In this video, photographer, Christopher Frost, takes a look at the lens that has been around for a while from Samyang – the XP 10mm f/3.5 – this is the widest rectilinear DSLR lens on the market which covers a FF sensor.
We have actually seen this lens for the first time in late 2018 during Photokina 2018 and since then the lens actually arrived at the market. It is a fairly small lens but pretty heavy at around 900 grams.
The lens has 18 elements in 13 groups including 3 aspherical elements, 1 high refractive index element, and 3 extra-low dispersion elements which all combine to fix the 130-degree angle lens distortion this lens has.
The lens focus distance is relatively close at 26cm (and is pretty sharp at this distance although this really isn’t a macro lens), at the moment at least there is no simple way to connect filters to the lens
The build quality is very good and the focus ring is nice and includes some good resistance (the rubber seems to feel nice but it attracts a lot of dust).
Frost adapted it to the A7R II and the image quality in the center is very good even wide open, the corners are not amazing so you will need to stop down to around f/8 or even f/11 for maximum sharpness in the corners. On an APS-C camera it surprisingly it looks very sharp so you can use it on a crop camera as well.
Darkening in the corners is visible and so is some barrel distortion. You can use it for astrophotography although it isn’t super bright and there is some visible flaring against bright light sources which is not a surprise with such a huge front element.
Samyang’s XP line is the highest the manufacturer has (at least when it comes to DSLR cameras) and as for pricing, the currently sells for around $1040.
You can find many more previews and reviews on our Photography review section here on LensVid and you can find more of Frost’s videos here on LensVid.
Iddo Genuth 
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