They are fantastic to work with both as a partner and as a retailer. I’d appreciate if you give them your business through the links below, which also helps keep me in business. Thanks!

Gear Used:

Canon EOS 6D DSLR Camera (Body Only)
Sigma 24-35mm f/2 ART
Adobe Lightroom CC Software for Mac and Windows (Boxed Version)
Adobe Photoshop Creative Cloud 1-Year Subscription
Alien Skin Exposure 7 (Use Code “dustinabbott” to get 10% anything and everything)

Purchasing your gear through B&H and these links helps fund this website and keeps the articles coming. Thank you for your support.

Three Way Shootout Part 4: Flare, Astro, and Conclusions

Dustin Abbott

April 27th, 2015

We are now approaching the finish line! I have taken nearly 800 photos as a part of this review process in a variety of settings (this on top of the hundreds previously I had taken during my review period of the Canon EF 16-35mm f/4L IS USM and Tamron SP 15-30mm f/2.8 Di VC USD Lens in my review of those lenses) and I feel like I now have a good sense of each lenses’ strengths, weaknesses, and purpose. This final part of our Three Way Shootout will focus on three additional areas of comparison (Flare Resistance, Astraphotography and Coma, and Handling) before we look hard at each lens’ value and helping you decide which one is right for you.

Flare Resistance

The ability to resist flare without veiling, ghosting, and a loss of contrast is very important in a wide angle lens. Some of those qualities may have artistic merit in a wide aperture prime lens for portraiture or fine art shots, but not in a wide angle lens. All of those things are going to be distractions in a wide angle landscape shot and are often very difficult to correct for in post. Vignetting or chromatic aberrations are much easier to deal with than veiling or ghosting artifacts. The good news is that all of these lenses do a reasonable job, and the new Canon f/4L and the Tamron do an exceptional job. Take a look at the beginning of this video for the section on Flare Resistance.

If you want to take a look at the original photos, I am including them here below. I’ve done a controlled test from each lens at apertures of f/2.8 (or f/4 with the 16-35mm f/4L), f/5.6, and f/11.

Canon f/4L IS:

[Show as slideshow]

Canon f/2.8L II

[Show as slideshow]

Tamron 15-30 VC

[Show as slideshow]

You can see that the smaller aperture is most likely to introduce some kind of flare artifact, although none of these lenses produce anything too significant in this test. Veiling is also quite well controlled. The older Canon is (unsurprisingly) the least flare resistant. Coatings have significant improved in recent years. Both the f/4L and the Tamron do exceptionally well here, with a very faint win going to the Canon.

The f/11 shot in this series gives us a nice look at the sunburst/starburst effect from these three lenses. The older f/2.8L is in some ways the most interesting, with some extremely long blades. Those could also be distracting if they extend into a useful part of your image. This is a taste thing. The Tamron produces a less extreme, but very nice result. My least favorite is the f/4L, but all of them do quite a nice job and are a far cry from the boring sunstar produced by either my Rokinon 14mm full frame lens or the Rokinon 12mm f/2 lens I have for mirrorless bodies.

[Show as slideshow]

Just for comparison sake, here is what my Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 did in the same test. It should be noted, however, that this lens has a scratch on the rear element that may be affecting its performance here. I’ve not really had an issue with flare in the past.

[Show as slideshow]

Astraphotography and Coma

Almost everyone loves the incredible pictures that can be taken of the starry skies at night, and it certainly is a great application of these lenses. If you aren’t familiar with shooting this kind of image, I’ve written (and recorded) a tutorial for how to to both shoot and process nightscape images. My lens of choice for the past several years has been the Rokinon 14mm (I used it for the image above). It has been chosen by a number of professionals for its low coma and wide angle of view over a number of far more expensive competitors. Can one of these lenses dethrone it?

I received the two Canons about 10 days before the Tamron was available to me (for this second time), so I did a number of comparisons between them. One thing that I really wanted to do as a part of this comparison was to test the lenses for astraphotography. Any wide angle lens that I use will definitely do some duty shooting the night sky, and I wasn’t really satisfied with the results that I got from the Canon 16-35mm f/4L last summer. I wanted to give it a second try.

I’ve previously noted in a number of reviews that I find that one can much better use a lens when you become familiar with it. Every lens has its own quirks. I rediscovered one from the Canon EF 16-35mm f/4L; you cannot trust infinity focus by just using the distance scale. I didn’t know exactly where proper infinity focus comes, but this is the second copy that I have used, and in neither case was I able to go out in the dark and trust that setting the lens to the hard stop at infinity would produce proper focus on the stars. From the size of the star highlights it is clear that the lens focuses beyond infinity (it begins to go out of focus and focuses on nothing).

To infinity and beyond isn’t a good thing, here.

As a result, my first round of astraphotography photos were pretty much spoiled. This is kind of a big deal, because I was able to go out with the Tamron and get really great results using the same technique a few months ago. The results from the Canon 16-35mm f/2.8L II weren’t much better.

Before testing the lenses for astraphotography again I did something that you should do, too, if you decide to do this type of shooting; I determined in the daytime where infinity focus actually was. I did this by focusing on the sky (clouds) during the day by autofocusing of them, and then noting where infinity focus was (in the case of the Canons it was actually at the beginning of the long bar that leads to ∞ in the focus window. I confirmed that focus at night by using Live View 10x and manually focusing on a bright object in the night sky (Venus, in this case). So beware that if you own or purchase either Canon lens you will need to figure out where infinity focus actually is, as the manual focus ring will focus beyond infinity. In all fairness, however, the majority of my most successful nightscapes (check out some of them here) have been shot with the Rokinon 14mm f/2.8, and its calibration isn’t even close to being accurate at infinity (much worse than the Canons). As far as focus calibration goes for this type of shooting, however, the Tamron 15-30 VC wins the prize. Infinity focus comes either at or very close to where it is indicated by the hard stop.

