Samyang 10mm f/2.8 ED AS NCS CS Lens Review

Samyang 10mm f/2.8 ED AS NCS CS Performance

At maximum aperture, sharpness is already excellent in the centre of the frame, and good towards the edges of the frame. Stopping down improves performance across the frame, although it takes longer for the clarity towards the edges to catch up to that seen in the centre. Outstanding sharpness is achieved in the centre of the frame at f/4 and sharpness approaches excellent levels towards the edges of the frame at f/8.

MTF @ 10mm

How to read our charts The blue column represents readings from the centre of the picture frame at the various apertures and the green is from the edges. Averaging them out gives the red weighted column. The scale on the left side is an indication of actual image resolution. The taller the column, the better the lens performance. Simple. For this review, the lens was tested on a Nikon D300 using Imatest.

Chromatic aberrations are very well controlled for this type of lens, remaining under half a pixel width in size at all apertures. These low levels of fringing should be barely visible in images, even with high contrast areas towards the edges of the frame.

Chromatic aberration @ 10mm

How to read our charts Chromatic aberration is the lens' inability to focus on the sensor or film all colours of visible light at the same point. Severe chromatic aberration gives a noticeable fringing or a halo effect around sharp edges within the picture. It can be cured in software. Apochromatic lenses have special lens elements (aspheric, extra-low dispersion etc) to minimize the problem, hence they usually cost more. For this review, the lens was tested on a Nikon D300 using Imatest.

Falloff of illumination towards the corners is well controlled for a wide angle lens with a fast maximum aperture. At f/2.8 the corners are only 1.63 stops darker than the image centre and visually uniform illumination is achieved with the lens stopped down to f/4 or beyond.

Imatest detected 4.65% barrel distortion, which is a reasonably mild amount for a lens this wide, but may still become visible in images with straight lines close to the edges of the frame. Due to the distortion pattern having a slight wavy appearance to it, applying corrections in image editing software afterwards may be quite tricky.

This is one of Samyang's first lenses to sport their Nano Coating system, which does an excellent job of suppressing flare and retaining contrast when shooting into the light.

Value For Money

This lens is fairly unique in what it offers for crop-sensor SLR cameras, with most alternatives being zoom lenses with a slower maximum aperture. The closest equivalent currently is Tokina's 11-16mm f/2.8 lens, which costs around £495. Although it offers the flexibility of a zoom and the same maximum aperture, it isn't quite as wide-angle as this Samyang lens.

The next closest alternative is Sigma's 10-20mm f/3.5 EX DC HSM lens, which costs around £395. Again, this lens offers the flexibility of zoom, but in this case the maximum aperture is two thirds of a stop slower, which will make a difference in low light conditions.

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