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Old 09-10-2012, 04:07 PM
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Samyang 24mm F1.4 lens

I recently got one of these lenses. I got it mainly for Milky Way shots and night time lapses. I also have a Vixen Polarie and polar scope with a USB battery pack.

First impressions are that it is very well made. It is very fast (F1.4) and you can get really close to an object and it will still focus.

The manual focus (its manual focus only) works beautifully. I had no trouble getting perfect focus with it.

I haven't used it for astro yet so hopefully it works wide open without a lot of chromatic aberration.

I will post again once I have used it for that.

Greg.
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Old 09-10-2012, 05:13 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gregbradley View Post
I recently got one of these lenses. I got it mainly for Milky Way shots and night time lapses. I also have a Vixen Polarie and polar scope with a USB battery pack.

First impressions are that it is very well made. It is very fast (F1.4) and you can get really close to an object and it will still focus.

The manual focus (its manual focus only) works beautifully. I had no trouble getting perfect focus with it.

I haven't used it for astro yet so hopefully it works wide open without a lot of chromatic aberration.

I will post again once I have used it for that.

Greg.
There seem to be some pros and cons compared to the Canon 24mm f1.4l lens and may actually be f1.8 not f1.4, but it's way cheaper than the Canon. An astro pic shoot out at f1.4 would be the go, it will be interesting to see your pics/TL when you get the chance
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Old 09-10-2012, 05:46 PM
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Yes as Fred said. I will also be interested in star images wide open around the perimeter of the field of view. My 24mm Canon f1.4 L series I is only good when stopped down to f2 around the perimeter. I get better star images with my Samyang 14mm f2.8 wide open than the Canon 24mm wide open.
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Old 10-10-2012, 06:55 AM
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I played with it last night as it was clear. I'll post some photos later.

I am not sure what wide open photos look processed but chromatic aberration was quite noticeable when zoomed in on bright stars on the camera LCD. Stopping down to F2 stopped that and star sizes reduced considerably as well.

Not sure about it being F1.8 though. I read that in a lens review as well. It was super bright at F1.4. I used a Nikon 50mm F1.8 just after it and it wasn't as bright at F1.8.

15 seconds F1.4 ISO 3200 or 6400 made sky blue/white like day and too bright. It might be useable at my dark site and with chromatic aberration corrections applied.

The Nikon 24mm F1.4 is regarded as one of Nikons sharpest lenses but I am not sure about the chromatic aberration at F1.4 which is where most lenses would probably fail for astro.

Lester how do you find your Canon 24 F1.4 for CA on bright stars? My Nikon 14-24 is very good wide open but thats F2.8.

At F2 though it seemed quite good.
Greg.
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Old 10-10-2012, 06:56 PM
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Thanks for all the info Greg. My 24mm f1.4 series I L lens is good IMO for CA. Its the seagulls around the perimeter I don't like at f1.4 when blown up 50%-100% in size. The 14mm Samyang has the stars around the perimeter as small streaks and more condenced than the seagulls of the Canon lens. The series II of my Canon lens is better for CA, but don't know how much better it is for point like stars across the FOV. Hope that makes sense. All the best.
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Old 10-10-2012, 07:04 PM
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Originally Posted by Lester View Post
Thanks for all the info Greg. My 24mm f1.4 series I L lens is good IMO for CA. Its the seagulls around the perimeter I don't like at f1.4 when blown up 50%-100% in size. The 14mm Samyang has the stars around the perimeter as small streaks and more condenced than the seagulls of the Canon lens. The series II of my Canon lens is better for CA, but don't know how much better it is for point like stars across the FOV. Hope that makes sense. All the best.
The MKII version of the Canon 24mm f1.4 lens is only a tiny margin better in this respect than the MKI. Still big seagulls in the corners at f1.4.. just slightly sharper seagulls than the MKI (still as wide, but not as thick/fat if that makes sense). This improves quickly with both lenses above f2 and nice tight stars across the frame at f2.8.
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Old 11-10-2012, 05:03 AM
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Originally Posted by Lester View Post
Thanks for all the info Greg. My 24mm f1.4 series I L lens is good IMO for CA. Its the seagulls around the perimeter I don't like at f1.4 when blown up 50%-100% in size. The 14mm Samyang has the stars around the perimeter as small streaks and more condenced than the seagulls of the Canon lens. The series II of my Canon lens is better for CA, but don't know how much better it is for point like stars across the FOV. Hope that makes sense. All the best.
I am seeing some seagull stars at F1.4 as well. The fainter ones. At F2 though everything is good. There's a new Nikon 28mm F1.8g that may be good. Around $700 which is cheap for Nikon. 28mm isn't wide enough though.