That bit of logistics out of the way, I proceeded to shoot a series of night sky images with all four lenses (the Rokinon provided a baseline for me). We are going to get critical in a moment, but let me first say that I was relieved to produce nice looking nightscape images with all of the lenses. That was a relief to me, as I had previously been disappointed by the results from the 16-35mm f/4L, and it is otherwise an amazing lens. That being said, however, two of these lenses are more suited to this purpose than the others. I strongly suggest that you take a look at this video starting at the 5:45 minute mark to get the best look at the performance from these lenses in astraphotography. It is hard to tell the story in just the images shared below.

To summarize the findings from this test:

The Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II produces the worst coma of the bunch. It has the advantage of an f/2.8 aperture over its f/4 brother, but the advantage ends there. Star points become the shape of flying ducks (they acquire wings) in the corners of the image. This becomes increasingly obvious with the brighter points of light. Bright points of light also have a bit of a smear around them that makes them look look more mush and less sharp. Star points also don’t look particularly sharp and precise even in the center of the frame.

[Show as slideshow]

The Canon EF 16-35mm f/4L IS mostly suffers in this comparison because of its less than desirable maximum aperture for this time of work. There is somewhat a of sweet spot for this kind of shooting (between 15-20 seconds), as even an exposure of 30 seconds will begin to show some movement in the stars (the beginning of “star trail” photography). The other lenses let in (theoretically) twice as much light as the f/4L IS, meaning that you have to either jack up the ISO settings or use a longer shutter speed. Neither of these are particularly appealing. The other challenge is that while the coma isn’t as bad as the f/2.8L, star points in a number of places around the edge of the image look wedge or diamond shaped. Even in the center of the image, however, the star points are less distinct than those of the Tamron or the Rokinon – even with identical settings. They are elongated and stretched rather than precise. The overall “look”of the image isn’t bad, but it certainly does not hold up under scrutiny. If this is an important use of a wide angle lens for you, the f/4L IS may not be your best choice for a number of reasons.

[Show as slideshow]

The Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 has been the champion for this type of work (along with the amazing Zeiss Distagon T* 2.8/15mm), but its days at the top of the heap are now over. It still has a very good coma result, with light points only become distorted somewhat in the extreme corners, but the incredibly heavy vignetting also reduces its light gathering efficiency in the corners. It also isn’t as sharp as the Tamron wide open, and that makes the star points less precise (I have often used this lens at f/4 when conditions allow to get sharper nightscapes from it). It is still a great budget option for this kind of work, but we have a new king.

[Show as slideshow]

The Tamron SP 15-30mm f/2.8 Di VC USD is the clear winner of our comparison. It’s vignette performance is excellent, as is its sharpness wide open. Star points appear the most precise and sharp, and the extreme corners only produce a bit of elongation on star points (a bit of a tail but no wings!). The center performance is clearly the best, and its excellent contrast makes for great looking nightscape images. I even stopped it down to f/4 and shot it with identical settings to the Canon f/4L and the results clearly favored the Tamron. It isn’t coma free, but it is better than the rest and is my new choice for this type of work.

[Show as slideshow]

Another photographer named Ron Brunsvold has taken the time to do a more scientific approach to finding the best wide angle lens for shooting nightscapes. I would encourage you to take a look at his findings here as he tests even more lenses in a controlled environment. He summarizes by saying, “Bottom line is that it will take a bag full of lenses to accomplish or in some cases slightly exceed the performance of a single Tamron SP 15-30mm lens.” He also discovered what has unfortunately been my own conclusion; the Canon 16-35mm f/4L IS excels in many areas, but low light or night sky performance is not one of them.

If shooting astraphotography is a priority for you, I encourage you to take a close look at the Tamron. It does a great job for this type of work.

Handling, Autofocus, and Handholding (Image Stabilizer)

There is more to these lenses than just their optics. While it is more difficult to scientifically quantify the difference in handling on each of these lenses, I can relay my feelings in using each one. Ironically, I would have to say that it is the older lens that wins this prize for me. The EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II is still a great lens to use in the field. When it was released the 82mm front filter thread was an issue as it was larger than the 77mm standard and few lenses shared it. In the past 8 years that has changed as lenses have trended towards larger front elements and now a number of lenses use the 82mm filter size. The filters are more common and thus cheaper. The zoom ring is by far the best of the bunch here, moving effortlessly in a manner that reminds me of some of the 70-200mm variants. By comparison the other two lenses zoom ring require more effort and just feel a little “rougher” by comparison. All of these lenses handle well, don’t get me wrong, but the older Canon just feels the most refined.

The demands on an autofocus system are lower on wide angle lenses as opposed to telephoto lenses. For example, the depth of field at 15mm, f/2.8, and a subject 8 feet from the camera is more than 85 feet! Change the focal length to 150mm and leave all the other variables the same and the depth of field is less than 2 inches. You quickly get a sense of the difference in the demand for precision. This isn’t to to say that wide angle lenses don’t need to focus accurately. They do, but they don’t have to work quite as hard to get accurate results. I can’t report any issue with focus accuracy with any of these lenses. I’ve had consistent, repeatable results both in this test period along with my previous test periods for the f/4L IS and the Tamron.

