Rokinon 8mm Fisheye for Sony NEX © John Neel

Rokinon is a brand that has produced a number of pretty incredible lenses. They are amazing in that they offer great quality at a great price. They also produce some pretty amazing results.

For the past few months, I have been playing with a Rokinon 8mm Fisheye and the Sony NEX 6. The combination can produce some amazing images.

The lens covers the entire APS sensor of the SONY and as such produces a fisheye effect without the vignetting seen with other fisheye lenses I’ve used from other companies. The images produced are somewhat wider to what I used to get with my 21mm lens on my old Leica M3 film camera, but the look is very similar.

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I find that the distortion is just right for the kinds of photographs I like making with extreme wide lenses. I also love to shoot from the hip and this lens seems to be perfect from high up as well.

Bobby – © John Neel

When used with the Sony NEX 6, I can hand hold well enough for creating 3 exposure HDR shots. Handholding is possible in reasonable light.

The Sony allows me to fire off the required shots extremely fast. Any slight deviation between shots is minimal and easily matched in Photomatix Pro.

All of the images shown here were produced with handheld HDR and this combination of camera and lens.

Mike – © John Neel

Rokinon makes two different fisheye lenses that will fit the Sony E mount. The lens used here is the f/3.5. There is also an f/2.8 version which is a bit more compact and I would imagine slightly better suited to the size of the NEX 6. However, I am very pleased with the performance of the 3.5 version in spite of its slightly slower aperture and its relative bulk. It seems to me that this version is an adaptation of their DSLR version to fit the SONY mount. It appears that they used a permanent mounting adapter to modify their existing DSLR version to fit the SONY mirrorless mount. As such, the huge glass is a bit heavy at the front. However, I like huge glass. The smaller f/2.8 lens looks to have been designed specifically for the smaller body of the NEX. For me, it is not a big deal. I am fine with the way it is. 

Barn Upstate NY – © John Neel

Rokinon lenses are non-automatic. Focus and apertures settings are accomplished manually. With fisheye lenses this is not a problem at all. I generally focus just short of infinity and everything comes out great. As with most lenses, I try to keep the aperture in the middle of the range.

Rokinon lenses are non-automatic. Therefore focus and apertures settings are accomplished manually. With fisheye lenses this is not a problem at all. I generally focus just short of infinity and everything comes out great. As with most lenses, I try to keep the aperture in the middle of the range.

I am always much more interested in the way the final image looks than I am in the look and feel of a lens. The optics on this lens can produce some amazing results. Much better in my estimation than other fisheye lenses selling for much more money. The bulging glass looks amazing on the front of this lens, but as with any fisheye lens, care needs to be taken to make sure the lens is protected from contacting anything that could scratch or damage the front element. I always keep the cap on when the camera is not being used.

I have written several other articles about creating 360 panoramas and circular spheres with another very nice Rokinon lens, the 7.5mm for MFT (Micro 4/3rds) format cameras, which is also great fun and a very capable fisheye lens – here and here.

I hope to explore more lenses from this company in the very near future. I am excited to have a look at their new tilt-shift lens as soon as I can get my hands on one.

Rokinon lenses are the US branding for lenses manufactured by Samyang, which is a Korean lens maker.

Please have a look at some of my other posts here.

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