Rokinon 10mm F2.8 ED AS NCS CS Ultra Wide Angle Lens for Olympus and Panasonic Micro 4/3 (MFT) Mount Digital Cameras (10M-MFT) , Black

I have been using a Zenitar 16 for several years as my ultra wide lens. It is a good lens but I started to see the Sigma super wide zooms and the Samyang ultra wide primes. I saw one, used like new, and gave it a shot.It is not that heavy. It is slightly heavier than the Zenitar and about twice the volume. It is a physically big lens. The mount is metal but a lot of the construction, according to Samyang literature, is aluminum and plastic. It is super solid and could be a lot heavier.Photo quality is great. The field is flat. For landscapes and architecture, it does better than the Zenitar. Color and contrast are great. This is probably the most important as this is what shows most in email sized photos. In fact, it is better than most name brand lenses and up there with Pentax. Incredible impressive.It is sharp, too. I have mainly been shooting at F4-5.6 and it kills the Zenitar in terms of resolution. The Zenitar needs to be stopped down to F8. My other landscape lens is the DA21, which some claim is the best landscape lens out there. It is fabulous! Its only real issue is some wirey bokeh, wide open. The lens cap for the Samyang 10 is a lot bigger than the DA21, but this lens goes a lot wider.Back to color and contrast. Blues and especially greens really pop. Reds can be a little washed out in comparison but this is being compared to Limited lenses and similar. At the price of the Samyang 10, one gets an incredible wide angle lens.No AF. No problem. Scale focus works great as the depth of field is so huge. I have focus peaking, as well. :-)The only real "issue" is the huge size compared to Petnax lenses. weight is down due to good engineering. It looks and feels incredibly good but takes up a lot of space in the camera bag. Being an A lens, in Petnax terms, is also a good thing as it can better meter with Petnax bodies.

I'm returning to photography after having sold all my gear and jumping right into full blown canon wasn't an option. I've never bought third party glass so I was pretty nervous, but for my purposes I need prime and I need low apperature for light so I took a chance.The images are a bit dreamy in clarity rather than super sharp and grainy, but for me this is actually a bonus because I tend to go for that on post processing anyway, but if your anal about sharpness, dig in your pockets a bit deeper.However, that's not to say this lense isn't sharp enough for a great photo and if your good at photography this lense isn't going to kill your shot.I read this lense felt plastic and light, buts it's my heaviest lense. My canon prime lenses are way lighter even with auto focus features. For me this is a lense that requires a solid hold or even a monopod. I do use this lense mostly with a tripod, but with a speedlight and a diffuser, you can get great shots at 1/60 and iso 200. Without a speedlight and a tripod, you'll end up using high iso, forced to go to the lowest apperature, and lower shutter speeds which will result in grainier pictures. The manual focus is a bit tough because if your second guessing yourself your LCD screen isn't going to calm you down until you see it in post processing, but Rokinon does sell one with an autofocusing chip for a bit more if that will break you. Over all though for the money, I think this is a great lense, just make sure you accept what your getting and be prepared to do some of the work a more expensive lens would do for you.

I bought this lens mostly for night sky photography. The 10mm focal length makes for a very wide angle, and the f/2.8 aperture allows plenty of light to be captured. I don't notice much of any vignetting on the edges of the shot due to the small focal length.Shooting during the day takes some adjusting of the shutter speed within the camera and the aperture on the lens, which is manual only. Once you get those set, its just a matter of making small adjustments as needed.The lens is quite heavy, which I don't mind - I find it a sign of the quality of the product. The lens cap seems to fit quite well as well.Overall, I definitely love the lens, and would recommend it to anyone looking for a wide angle lens for darker environments.UPDATE:After working with this lens some more, I am starting to finally realize how awesome it is. I use it mostly for night sky shots, as seen in the pictures I uploaded, but it is also phenomenal for daytime landscape shots as well. Given the short 10mm focal length, it allows very long night sky exposures, with minimal star trailing, assuming you keep the exposures 50 seconds or less (going off the 500 rule: 500 / focal length = maximum exposure time to avoid blurring and star trails). To get the best sharpness out of it, you will have to live shoot, and zoom in digitally to make sure your subject is in focus. For long exposure night sky photography, I will take a shot, review the image and zoom in on some stars to see how well they focus. While the lens can focus to infinity, it actually goes slightly past it, so some adjustments are necessary, but this is due to the nature of long exposure photography, where automatic focus is useless anyways.