When using the center point of the Canon 6D in decent light it would be hard to distinguish focus speed. They all focus quickly and accurately. In the field, there was a bit less hesitation from the f/4L IS over the Tamron using the outer points. The lenses do have a different feel even if there isn’t much variation in speed. The Tamron seems to lag for a split second while inertia builds. The Canons don’t pause in that way, but actual focus lock speed is roughly the same on the center point. The Tamron was able to focus accurately in extremely low light conditions. The improved light gathering of the f/2.8 variants help in low light focusing. If I were to give an edge to any of these lenses overall, however, it would be the to f/4L IS. It focuses very quickly and very accurately and seems the most refined.

The f/4L IS and the Tamron both have image stabilizers (Vibration Compensation on the Tamron). Some would debate whether or not an image stabilizer is necessary in a wide angle lens, and I will definitely say that image stabilization is more important in telephotos lenses. Still, the image stabilizers do play an important role with these lenses, giving some versatility in situations where you desire a longer shutter speed and don’t have a tripod or when you want to shoot video. I shot video sequences walking with the lenses and there is a definite difference between the steadiness of footage taken with the stabilizers on and the footage with them off.

I was able to achieve slightly better results with the Tamron than the Canon. I was able to handhold the Tamron at 30mm at speeds as low as .8 seconds, while the lowest I achieved with the Canon (at 35mm) is .5 seconds. I was able to achieve the result with the Tamron more consistently. It ironically may be the increased weight and bulk of the Tamron that aids in handholding it. Just note that there is a law of diminishing returns with wide angle zooms as compared with the results with telephoto lenses. There is a vast amount of difference in the amount of shutter/mirror vibration in a 1/10th second shutter speed compared to a 1 second shutter speed. The good news is that with either lens handholding a 1/10th shutter speed is a cakewalk. This is a definite advantage for these lenses over the older Canon f/2.8L, particularly when both of these lenses cost considerably less. A slight edge goes to the Tamron for handholding. They’ve done a great job with their VC systems on a variety of lenses that I’ve tested. I was able to take some very cool pictures handheld at shutter speeds approaching one second that were still sharp and very stylish, plus it made a difference in panning shots. See a few examples below:

[Show as slideshow]

We have already covered in a previous article that the Tamron is considerably bigger and heavier than the other two lenses. If your goal is to keep the ounces down for backpacking or because of some physical issue, then our winner here is the f/4 IS. The Tamron is packing a lot of technology and optical goodness into that package, but it definitely comes at a size and weight premium.

There is an elephant in the room when it comes to handling and use issues, and that is the no filter issue for the Tamron. Unlike the other two it has a bulbous front element and a fixed lens hood that precludes the use of traditional screw on filters. This is my single biggest issue with the Tamron. If it could use traditional filters I would declare it the hands down winner of our comparison. But not being able to use traditional filters is a big deal for a lot of people…including me. It means that (at least for the moment), I won’t be taking shots like this with the Tamron:

[Show as slideshow]

One of these is from the f/2.8L, the second pair from the f/4L. None of them are from the Tamron.

Still, I will approach it the same way I did the Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 – exposure bracketing, and then investing in a square filter solution when it arrives. I can’t help but note that the lack of screw in filters for the Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8G hasn’t seemed to hurt its widespread adoption or use by a horde of landscape photographers. I believe the Tamron will be a popular enough lens (there is already a serious backlog of preorders) that someone will create a square filter system for it. Polarizers are often not a great idea on lenses this wide; a graduated ND filter is far more important to me in this type of lens than a polarizer. What hurts is not being able to use my ND64 or ND1000 filters. Note also that there will be additional expense involved with purchasing aftermarket filter systems for the Tamron that simply won’t exist in the same fashion for either of the Canons. This is an important consideration as well. None of these lenses is a perfect solution, and if you are a big filter user, you will probably be better served with choosing one of the Canons.

One final (minor) issue: the Tamron has a fixed lens hood and thus its lens cap fits over the hood like that of the Nikon 14-24, Rokinon 14mm, and Zeiss 15mm (amongst others). It is the least offensive of these lenses, however, because the thickness of the lens cap is only about an inch compared to 2-3 times that for some of the others. It seems to fit securely, and is still slim enough to go into a pocket. It is also easier to put on and take off than traditional flat, pinch caps but does take up more room for storage than they do (it is roughly three times as thick).

Price and Value:

Some of you are reading this article out of intellectual curiosity, some to help validate the choice you already made, and some of you are serious shoppers that are looking for advice on where to invest your money. Let me preface this by saying that I don’t think you can go wrong between the f/4L IS or the Tamron. Both of them are exceptional lenses. But what will matter is the areas of particular strength and whether or not those areas align with your own needs. Unfortunately there is no lens here that has it all; as always, there is some give and take.

The 16-35 f/2.8L has a wide aperture that lets in twice the light as the f/4 lens and retains the ability to use traditional filters, but it lacks an image stabilizer and has the weakest optics.
The 16-35mm f/4L IS has amazing optics and an effective image stabilizer, and it too retains the ability to use traditional filters, but it has a slower aperture than the other two and is thus less appealing as an event/wedding lens where you need to stop action and need the wider aperture.
The Tamron 15-30 VC has the wide aperture, image stabilizer, and the great, modern optics, but at the cost of being able to use traditional filters.

I’ve put together a series of bullet points to help your decision.

