(mellow music)
- Hello everyone, it's Matthew Saville for NatureTTL.com,
and this video is going to be a very exciting one
for all of you nightscape photographers out there.
The full review and comparison of
the three most popular 14mm ultra-wide fast-aperture primes,
and in no particular order those are the classic,
tried-and-true Rokinon, or Samyang, 14mm f/2.8,
and the new Rokinon 14mm f/2.4,
and last but not least,
this gigantic beast, the Sigma 14mm f/1.8 Art.
I've already done a bunch of testing
here in the middle of nowhere,
enough to draw my conclusions, so let's dive right in,
and I'll tell you all about these three amazing lenses.
So, over the last year or two,
there's actually been a bunch of new,
amazing, ultra-wide lenses on the market
for nightscape photography.
f/2.8 zooms, some f/2.8 primes,
even faster than f/2.8 primes,
from 12mm to 14mm, 15mm, 16mm,
so I'm going to have to do some more reviews,
but what I haven't seen yet is a specific comparison,
side by side, of the three most popular 14mm primes.
So that's what we're doing tonight.
I've actually already done all of my testing,
so let's dive right in
and talk about what makes these three lenses awesome.
The good news is that they're all awesome,
and you really can't go wrong buying any of them.
The lightest one, the smallest one, is the old Rokinon,
this one, the new Rokinon,
is a little bit bigger and a little bit heavier,
and then the Sigma is ginormous,
so it all comes down to what your specific shooting needs
are going to be.
So let's talk about, first and foremost,
the biggest beast of the bunch, the Sigma 14mm,
and I got to be honest, I was actually
I didn't have high expectations for this lens
because unfortunately, its smaller siblings,
the 20mm f/1.4 and 24mm f/1.4 Art,
neither of those lenses had very impressive corners
for nightscape or astrophotography,
because they had wicked coma and astigmatism,
not just in the extreme corners,
you know, if you've got a frame like this,
you expect a little bit of bad corners,
but this was a pretty big chunk of the image
was just ruined by coma and astigmatism
on those f/1.4 primes, so I didn't have high hopes for this.
Fortunately, I was absolutely blown away.
This thing is just amazing.
From the centre, all the way
almost until the very, very corners,
it's just pin-sharp wide open at f/1.8.
So if you need f/1.8, which not everybody does,
but if you need f/1.8,
and if you don't mind spending the most amount of money
and lugging the heaviest lens around,
then just get this Sigma 14
and you will be very impressed with it.
There's really nothing to complain about.
The distortion and the vignetting are very, very low,
just incredibly low.
I think it's the lowest of the bunch.
The new Rokinon 14mm might have similar vignetting
and similarly low distortion.
I don't really care about distortion that much
because you can correct it with a profile
in pretty much any raw converter,
but anyways, this lens is nearly flawless,
so if you're going to lug around a heavy lens,
if you're okay with that, definitely get it.
That's the first conclusion.
However, if you'd like to save a little bit of money,
or if you'd like to save a few ounces,
then what about this Rokinon, the new 14mm f/2.4?
I actually think that f/2.4,
even if you take the Sigma and stop it down to 2.4,
you're going to get similar results to this,
and in the extreme corners,
this 14mm has, to my personal taste,
better corner sharpness, overall, than the Sigma even,
even when you stop the Sigma down to 2.4 or 2.8
for both of these.
The coma and astigmatism is just slightly less
on this new Rokinon, so if you're shooting
if you're just a pixel peeper right to the very corners,
you might want to consider this lens instead.
It's also a little bit lighter
and a little bit more affordable, so there is that as well.
It's manual focus, but at night I shoot manual focus anyway,
so I treat all of these lenses like manual focus lenses.
So that's verdict number two.
If you're going to shoot at f/2.4 or f/2.8 anyways,
then why not save a few bucks, save a few ounces,
your back, your hips, or whatever,
your shoulders will thank you later
if you do lots of long hikes,
and get this Rokinon 14mm f/2.4.
