Samyang in recent years has been releasing AF lenses for Sony FE, four lenses so far in fact. All of which have received many good and positive reviews. Now in 2018, Samyang has decided that Canon users are going to get some AF treatment too with the release of their AF 14mm f/2.8 EF a first for the Canon system from Samyang.

Before I continue with the artical, I'd like to thank Samyang for sending over the lens for me to test out and put it through it's paces.

My first impressions of the lens when I first got it out of the box was it's weight, coming in at 485g it's not a very heavy lens. But once it's on a canon body (I use both a 5Ds & 5D Mark III) I felt that it works very well together, there's nice balance to it. I was a little worried that the manual focus ring was a little too smooth. But as soon as I started using it (not very often since this lens has awesome AF), I got use to it and didn't notice much of a difference compared to similar lenses.

Started out shooting a couple of shots around the area I lived in to see how the new lens design compares to their older MF 14mm. And I am very happy to say that the weird distortion it use to have is not present in this new design and in fact it is very well controlled with little post fixing needed.

Here's an crop of the same image above that Samyang themselves used to showcase the sharpness of the lens

Having AF on a 14mm might not be useful to some, but for my case I Ioved having it and not having to go into live view to check on focus knowing that the AF is handling it all for me. It definitely didn't disappoint in this department, it's locked onto subjects quickly, accurately and to my surprise quiet as well!

Canon 5D Mark III + Samyang AF 14mm f/2.8 EF

The lens performs well through all f-stops delivering sharp crisp images, of course if you stop down a little would give you the best results. But at wide open this lens does really well.

Before having this lens I used the Voigtlander Super Wide-Heliar 15mm f/4.5 on a Sony A7RII a lot. But never did I realised till now how much I'd appreciate having a f2.8 wide angle lens to shoot with especially for darker scenarios.

Canon 5Ds + Samyang AF 14mm f/2.8 EF (3 image panorama stitch)

I don't usually write reviews, so I'll keep it simple. I'd highly recommend this lens to anyone looking for a great and affordable wide angle lens to add to their EF kit, at S$799 (US$799) it's hard to beat.

I'll end off with a few more of my sample images.