The Tamron has a six year warranty period vs. the 1 year warranty period the Canons (in North America). I’ve had a great ongoing experience with Tamron’s warranty service, so this is, to me, a very valuable bonus.
Experience says that you are probably more likely to need that warranty with the Tamron, though no lens is exempt from defect. At the same time, there are a couple of my Canon lenses that I have felt like needed service, but I have not sent them in for adjustment or repair because they were (quickly) out of warranty.
If you are a JPEG shooter some Canon bodies will correct for “Peripheral Shading” (vignetting) and even Chromatic Aberrations in body…but only with Canon branded lenses.
Third party manufacturers have to reverse engineer autofocus algorithms, so there is always an (off) chance that Canon could change those algorithms with a future body and leave you with a lens that needs updating. This is unlikely, but the risk is higher with a third party lens. In Tamron’s defense, they have done an exceptional job with their USD/PZD lenses and I have found focus accuracy very high with the four such lenses that I have owned (three of which remain in my kit). I have used or reviewed almost all the others and had good results with them as well.
Historically Canon L series lenses have held their value very, very well. It is not uncommon to buy a used Canon L lens, use it for a few years, and then resell it for just about what you paid for it. The exception to this rule has been when buying newly released Canon lenses new; in recent years they have often had a heavy price premium in the first six months to a year and then the price relaxes somewhat. I have felt bad for those that paid $2400+ for the new EF 24-70mm f/2.8 II only to see the price settle down to $2000 (or less) and those that paid the ridiculous $1600 for the new EF 24-70mm f/4L IS only to see its price quickly drop to $1000 (or cheaper). The lesson here: Canon lenses hold their value well…once market value has been established.
Historically third party lenses have not held their value as well. In past years Tamron and Sigma lenses would often quickly lose several hundred dollars off their purchase price, and then settle into a holding pattern around there. There was also a prevailing attitude that third party lenses weren’t as good. This perception seems to be changing on both levels now. Many professionals now have a Tamron or Sigma in their kit, and have often chosen that lens over an equivalent first party lens. Third party lenses are a LOT better than what they used to be. Furthermore, the Tamron 24-70 f/2.8 VC (sticking with this focal length example) was released at about the same time as the Canon 24-70II. It was released at an asking price of $1299 in the US. Its current list price is…$1299. It has seen instant rebates of around $100 (like all lenses) periodically, but thus far it has actually held its value very well. I checked the used market and found that most used copies are selling for well over a thousand dollars while copies of the Canon 24-70II are selling around $1800-1900. The lesson here is the same as before: a good lens at a fair market price seems to hold its value well.
Both the Tamron 15-30 VC and Canon 16-35mm f/4L IS are released at very reasonable prices relative to their performance, and I noted with delight in my review of the Canon that it was proving the exception to the rule of Canon’s recent exorbitant initial pricing. It has held the price point of $1199 thus far, and other than the usual sales and rebates, I fully anticipate this continuing to be the market price. The same applies to the Tamron, which is being introduced at the same price point despite being an f/2.8 lens. Its price significant undercuts the Canon f/2.8 variant ($1699) and the Nikon 14-24 f/2.8G ($1999). I fully anticipate Tamron stealing some market share from both of those lenses.

I don’t know what Canon is going to do regarding to do with our third member of this shootout – the EF 16-35mm f/2.8L. The lens was released in early 2007, and while a lot of people have used it, enjoy it, and have produced amazing images with it, the consensus has always been that it wasn’t as good as it could be…particularly as a landscape lens. Canon has continued to sell it at a $500 premium over the newer (and much better) f/4L IS variant. There are a number of event photographers and journalists that need the better light gathering of an f/2.8 lens and it has few competitors (the Tokina 16-28 f/2.8 is one, but their market share is low). I suspect the new Tamron (which is making far more of a splash already than the Tokina ever did) is going to steal a number of those sales with both a much better price and pretty much better everything else, too. So what will Canon do?

Probably nothing.

They will continue to get sales from both those who mistrust third party lenses and those who don’t know there is a better option. They will also continue to get sales from those who value the cache of the red ring. And, in their own sweet time, they will probably bring out a new lens with the wider aperture and the optical performance of the f/4L IS. Just expect to pay a lot for that lens.

In the meantime, I feel that both the f/4L IS and the Tamron 15-30 VC offer excellent value for their price points. The Tamron is the greatest value, as its direct f/2.8 competitors cost more and offer less. The only lens here that I would question the value of is the f/2.8L; it offers less in most areas for more money.

Conclusions

You can watch some of my conclusions on these three lenses starting at the 11 minute mark of the video below, or read on beneath.

Who Are They For?

The Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II shows its age in many ways while still pulling out a few tricks. I feel like this lens is going to require more time spent in processing to produce images similar to the other two…but for the most part it could be done. You can add in contrast, reduce the vignetting, and, in most cases, deal with the chromatic aberrations. The one thing you can’t fake is sharpness in the corners, so this lens would not be my top pick for those of you who feel you will shoot a lot of landscapes. The great handling of the lens, the reasonable size and weight, nice bokeh, and tried and tested Canon L series build quality will make it an attractive pick for those of you who feel you need the wider aperture and don’t want a third party lens like the Tamron. It comes at a cost premium over the other two, however, and that is a little hard to stomach when in many ways it lags behind the other two. If you tend to shoot more event work and artistic shots where absolute sharpness and contrast is not a priority, this lens might be your pick. I’ve seen a number of brilliant shots with it over the past eight years, but I feel that most consumers would be better served with either the Tamron or the Canon 16-35mm f/4L IS. You can watch my review of it here:

