On tour with Samyang’s manual XP 14mm f2.4 aspherical wide-angle lens

Wide angles under 20mm are usually not something I love so much…

But Samyang’s XP 14mm F2.4 lens is something special. It is designed for cameras with more than 50MP and has unmatched resolution and produces images of really high quality. The lens is to aperture f2.4 to f22 and is a manual lens ift. focus, but everything over about 3m is sharp, so it’s not that hard to shoot with. The close limit goes as down to 28cm. It has 9 aperture blades and despite various coatings, it gives some delicious flares and “sun strokes” (if it’s called that?).

Aperture adjustment takes place in the camera if you shoot Nikon or Canon. My copy is a Nikon edition. I’ve shot both on a Nikon D850 and on my own Sony a7RIV. On a7RIV I used a Nikon for Sony E-mount NF-NEX adapter from Viltrox with manual aperture mechanics in, I could also have used it with electronic aperture control (NF-E1), but it cost 5 times the manual, so I chose the last one. Not least because I didn’t need autofocus like NF-E1 has.

The Samyang XP 14mm F2.4 is a 114.12° ultra wide angle and according to Samyang “an lens that allows you to capture the creative space beyond it that meets the eye and portray an extended sense of dimension.” I believe that!! 14mm is game! In the pictures with ex. The tower at Bellevue I had to get really close to the subject not so much clingy out. The same with the car below, there I am almost completely inside the tower to get close enough. The lens sets up to shoot some skewed angles, as you can see it in the pictures of the Maersk Tower at Panum further down the side.

Nikon D850 – 1/250 sec – f4.5 – 14mm

Samyang XP 14mm f2.4

The Samyang XP 14mm F2.4 works insanely nicely when you first get it in your hand. It’s heavy and exudes quality. The weight is in the large quantities of glass used. The focus ring is soft rubber and runs really smoothly. The lens hood cannot be removed. It is fixed and is part of the lens. If you shoot with filters, NiSi has created a special filter holder for the Samyang XP 14mm. You can find it in ex. Goecker for Shooters or Click in Svendborg. With the filter holder, you can use NiSi’s 150mm filter series.

The lens is an aspherical lens. Aspherical lenses have lens elements with a complex curved surface, the radius of which can be changed to optimize light transfer and correct the distortions that occur in traditional spherical lenses, as most lenses still are. In addition, they provide exceptional image resolution and also enable a lighter and smaller lens construction. Just the exceptional resolution I think I see when I sit with the images in Capture One. There’s insanely high resolution and sharpness. Aspherical lenses are nothing new. The world’s first commercial, mass-produced aspherical lens element was manufactured by Elket for use in the Golden Navitar 12 mm f/1.2-normal lens for use on 16 mm film cameras in 1956.

Samyang XP 14mm f2.4 and my analog Nikon f4s

One of the reasons I chose the lens in Nikonmount is that I can then use it on my old Nikon F4s from 1997. I’ve already been out shooting some pictures with the combination. They come below.

Samyang XP 14mm f2.4 and Sony a7RIV

As described further up I have shot part of the pictures on my Sony a7RIV with Nikon for Sony E-mount NF-NEX adapter from Viltrox with manual aperture mechanics. They work really well. At Sonyen I get the amazing electronic viewfinder, nice focus peaking which is great just when I use manual lenses and then I also get really good pleasure from the 61 megapixel sensor which is perfect with the XP lenses. I love the resolution and the sharpness. Still have to get used to the 14mm. It’s super wide. I will try to do a test between Samyang XP and Samyang AF 14mm f/2.8 FE for Sony’s E-mount. Stay tuned.