Samyang announced the release of their new 10mm f/2.8 ED AS NCS CS Lens for Canon today and it is now available for pre-order on B&H with a price tag of $529.00. Orders of this lens are scheduled to ship on March 25. It seems like it will be a manual focus lens with no word on the autofocus capability that was spinning the rumor mill.
The Samyang 10mm f/2.8 ED AS NCS CS Lens is a prime, manual focus wide-angle lens that is built to be used with APS-C image sensors. There is a huge 105.9 degree angle of view which makes it perfect for interior, architectural, and landscape photography applications. "One extra-low dispersion element and two aspherical elements have been incorporated into the optical design to minimize chromatic aberrations and distortion in order to produce sharper images. Additionally, a nano crystal anti-reflection coating system (NCS) has been applied to lens elements in order to reduce surface reflections and prevent lens flare and ghosting for improved light transmission and more contrast-rich imagery."
Personally, I would have loved to see some auto-focus in this new lens. I am a huge fan of wide angle lens so I will definitely be tracking down some more information and tests of this as they come out to see if I decide to pursue this product as a new addition to my bag.
Product Highlights
- Aperture Range: f/2.8 to f/22
- 16mm (35mm Equivalent)
- Designed for APS-C-Sized Sensors
- One ED and Two Aspherical Elements
- Nano Crystal Anti-Reflection Coating
- Manual Focus Design
If you are interested in pre-ordering this lens or getting more info, you can visit the official B&H product listing here
No autofocus? At a 10mm (16mm eqv) I don't think you'll need AF, the focus range is 24cm-1m. You could pretty much tape the lens on infinity forever.
You have never truly worked an ultra wide lens if you believe that to be the case. It is still very important to get critical focus at these wide angles. You cannot just tape the lens on infinity forever, and this is coming from someone who shoots with a 14mm on full frame a lot. Just because your hyperfocal chart says so, does not mean you have achieved critical focus.
If you are leaving your ultra-wide lens focused at infinity and getting sharp results, then you are clearly taking shots at shoulder height with very little or no foreground. Both of those are things you do not want to do with a lens this wide if you want to create powerful photography. Ultra wides are simply too wide to be used as snapshot lenses.
Start getting down close to the ground, finding a good foreground that really helps your composition, and then tell me that you can leave the lens taped on infinity focus forever.
I've worked with plenty. And I know that for it is not worth putting autofocus in this lens. People may shoot this closer than 1m, but getting critical focus with a 16mm equiv lens on cropped sensor isnt that hard, to the point of having AF is redundant waste. If you need AF and can't manually nail focus on a 16mm equivalent ultra wide angle lens on a cropped sensor, you need to get you're ass off the photo blog comment sections and go play with you're camera some more and discover your focus ring.
Underwater photographers like autofocus.
Are you limited to only Samyang brand? Feel free to hop on over to B&H and peruse their store to find the other options that are available to you with *surprise* autofocus!
autofocus AND same low price as the one lens everyone in this post is talking about? or no?
Considering you don't have access to the focusing ring with modern housings, you don't have much of a choice unless you wont to leave it at one setting and see what you get. Back in the Nikonos era underwater photographers all manually focused, but you had the control to do so.
The Samyang 10mm was released in 7 different mounts Canon, Nikon, Sony A, Sony E, Fujifilm, Samsung and Pentax... all at B&H for $529
Not that I have a need for a crop sensor lens, but I love that Samyang continues to make manual focus lenses that concentrate on the optical quality. With few exceptions Samyang has made quite a crop of great lenses that at times embarrass the likes of Nikon and Canon. I bet this will be another one of those lenses.
No sample shots? :(
If it was an AF lens it would be triple the price.