The Canon EF 16-35mm f/4L IS is an exceptional lens and a huge leap forward for Canon in the wide angle zoom department. It is as competent as any wide angle lens out there, and is the natural choice if you plan to only (or primarily) do landscape photography and don’t need the wider f/2.8 aperture. Its slower maximum aperture is its greatest weakness, and it has a bit more vignetting, distortion, and coma that what I would like, but it also offers exceptional sharpness, contrast, virtually non-existent chromatic aberrations, and exceptional flare resistance. My single greatest criticism remains: I personally find it a bit bland. But it is an exceptional lens. It has the smallest front element, lowest weight, a great image stabilizer, while retaining a tough weathersealed body. It really is the new benchmark and offers great value for the money. If you need traditional filters and don’t do a lot of low light photography, the 16-35mm f/4L IS is a sure bet.

The Tamron SP 15-30mm f/2.8 Di VC USD is a very interesting proposition. It seems aimed more at the Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 G than any single Canon lenses, and direct head to head comparisons of those two lenses have been very interesting. For Canon users the Tamron offers the best of both worlds but with two major caveats: it is much bigger and heavier than the Canon zooms and does not allow for the use of traditional filters. If you want to shoot interiors, events, or the night sky along with landscape work this is now your best option. It is super sharp wide open at all focal lengths and has a host of optical strengths, including sharpness and contrast, low vignetting, relatively low distortion, and great chromatic aberration and flare control. It also offers the advantages of the wider aperture and focal length. It has no real optical deficiencies and offers both weathersealing and special coatings on the front element to be resistant water and fingerprints. It is now my personal choice for a wide angle option…not because it is better than the f/4L IS, but because it suits my shooting priorities more. My next article for PhotoNews magazine will focus on the “trinity” of Tamron zooms for professional work. I’ve received a number of emails from people that have purchased the Tamron 15-30 VC since my initial review and all have been delighted with it. You can see my video review of the lens here:

The Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 is really just along for the ride in some of these comparisons, but remains an amazing budget option both in terms of its optics and the incredible angle of view that it offers. I wrote a review of it here.

This series has been very fulfilling as I feel that I have been able to “test these lenses to death” and be completely confident in my recommendations. There were a few surprises along the way, but mostly my previous conclusions/suspicions have been confirmed.

If you haven’t seen them already, please check out:

Part 1: Specs, Build, and Objectives

Part 2: Resolution

Part 3: Angle of View, Distortion, and Bokeh

Part 5: Gallery of Favorite Images from the Review

I hope that this series has been helpful to you as a consumer and perhaps helped you make a more informed decision. If this is the case, please support my affiliate partners that provided these lenses and buy through these links.

Review notes: I want to give a shout-out to Tamron of Canada (Amplis Foto) for providing the copy of the Tamron for this comparison and B&H Photo of New York for providing the 16-35mm f/4L IS and the 16-35mm f/2.8L II for this comparison. The copy of the Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 that I use for comparison was purchased from the great people at Amplis Foto a few years ago. Reward these companies that provide the answers to your questions by shopping there…and reward my work on your behalf by using these links to shop through.

Gear Used:

Canon EOS 6D DSLR Camera (Body Only)
Tamron SP 15-30mm f/2.8 Di VC USD Lens (Canon EF)
Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM Lens
Canon EF 16-35mm f/4L IS USM Lens
Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 ID ED UMC for Canon
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5 Software for Mac and Windows (Boxed Version)
Adobe Photoshop Creative Cloud 1-Year Subscription
Alien Skin Exposure 7 (Use code “dustinabbott” to get 10% off)

Purchasing your gear through B&H and these links helps fund this website and keeps the articles coming. Thank you for your support.

Great News! I can now offer a 5% discount on all purchases at Amplis Foto, Canada’s Leading Photographic Supplier. Please enter discount code: AMPLIS52014 in your cart. It is good for everything in your cart, and is stackable with other coupons, too! It will take 5% off your entire order! Proceeds go towards keeping this site going and providing you with new reviews! Consider supporting Amplis Foto in Canada by buying the new Tamron 15-30 VC from them. They provide service in Canada for all Tamron products, and a great people to work with.

[contact-form][contact-field label=’Name’ type=’name’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Email’ type=’email’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Website’ type=’url’/][contact-field label=’Comment’ type=’textarea’ required=’1’/][/contact-form]

Rokinon 12mm f/2 NCS Review

Dustin Abbott

October 21st, 2014

Korean lens maker Samyang is the lens equivalent of another Korean brand – Kia/Hyundai. Though being a relative newcomer compared to the established Japanese and German giants, Samyang has managed to cause quite a stir in the lens community…just as Kia and Hyundai have managed to carve out a similar niche in the automotive world. The Korean plan for success has been consistent across these brands – offer more for less. Kias and Hyundais typically come better equipped than their competitors, and Samyangs (which are also sold under the brands Rokinon, Walimex, Bower, and even Vivitar) have come with optics that compete with (and even exceed) lenses that are far more expensive.

Such is the case with the Rokinon 12mm f/2 NCS lens that I am currently reviewing. I am very familiar with its big brother, the Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 lens for full frame bodies. That lens is so competent that it made my Canon “L” series wide angle zoom expendable. Some of my most dynamic photos have been taken with the Rokinon 14mm, and I just love its incredible sharpness and color rendering. My experience made me really anticipate the chance to review the “little brother” we are considering here.