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Originally Posted by philiphart View Post
The MKII version of the Canon 24mm f1.4 lens is only a tiny margin better in this respect than the MKI. Still big seagulls in the corners at f1.4.. just slightly sharper seagulls than the MKI (still as wide, but not as thick/fat if that makes sense). This improves quickly with both lenses above f2 and nice tight stars across the frame at f2.8.
These lenses are more designed for terrestial imaging where these sorts of things tend not to get noticed so much. Also F1.4 is wanted for its bokeh so perimeter is usually blurred in terrestial images.
There must be older cheaper F2.8 lenses that are sharp wide open.

Greg.
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Old 11-10-2012, 08:02 AM
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Thanks Phil for your input on the new series II 24mm lens; as I almost purchased one but funds were limited. Good topic Greg. All the best.
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Old 11-10-2012, 03:52 PM
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I processed the images from the other night. F2 ISO3200 8 seconds gave round stars, noise not too bad and quite bright. 15 seconds shows some star trailng but quite bright. I think F1.4 may be able to used sometimes but F2 seems good. Not sure why the camera offered F2 as next step up from F1.4. Don't know what happened to F1.8??

I'll check on the Nikon sites to see if there is some setting in the camera about that.

The Samyang lens did not seem 100% compatible with my camera though. The set exposure time seem to be gone sometimes when readying the next shot. Not the end of the world though.

Very little distortion in the images which is good. One image though had stars in focus on the right but a bit out of focus on the left. Then on others I did not see that. A bit odd. I'll keep an eye on that.

Overall a nice lens especially for $600.
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Old 11-10-2012, 04:38 PM
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Greg, I am not familiar with Nikon cameras, but with Canon, in the menu; you can choose 1/3rd f stop or 1 f stop increments to be used. You may have yours set on 1 f stop in the menu.
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Old 12-10-2012, 09:43 PM
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Originally Posted by Lester View Post
Greg, I am not familiar with Nikon cameras, but with Canon, in the menu; you can choose 1/3rd f stop or 1 f stop increments to be used. You may have yours set on 1 f stop in the menu.
Hi Lester,

Yes its the same and I have since fixed it. Now I have greater choices for exposure lengths under 30 secs and for F1.4, F1.6, F1.8, F2 etc.

I imaged with it again tonight and F2 seems to stop the seagull stars.

If you stop down the lens using live view you can see the star size getting smaller.

F2 seems quite useable on this lens.

Greg.
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Old 13-10-2012, 07:25 AM
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Originally Posted by gregbradley View Post
I processed the images from the other night. F2 ISO3200 8 seconds gave round stars, noise not too bad and quite bright. 15 seconds shows some star trailng but quite bright. I think F1.4 may be able to used sometimes but F2 seems good. Not sure why the camera offered F2 as next step up from F1.4. Don't know what happened to F1.8??

.........
F1.8 is not a full stop from F1.4 it is actually F1.4 +2/3, in many lenses marked as F1.8 the aperture is actually very close to F2 but the makers like to use a bit of poetic licence.
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Old 13-10-2012, 08:10 PM
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Thanks Matt.

It was a setting in the camera and now I can choose 1.4,1.6,1.8, 2.0 etc.

F2 still seems to be the point where the lens is useable for astro. That is still extremely bright. It seems a lot brighter than F2.8, more than the .8 difference would suggest.

Greg.
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Old 13-10-2012, 09:59 PM
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Greg, you may be interested to know that you can also get cine versions of the Samyang 14, 24 and 35. These are adjusted to allow for smooth focus and aperture pulls - with iris de-clicked. Cine lenses are always rated in T stops, rather than F stops, where T is the light transmission rating, so a better estimate of true light gathering power. The 24 is rated at T/1.5. For comparison, the Nikon 14-24 is rated T/2.99 at 20mm.

http://nofilmschool.com/2012/08/samy...slr-lens-line/
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Old 14-10-2012, 08:41 AM
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Greg, you may be interested to know that you can also get cine versions of the Samyang 14, 24 and 35. These are adjusted to allow for smooth focus and aperture pulls - with iris de-clicked. Cine lenses are always rated in T stops, rather than F stops, where T is the light transmission rating, so a better estimate of true light gathering power. The 24 is rated at T/1.5. For comparison, the Nikon 14-24 is rated T/2.99 at 20mm.

http://nofilmschool.com/2012/08/samy...slr-lens-line/
Yes that makes sense.

Greg.
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