Samyang SY12M-E-BK 12mm F2.0 Ultra Wide Angle Lens for Sony E Cameras, Black

I have owned this lens for about 6 months now and I can say with confidence that this is one of my favorite lenses I have used. I originally purchased this lens for my Sony A6000 for a trip to Japan since I was expecting cramped streets and tall buildings. The 12mm focal length and F2.0 Aperture is such a great combination that it never failed to capture what I wanted and what I imagined whether rain, shine or night. Peeping at the photos, it is amazingly clear throughout the frame around F4.0 and even at F2.0 you only get slight vignetting in the corners. I didn't find myself using the lens hood too often so I mainly left it out of my bag. As for the manual focus, it is almost a set and forget it with such a wide focal length. Just set it to infinity and it will mainly keep everything in focus(not all the way till it stops turning, but just to the left of the L shape on the barrell while going towards the infinity end). I recommend this lens for those looking to capture cityscapes, landscapes, real estate, etc. It really isn't meant for portraits or group photos as the distortion isn't desirable for it.

So far I couldn't be more pleased with this. I purchased for trip to Switzerland that is coming up. My new Sony a6000 is great but the kit lenses are f3.5 and I'm used to f1.7 on my previous camera (panasonic LX100, which is also a great travel camera). I was a little nervous about a manual lens. However, and has been mentioned by others, I found this to be almost a non-issue. It's sharp from 3m to infinity, and I've been setting it on f8 and just leaving it alone for standard day time use. So far I love it, and I know it will perform well in low light wide shots (like night streets and inside cathedrals etc where flash isn't allowed and useful regardless due to distances. Once I figured out how to use the magnifier tool in the camera I can easily fine tune focus where needed. This may be my ONLY lens I use on my trip as the a6000 at 24mp is a champ where I need to crop a scene. I looked at a picture at enlarged to full size from a 16th crop (pretty small) and, while a little grain, it was acceptable for me if I really needed it. I'm just a standard non-pro camera junkie but have enough experience to understand what works well, at least for my needs.

I purchased this for low light landscape and astrophotography mostly while backpacking. The lens is sturdy and well made, but not heavy. The focus ring has the right amount of control to get the focus right- use focus peaking. My copy is a little soft at f2, but up from that it just steps down into wonderful sharpness. The only drawback to this lens is it only has 6 blades, so sun stars and moon stars are not as great as a more expensive lens.

This review should cover both the Samyang & Rokinon 12mm lenses since they share exactly the same components (just branded differently). This lens is NOT perfect, but it serves its purposes PERFECTLY. What do I mean? This is obviously a landscape & architectural lens and when the lens is set for those purposes, it works very well. But once you start trying to use it for different scenarios its shortcomings become very apparent. CONS: 1) Manual Focus Lens: pretty much means anything fast-moving is none capturable (Not a word, but you probably get what I mean) 2) Since it is COMPLETELY manual, it doesn't even leave aperture metadata (not a huge deal since you should only be shooting at f8 & f11. Photos will detail exactly why) 3) My particular lens was off center and the left side was not as sharp as the right side, but was remedied at smaller apertures 4) I bought this lens for landscapes and astrophotograhy (because its f2.0) but f2.0 the photos are far from sharp which somewhat defeats its purpose for astro. PROS: 1) Exceptionally wide angle view w/o fisheye (I feel fisheye has its place, but not for my purposes) 2) Once the aperture is set appropriately the lens sharpens up A LOT! (see the pics to see what I mean) 3) Affordable (subjective) 4) It is compact and relatively light and matches my a6000 very well, dare I say, even jacket pocketable, but not pants pocketable. FINAL VERDICT: If you want to shoot landscapes, this lens will serve you VERY well at F8.0 & F11. Other apertures are pretty poor. It has a short minimum distance which is good to get a somewhat macro-ish image I don't think there is a better deal out there for landscape photogs at the moment and if that is your preference, but it now (mine 3 1 9 u s d)! Do check the photo to see why the extreme apertures are not recommended, but the sweet spot is f8-f11. Hope this helps! Also, you can check out my post processed images I've taken with this lens on my flickr account "k1ngkong" just in case Amazon doesn't allow my links below. [...] [...] [...] [...]