The 12mm f/2 is designed specifically for mirrorless cameras and is sold in a variety of native mounts for Micro 4/3rds, Sony E-Mount, Fuji X Mount, Samsung NX Mount, and the Canon EF-M Mount that I am using for review. The mirrorless segment has seen massive growth around the world, and even the North American market is seeing a rapidly growing segment. A lot of photographers are intrigued by the idea of getting high quality images from compact systems. I really like my EOS M body (despite its shortcomings), and the fact that Canon has been so slow to develop lenses for the system (only 4 so far) has made me more excited to see development for the mount from other manufacturers like Samyang. While I am reviewing on the EF-M mount, my observations for the lens should be similarly applicable across the other systems that the lens has native mounts for.

One thing that will change across the different systems is the apparent focal length of the lens due to the differing crop factors of the various sensors. On the Samsung NX Mount or Sony E-Mount, the lens will have a 35mm equivalent of 18mm (1.5x crop), while the EF-M mount (1.6x crop) has an equivalent has 19.2mm. The Micro 4/3rds sensors have a 2x crop factor, so this lens has an equivalent angle of view to a 24mm lens on a full frame sensor. All of these land square in the middle of prime wide angle shooting territory, although Samsung and Sony users get the most appealing angle of view here. I have found this focal length to be very appealing on my EOS M, and it affords some excellent framing options with its 98.9 degree angle of view.

Build Quality and Design

This is a beautifully designed little lens. It is very compact at only 2.33″ long (59.1mm) with a diameter of 2.85 inches (72.5mm). It weighs only 8.64 oz (245g). The design is particularly attractive, with a quality, dense feel. The body is the typical mix of metal and engineered plastics, but it has a very handsome finish. The aperture ring moves nicely and has well defined clicks for each half step (full stops are labelled on the ring). There is a “de-clicked” version sold specifically for cine work with a slightly narrower maximum aperture (f/2.2). This is a purely manual lens, and both aperture and focus are controlled manually.

: Large f/2 aperture

: Good size and balance

: Doesn’t overwhelm small mirrorless obdy

: Manual Aperture Ring

: 67mm Front Filter

: Special Coatings

: Large, effective lens hood

: Beautiful manual focus ring

: Modern center pinch lens cap

The focus ring is pretty much perfect, beautifully damped and smooth, with hard stops at both the macro and infinity ends, although (as is unfortunately common with Samyang/Rokinon products) infinity focus actually comes slightly before the hard stop. The ribbed focus ring reminds me a lot of a Zeiss product (and that’s a good thing!) EOS M lenses with AF only employ a “focus by wire” system when you do have to manually focus, and I personally really dislike the disconnected feeling from focus, not to mention the lag (this is also present in Canon’s other STM lenses). There is a slim red ring (aluminium?) that adds a decorative flare that seems oddly reminiscent of Canon’s L series lenses…except this application actually seems a little classier. There is a white dot on the ring that serves the dual purpose of showing which aperture has been selected and also serves as the distance marker for the focal ring above. The final half inch of the barrels tapers out significantly to accommodate the quite large front element. The included petal shaped hood clicks nicely (and definitely) into place to provide both shading and protection for that element. Speaking of that front element, while it is bulbous like the 14mm I own, this lens design allows for the use of traditional filters on the 67mm filter thread (which, incidentally, is larger than any of the other lenses that I have used or tested for the EF-M mount). The ability to use traditional filters (and even stack a few of them without vignetting) is a huge advantage over its big brother. It makes it much easier to shoot long exposures, for example (I am using an ND64 6 stop filter midday for this shot):

Other features include a special nano coating (NCS) to reduce flare along with the use of 3 ED and 2 aspherical elements to reduce distortion and chromatic aberrations. The design is 12 elements in 10 groups. The lens has a metal bayonet mount. But the biggest deal here is the f/2 aperture, which is wider than any of its competitors. Samyang has accomplished something significant by combining this large aperture with great sharpness wide open.

No weathersealing is claimed (but since the body is not weathersealed, this will probably not be a component of any EF-M lens). I personally would not be concerned about using the lens in moderate weather conditions because it doesn’t have any electronics and all of the focus is done internally. The lens should be resistant to getting dust inside and a little rain is unlikely to hurt it much.

Manual Everything

The lens looks great on my EOS M, and I really, really like the construction of the lens. It feels like a premium product, although its price is modest ($399 at B&H). The balance is great, and the lens is easy to use. Let me qualify that last statement by saying that I have a lot of familiarity with manual focus lenses and, more specifically, with the use of the 14mm on my full frame bodies. Manual focus seems intimidating to many photographers unaccustomed to their use, but the truth is that most photographers will quickly become familiar with where focus needs to be for specific situations and will be able to prefocus. For example, when shooting landscapes, the wide angle of view means that infinity focus comes fairly early when shooting at narrower apertures (even beginning at f/4).

For example, if you set an aperture of f/4 and focus at about 7 feet out, everything from 3 feet to infinity will be in focus. If you understand that, then prefocusing the lens is a cinch. Unless you specifically want something much closer to the lens in focus and to use a wide aperture you won’t have to think about focus very much. When you do need to focus, the ability to quickly magnify the image by 5x or 10x takes the guesswork out of focusing. Other camera systems have even better focus aids for manual focus, including focus peaking. There is a bit of a learning curve for using manual focus lenses, but lenses like this are amongst the easiest to use.

