Samyang 12mm f/2 NCS CS

A review of Rokinon's excellent wide angle prime for mirrorless bodies, the Rokinon 12mm f/2. Dustin Abbott does a thorough real world review with samples.

Although street photography is my passion and indeed I teach workshops on this very subject for photographymasterclasses.uk, it's commercial photography that mainly pays the bills. Recently I was asked to photograph a large property for Dreamview Estates a real estate agent in London, England. This type of work is something that I had previously shot with my Canon 5d system. However as in my last article, my Fuji X-T1, which although I had originally bought for street photography, I now find myself using more and more for commercial assignments. However the widest lens I owned was the 18-55 kit lens and I knew from experience with my Canon, that this wouldn't be wide enough for property interiors. So obviously I first looked at the Fuji lineup of lenses. My choice appeared to be either the 14mm f2.8 prime or the 10-14mm f4.0 zoom. Both excellent lenses, but I felt I didn't really want to make such an investment for what was potentially a one off job. I had heard about the Samyang range and in particular the 12mm f2 lens. It retails for an incredibly low price of less than £300, mainly I guess because it's a manual focus lens