Purchased as a noob in astrophotography. My first ever try at capturing the milkyway during a new moon was with my kit lens (16-55mm f/3.5) and it did ok, but wasn't gathering as much light as I would like. For my second try (few days later), I didnt want to break the bank so I got this lens and I have to say it's a much better improvement! Being an ultra wide lens, it does distort the edges, but worth it imo. It seems to be built well, easy to use, pretty compact, and comes with a quilted/padded drawstring pouch.

This is a nice little sturdy lens that is great for landscape on the cheap. However mine was only focus-able from an aperture of f12 and up anything below f12 would not be in focus at all, no matter what I was shooting, what time of day, how far or close it just would not be sharp at all. The focus ring on mine also was not smooth and took more effort than it should to turn, so much so that when I took it out of the box when I got it, I actually thought it was broken because I couldn't get it to turn. The actual construction of the lens for the price is decent, it really feels like it could get roughed up a fair bit and not have any issues resulting. I decided to return the lens since nothing under f12 was in focus for me, and I will evetually buy another wide angle lens to replace it.

Hands down the best wide angle lens for Sony E-Mount cameras (in my case the A6000). This lens produces pretty sharp pictures at all focal lengths with edges gradually less sharp the lower you drop your f-stop, example: f2.0, which is to be expected with a wide angle lens. I've had no problem focusing to infinity and nailing sharp shots like others seem to have a problem with. If your comfortable with manual focus and know how to use your camera properly in manual mode, you wont have any issue using the Samyang 12mm.

I'd been searching for a good wide angle lens for full body portraits because of the cool angles that can be achieved with it and WOW this is a purchase I do *not* regret!! I was a little scared to buy this because I'm not as financially secure as most everyone saying this is a "budget" lens plus none of the reviews on any sites featured portrait examples so this was a big gamble for me lol but it soooo paid off. As you can see by the billion example photos I've uploaded, this lens works really well for photographing people in close quarters. Almost all of these pics were taken up close and personal which allows for a really nice field of depth while not distorting facial features or limbs and keeping the subject nice and sharp. I've had this lens for almost a year and it has not let up!! Anyway, I decided to write this review for anyone else looking for wide angle lens for portraits rather than landscape or architectural photography. I use this lens in my Sony a6300 which is cropped sensor 1.5x so it's not as wide as it could be btw!

This lens is not for people who are looking for autofocus features, this is MANUAL LENS. Do your research before you buy then complain here when it disappoints you. This lens for sony by samyang is indeed cheap, Glass materials used for this lens may not be as prime as sony branded lenses as this one but this gets the job done, Ideally good for Real Estate photos as well as astrophotography or taking milky way photos. Repeatedly IT DOES NOT HAVE AF, but is well on manual focus. Aperture is also manual. Overall is good one for me. No chromatic aberration to notice.

I always do research before laying out money for any of my photo equipment, everything pointed to this being a great little lens. I have started using it for landscape with excellent results, no auto-focus is not a problem for me, I set it at f5 and everything is in focus. I also have a Tamron 17-70 2.8 but 12mm makes a big difference. For the money, this is a well-constructed, lightweight lens for when you're looking for a dramatic wide-angle composition. No regrets.

Casi no hay opciones de objetivos gran angular para la montura de sony E, además del sony 10-18 f4 que tiene varias desventajas, además de costar muchisimo más. Esta es una excelente opción, a buen precio y con increible calidad optica. Al ser un gran angular, la estabilización optica no es tan critica. Si vas a tomar fotografia arquitectonica/bienes raices, normalmente usas un tripie. Si haces fotografía de paisaje, tambien sueles usar un tripie. Con su apertura f2 es increible inclusive en escenas nocturnas. Lo hemos usado en video con y sin estabilizador motorizado y los resultados son excelentes. Vale mucho la pena. Ya forma parte de nuestro kit compacto para las Sony E.

This is definitely a fantastic lens. I made the mistake of ordering this because I thought it was for my Sony A7IV. Just switched the system and therefore made such a mistake.

If you’re looking for a wide lens this will be your hero. It is a great lens accordingly with price, you can have it fun and testing many things as : Astro or landscapes or even street photos. It is a manual focus but on my Sony a6400 it turns out very easy to set it. I didn’t find so far any huge problem or lack to turn back my mind. Good price for a good lens.