You can focus on very close subjects, as minimum focus is 7.87″ (20cm). That, combined with the wide aperture of the lens (f/2), means that you can actually create some unique close focus images that include both context and some surprisingly decent bokeh.

Image Quality

But here’s what matters the most: the image quality is excellent even at the widest aperture. The lens is very usable wide open, and stopped down a bit is incredibly sharp across the frame. The 14mm is also incredibly sharp across the frame, but that lens has such extreme distortion along the edges that some of that sharpness is lost. That isn’t the case with the 12mm, as distortion is actually nicely controlled and easily correctable in post (using about a +7 on the distortion slider in Lightroom or ACR seems to do the trick). There doesn’t seem to be a standard profile for the lens in Lightroom or ACR yet. The brick wall test shows that this degree of distortion is not really going to be a big issue in field work and can be corrected quite well.

The lens produces very sharp images across the frame. One will never need to go narrower than f/5.6 for sharpness (although there are other reasons to choose a narrower aperture.) It also has great color rendition. I am currently also reviewing the superlative new Canon EF 16-35mm f/4L IS USM lens, and this lens holds its own nicely. In fact, the only thing holding this lens back is the limitations of crop sensors.

There are certainly some shortcomings along with all of this goodness. There is no electronic coupling to the camera body, so no EXIF data is reported. You won’t have to guess at the focal length (that isn’t going to change), but aperture is not reported, so if you are sharing your work (and this matters to you) you will either have to record your aperture separately or guess at it! Camera body specific information like shutter speed and ISO will be recorded as per usual. I also find that while the lens visually meters properly on the screen in AV/TV/P modes, Manual mode does not. Images appear underexposed on the screen until capture, and metering is not completely accurate. As someone who frequently shoots in Manual mode, this is a significant issue. Of less concern to me is the fact that the lens (unsurprisingly) has a fair amount of vignetting (even when stopped down a few stops). Vignetting is so easily fixed in post in either Lightroom or Photoshop’s ACR. This wide open shot shows the vignetting.

One other minor niggle I noticed is that the sunstars produced by this lens are somewhat boring (much like the 14mm). I am reviewing the new Canon 16-35mm f/4L IS, and I certainly preferred the sunstars produced by it.

Competitors

The single greatest challenge to this lens in a Canon mount is that Canon offers a very competent 11-22mm f/4-5.6 IS lens in an EF-M mount. That lens also has excellent sharpness and color rendition plus adds autofocus and a three stop image stabilizer. It’s price? Also $399, although US shoppers will need to buy from another market (like from Henry’s in Canada) as (for some crazy reason) Canon USA has chosen to not distribute the lens. Even retail giant B&H does not carry it. The Rokinon does have the significant advantage of the f/2 aperture, which is a full two stop advantage over the Canon zoom at its widest. I find there is a lot of creative applications for that wide aperture, and I also find that the ability to shoot at f/2 or f/2.8 with great image quality helps to overcome some of the shortcomings of crop sensors (namely the increased noise at higher ISOs). Still, I recognize that I am more comfortable with manual focus lenses than the average photographer, and the appeal of the Canon’s AF (not to mention image stabilizer) at the same price point removes one of Samyang/Rokinon’s typical advantages. The Canon lens is even more compact (220g and only 58.2cm in length when fully retracted). This is a judgment call for potential buyers, although truthfully the Rokinon will sell more copies on probably all of the other mounts than the relatively unsupported EF-M mount. If you are using one of the other systems, you will have to make that judgment call as compared with other options. I would actually personally lean towards this lens because of the wide aperture, which is (to me) more useful than the zoom range and AF on the Canon.

I have to admit that I fell in love with this little lens. I have a serious soft spot for my other Rokinon, and this lens is really much like a miniature version of it. I love the look of the lens and the look of the photos it produces. It is a great match for the EF-M 22mm f/2 STM (another amazingly good little lens optically), and the combination literally fit in my pocket (with some bulging!) when I went out shooting one evening carrying a DSLR setup as well.

The Samyang/Rokinon 14mm f/2.8’s biggest claim to fame is its excellence as an Astra-photography lens. I love shooting “nightscapes” with it because coma is so well controlled that star points are very crisp and precise. Fortunately this lens is no different. It shines when the lights go out. I had a bit of a challenge getting a clear night sky during the time of the review, but I was able to get enough of a look at the night sky to realize that this lens does fabulous work even wide open. Coma is really well controlled, so stars have that crisp, precise look much like the bigger Rokinon. The ability to shoot at f/2 on a shot like this enables me to bypass the more limited nature of the APS-C filter and keep the ISO low (1600) where images are still nice and clean.

More Strengths

The truth of the matter is that this little lens is in most ways a better, more complete version of the big brother 14mm f/2.8. It has far less distortion (which means that the extreme corners are useful), similar sharpness, and (this is a biggie) can use traditional filters in a common (and relatively inexpensive) size. The Achille’s heel of the lens is really the nature of the crop sensor. As of this point, the EOS M’s sensor cannot compete with the superior full frame sensors in my 6D bodies when it comes to high ISO performance, pulling information from the shadows without banding, resolution, and a somewhat more nuanced handling of color information (this last point is hard to quantify, but is a noticeable difference between full frame and crop sensors).