So what about this, last but not least,
this old 14mm f/2.8 Rokinon, or Samyang,
or even Bower I think makes some of these.
It's all the same optical formula, but I got to be honest.
The downside of this, even though it's quite sharp,
more than sharp enough for a time-lapse,
especially if you're only doing a 1080p video or time-lapse,
even a 4K time-lapse, this lens is more than enough,
so if you are just barely
getting into nightscape photography,
and you don't know what lens to get,
and you don't want to spend over $1,000 on a lens,
then this is a great choice.
Even if you already know what you're doing
in nightscape photography
but you shoot most of your stuff at 24mm or 35mm
for your nightscape photography,
and you're just curious,
or you want to cover the bases with a 14mm,
this is also the lens to get,
because it's the lightest and the smallest.
Not only that, it is by far the cheapest.
It's only $250 if you get it on sale,
and it goes on sale regularly at least once or twice a year,
so this lens, at that price, you can't not
you can't afford to not have it in your bag, or whatev
double negative
you need to have this lens in your bag.
At this price,
even if you eventually decide you want to upgrade
to one of the more expensive and heavier lenses,
you'll still be glad that you have this lens around,
because as a nightscape photographer,
and especially as a time-lapse photographer,
you're going to find yourself always wanting two cameras.
One's doing a long exposure or a time-lapse,
while the other one you're fiddling around
doing still photos, or whatever.
You're going to want more than one lens
in this ultra-wide focal range.
99% of the time, all of my friends,
we have either a 2.8 zoom and one of these,
or we have two primes in this range.
It's pretty common to have two lenses,
so why not buy this lens and just toss it in your bag?
Give 14mm a try if you never have done that before.
There are, however, two caveats about this lens,
and those are this: the vignetting and distortion
is wildly bad on this lens,
and like I said, I don't care about distortion,
because a lens profile can correct that,
but the vignetting, I got to say,
is a bit of a bummer on this lens,
because at such high ISOs,
where you're filming your astro-landscape or whatever,
nightscape photography,
you don't have as much dynamic range,
so if you push your shadows,
to bring back those corners around the edges,
you will actually see more noise
at the edges of your photos than in the dead centre,
and that's a bit of a bummer,
but I'm okay with a little bit of vignetting,
so I work around it.
The other caveat to this lens is
it's the worst build quality of the bunch.
The two newer lenses haven't been on the market
and heavily abused for years and years and years yet,
so I can't speak definitively
on the longevity of those lenses,
but I can say that this 14mm
is just not good at living a long, healthy life.
First of all, right out of the box,
between my friends and I,
I've lost count of how many bad lenses,
that were just not sharp, right out of the box,
and we had to send it back and get a new one.
Then, after years of abuse, I've also lost count of,
or at least it's been three or four or five copies
of this lens that have gone, eventually, soft at the edges,
which is caused by something called
de-centering or other optical alignment issues.
The lens gets a little wobbly,
the glass in the lens literally gets a little wobbly,
and if you heavily abuse your lenses,
you're jamming them in your bag,
and squishing them in your backpack,
or you're driving on washboard dirt roads,
and it's bumping around,
this lens will eventually, 90% of the time,
get a little bit soft.
So, I work around both
I'm okay with both of those things
because, like I said, it's so cheap, but you can't
it's just
I'd love to have it in my bag,
even if I eventually decide
to buy either one of these gigantic lenses.
Personally, I'm more of a fan of the Rokinon,
because it's a little bit of a middle ground between
super heavy and fast aperture, super-sharp wide open.
If you're shooting super-high-megapixel cameras,
40, 50, whatever megapixels,
you're going to want one of these lenses
if you're really, really loving 14 millimetres.
So make the decision based on what aperture you really want,
and the weight, or the price,
but don't worry about the decision
between the image quality,
because both of these lenses have amazing image quality.
Anyways, that is about it,
so stay tuned for more nightscape
photography lens reviews and comparisons.
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