This 12mm wide-angle lens is available to fit a wide range of mirrorless system cameras, including Canon M, Fujifilm X, Samsung NX, Micro Four Thirds, and Sony E mount compatible cameras. On a Micro Four Thirds camera, as tested here, it offers an angle of view equivalent to a 24mm lens on a 35mm camera (or 18mm on APS-C cameras). This wide-angle, coupled with the fast f/2 maximum aperture and low price of £330, should make it a very interesting lens for many. In this review, we’ll take a look at how it performs.
Samyang 12mm f/2.0 NCS CS Handling and Features
The build quality of this lens is excellent. It feels very solid, despite weighing only 245g. The lens mount is metal and the lens is also compact for a lens with a bright f/2 maximum aperture. This makes the lens a perfect companion for more compact Micro Four Thirds bodies and it balances well with the Panasonic Lumix GX7 used for testing.
Aperture control and focusing are both completely manual, as the lens has no electronic interface with the camera. The aperture ring is divided into half stop intervals, and clicks firmly into place for each. The focusing ring is well damped, and smooth to operate, which makes focusing a pleasure. Focus distances from infinity to the closest focus distance of 20cm are marked on the ring, but no hyperfocal scale is provided.
Taking images of anything over a metre or two away is straightforward, as the lens can simply be left set to infinity. For closer distances it is recommended to use the magnification or focus peaking features of your camera to ensure sharp focus.
Samyang 12mm f/2.0 NCS CS Performance
Sharpness is already outstanding in the centre of the frame from maximum aperture, and clarity towards the edges falls a shade short of good levels. Stopping down improves sharpness across the frame, with peak sharpness being reached in the centre between f/2.8 and f/4, with clarity towards the edges catching up to excellent levels at f/5.6.
How to read our chartsThe blue column represents readings from the centre of the picture frame at the various apertures and the green is from the edges. Averaging them out gives the red weighted column.The scale on the left side is an indication of actual image resolution. The taller the column, the better the lens performance. Simple. For this review, the lens was tested on a Panasonic Lumix GX7 using Imatest. |
For a fast, wide-angle lens, chromatic aberrations are very well controlled. Fringing barely exceeds one pixel width, and only does when stopped down to f/16 or beyond. This low level of fringing should pose few issues, even in large prints and harsh crops from the edges of the frame.
How to read our chartsChromatic aberration is the lens' inability to focus on the sensor or film all colours of visible light at the same point. Severe chromatic aberration gives a noticeable fringing or a halo effect around sharp edges within the picture. It can be cured in software.Apochromatic lenses have special lens elements (aspheric, extra-low dispersion etc) to minimize the problem, hence they usually cost more. For this review, the lens was tested on a Panasonic Lumix GX7 using Imatest. |
Falloff of illumination towards the corners is reasonable for a lens with a fast f/2 maximum aperture. At f/2 the corners are 1.64stops darker than the image centre and visually uniform illumination is achieved with the lens stopped down to f/4 or beyond.
A little contrast is lost when shooting into the light at maximum aperture, but on the whole control of flare is good with this lens. A petal shaped hood is supplied with the lens, which does a good job of shading the lens from extraneous light that may cause issues.
Value For Money
Priced at around £330, this lens is very reasonably priced for a wide angle with a fast f/2 maximum aperture.
The closest equivalent in Micro Four Thirds fit is the Olympus 12mm f/2 lens, which costs around £500. This lens does sport autofocus though, so may be worth the extra £170 to some.
Samyang 12mm f/2.0 NCS CS Verdict
Overall, this is an excellent optic that produces images with excellent sharpness, low distortion and low CA. Also, what makes this lens especially interesting is the low price of around £330, which is £170 less than the closest equivalent.
The Samyang 12mm f/2.0 is an excellent optic that produces images with excellent sharpness.