But one place where the 14mm wins is angle of view. 14mm on a full frame sensor is very wide; one would require a crop sensor lens of between 8-9mm to get a similar angle of view. Part of what makes the 14mm lens so compelling is that incredible angle of view that produces such dramatic results. It is that extreme focal length that also produces the aforementioned shortcomings. The choice to create a lens with a slightly less dramatic angle of view allowed Rokinon to also build a lens that has fewer shortcomings. And this angle of view is still a very, very compelling one that will hit the sweet spot for many landscape shooters.

That f/2 aperture is no gimmick, either. I found it very useful, both for shooting narrow DOF shots and for compensating for dim shooting conditions. By the way, when shooting shots that are near to the minimum focus range the lens will produce surprisingly good bokeh, both in the nature of the highlights (nicely round and soft) but also in a nice transition from focus to defocus. It can produce very interesting images with a nicely pronounced focal subject but within a wider context than lenses with a longer focal length. This image of a fall leaf in the foreground with the colors of autumn in the bokeh region is a good example of how using this lens wide open can help you to do storytelling images. It is more than a landscape lens.

The relatively low distortion also means that one can use this lens for architectural work, though it will not replace a good tilt-shift lens for commercial work. Still, for the most part lines remain strait, and this series from Boldt Castle in the 1000 Islands region show how this makes a pretty compelling little option for interior/architectural work.

One other plus to this unique combination of light weight, small size, and large aperture is that I have already begun to use this lens in my wedding/event work. It is easy to add it to a harness type system and not even notice the additional weight. During events I have pulled it out at times to help tell the story from a wide perspective while using a DSLR/telephoto combination to focus on the details. The fact that I can prefocus the lens to have everything in focus means that I can just pull it out and quickly snap a shot of the action from a very different perspective. This is a pretty big deal, as I typically shoot events using 24-70mm and 70-200mm f/2.8 zooms. The perspective from this lens is noticeably wider than 24mm, and it means I have one more (and a more dramatic) perspective to add to my repertoire without adding a lot of bulk and weight.

Summation and Video Review

In summation, this lens is (at least to me) one of the most exciting options available in the EF-M mount. It is a lens well situated for producing some “WOW” pictures from this compact system (along with the other camera systems that it is produced for). It has a very nice build quality, well-functioning manual controls, and has exceptional image quality even wide open. It’s a great focal length, has great color rendition, and is a lot of fun to use. It’s greatest challenge is that Canon makes a great compact wide angle zoom that has AF, IS, and costs no more. But it’s greatest asset is a fully usable f/2 aperture that is 2+ stops faster than the Canon zoom. That made the difference for me; I added this lens to my own kit at the end of the review period. It really boils down to your own personal priorities. The good news: I don’t think you can really make a bad choice here. Just be prepared to do your own focusing if you choose the Rokinon.

Pros:

• Has an f/2 aperture.
• Is sharp wide open and only gets better from there.
• Corners are completely usable
• Has great build quality
• Nicely compact – a great match for a small mirrorless body
• Great color rendition
• Nicely weighted manual focus ring and aperture ring
• Great angle of view
• Low distortion for a wide angle lens

Cons:

• Manual everything
• No EXIF data reporting
• Good but not great price compared to competition
• Manual mode metering isn’t accurate
• Infinity focus arrives before the hard stop
• Boring sunstars.
• Vignetting

To view many more samples (including full size images), visit the Image Gallery here:

Gear Used:

Canon EOS-M Mirrorless Digital Camera
Rokinon 12mm f/2 NCS lens
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5 Software for Mac and Windows (Boxed Version)
Adobe Photoshop Creative Cloud 1-Year Subscription
Alien Skin Exposure 6

Purchasing your gear through B&H and these links helps fund this website and keeps the articles coming. Thank you for your support.

Great News! I can now offer a 5% discount on all purchases at Amplis Foto, Canada’s Leading Photographic Supplier. Please enter discount code: AMPLIS52014 in your cart. It is good for everything in your cart, and is stackable with other coupons, too! It will take 5% off your entire order! Proceeds go towards keeping this site going and providing you with new reviews!
[contact-form][contact-field label=’Name’ type=’name’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Email’ type=’email’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Website’ type=’url’/][contact-field label=’Comment’ type=’textarea’ required=’1’/][/contact-form]

Tamron 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5 VC HLD Review

Dustin Abbott

April 11th, 2017

Build Quality and Handling

Tamron 10-24 – Now with VC

New HLD Motor

Interesting Video Option

Tamron 10-24 VC Image Quality

Flare Resistance

Distortion

Comatic Aberrations

Conclusion

Pros:

Cons:

Related Articles at DustinAbbott.net

Sigma 24-35mm f/2 DG ART Review

Dustin Abbott

August 31st, 2015

More Build Info

AFMA and Autofocus Observations

Image Quality

What else is the lens good for?

What is the Lens Not so Good For?

The What and the Why (Conclusions)

Pros:

Cons:

Related Articles at DustinAbbott.net

Three Way Shootout Part 4: Flare, Astro, and Conclusions

Dustin Abbott

April 27th, 2015

Flare Resistance

Astraphotography and Coma

Handling, Autofocus, and Handholding (Image Stabilizer)

Price and Value:

Conclusions

Who Are They For?

Related Articles at DustinAbbott.net

Rokinon 12mm f/2 NCS Review

Dustin Abbott

October 21st, 2014

Build Quality and Design

Manual Everything

Image Quality

Competitors

More Strengths

Summation and Video Review

Pros:

Cons:

To view many more samples (including full size images), visit the Image Gallery here:

Related Articles at DustinAbbott.net

Recent Posts

Around the Web

Books

Extended Reading

Contact Me

Leave A Tip!