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May 4, 2013 Canon 6D and Samyang 24 F1.4 Badlands Milky Way and Zodiacal Light

ISO and Coma Examples

Things on this page: 5D III high ISO. 6D high ISO. Corner sharpness and/or coma issues on Samyang 24 and Canon 24L II. Corner sharpness and/or coma issues on Samyang 14 and Canon 14L II. Corner sharpness and or/coma on Zeiss 21mm. I should come up with a better way to organize this. I will sum it up in words right here. 6D is an amazing beast at ultra high ISOs. 12,800 ISO is a breeze for night sky shots. 5D III is damn good up there too but 6D bests it. Both Canon 14L and 24L lenses have a lot of coma. Wide open the 24 has a ton and even still plenty by F2.8, rendering it pretty pointless(pun not intended) for night sky photography or night photography with light sources anywhere near the edges when more wide open. The Samyang 24 is not quite as sharp but it is indeed plenty sharp and most importantly for this, it's coma is very well controlled even at F1.4. Similar story on the Canon 14L II and Samyang 14. Both start at F2.8 but the Canon has a good amount of coma there. The Samyang has far less and is actually sharper. It just has more distortion which is really such a non-issue. A profile fixes it easily enough and still resolution out the whazoo. I did notice plenty of color fringing on the Samyang 24 but Canon's have plenty too. It's a non-issue as well as it's easily removed in conversion. Simply put, least for me, the Canon's aren't remotely worth the money over the Samyang's, unless you needed auto focus for some reason on a wide angle. And really, if you stuck all four on the table and I could pick 2, I'd pick both Samyangs. Given I couldn't sell them obviously lol. The two Canon's just tend to squash the night sky usefulness and otherwise aren't even worth it anyway. Gee $2200 for a Canon 14 or $350 for a Samyang 14 that is sharper and has nil coma. The Samyang 14 really is one of the most "silly priced" bargain lenses out there. The Canon 24 has such a sick amount of coma it's really just silly. The Rokinon and Bower named ones are the same exact lens as Samyang and often even less than the Samyang ones. The 24 I got is actually Bower, but since Samyang makes them and I'm sick of stating it a billion times I'm just going to go with Samyang.

I never shot with the lens or camera review deal in mind and the 5D III with Canon glass was shot a year ago. I just have the shots so I'm comparing what I can with what I have.

6D with Samyang 24mm at F1.4, 15 seconds, 12,800 ISO

Mostly just showing the 6D ISO at 12,800. That's pretty silly really. I did no noise reduction except for color noise. That is the case on all of these. Zero sharpening on anything either. All shot in RAW and converted with CS6. This was taken with the Samyang 24mm F1.4 at F1.4. It's plenty sharp and overall a great prime lens for far less than the Canon version. It also doesn't coma like Canon. Paired with the 6D's insane high ISO ability, it is a night sky dream combination.

Far left side. No sharpening. Full frame 6D Samyang 24 at 12,800 ISO.

Extreme corners on all lenses are going to be weaker than the center when used on a full frame camera. This is a given. My hunch is this lens might be decentered a little bit or something. That is another thing that seems common, one side of the lens almost always weaker than the other. The extreme upper left corner above. Notice how little coma is showing up even at F1.4. 6D Samyang 24 at 12,800 ISO

Here is the extreme upper right corner. Remember, that is 12,800 ISO there. The big thing to notice here too is the lack of coma. That is nil and nothing like the canon. F1.4. That is excellent sharpness for extreme corner too. Stars just moved a bit in 15 seconds obviously. 6D Samyang 24 at 12,800 ISO

Here is 25,600 ISO from the 6D. Sigma 50mm at F1.4. Don't even need to show full size to see the coma wings on the wide open sigma. Look at the wings in either upper corner.

Full size view of the 6D 25,600 ISO. If you wanted you could surely use that for night star photography. Zero noise reduction done yet except color noise.

Here is a fun one at 102,400 ISO on the 6D. I had the Samyang 24 on at F1.4. The Milky Way actually blew out at 4 seconds. I pulled it back down for this. This was before the good parts of the Milky Way were very high.

Full size 102,400 ISO. 102,400 ISO lol.

Here is 6D again but now the 21mm Zeiss F2.8 on......at 20,000 ISO 24 seconds.

The Zeiss is silly sharp. Mostly just showing 20,000 ISO.

20,000 ISO upper right corner. Even the great Zeiss 21mm will coma a little, even at F2.8.

Upper left corner.

6D 6400 ISO example, Samyang 24mm again.

6D 6400 ISO example, Samyang 24mm again.

6D 10,000 ISO example, Samyang 24mm again.

6D 10,000 ISO example, Samyang 24mm again.

Now for a small comparison against 14mm F2.8 lenses. Here is the Samyang 14 on 6D at 10,000 ISO.

Upper right corner of Samyang 14 10,000 ISO. The Samyang 14 is a beast. Full frame extreme corner there. And again with the 6D ISO, 10,000 without noise reduction.

Upper left corner of Samyang 14 6D 10,000 ISO. I don't know if this corner difference is the 6D sensor to flange plane or the lens or the sky. I've seen stars do this in odd areas of some lenses you wouldn't expect it.

Now for the 5D III with a Canon 14 on it shot at 10,000 ISO as well. Looking at the 6D above at 10,000 ISO you can see the noise difference. But the other big thing here is the coma difference. This Canon 14 has far more coma than the Samyang.

Canon 14 has plenty of coma in the corners. More abrasive noise at 10,000 on the 5D III. That 5D III I had rented then had that odd band on the side too.

The other Canon 14 corner. Big coma. And see like the Samyang 14 upper left corner the stars seem so much softer. It makes me wonder about what those happen to be shining through in the galaxy. Or both lenses have a weakness there. I need to find out now lol. I swear though when I saw that in the past on some 50mm lens it seemed to just be the stars in that area.

Now for the 24 Samyang compared to 24 Canon F1.4 lenses. 12,800 ISO on this one fwiw from 6D....Samyang 24 at F1.4.

Upper right corner of the 24mm Samyang at F1.4. For full frame, extreme corner at F1.4 that is kinda silly good. There's just some coma showing up on the brightest stars. Not much at all though. Also still crazy that is 12,800 ISO on the 6D. Remember this coma at F1.4 on the Samyang 24 compared to what will come below a bit on a Canon 24L II at F2 even.

Upper left appears weaker. Some coma far far corners. But compare to the Canon 24 images below, which weren't even shot at F1.4 but F2. This is 3 lenses now being weak in that area of the sky. I'm about sure it's the stars there.

Canon 24mm at F2 5000 ISO from 5D III.

Big coma in upper left corner. That stuff on the canon is horrible and extends well in to the frame from the corners too. Again consider that corner at F2 compared to the Samyang at F1.4. Especially compare to the sharper Samyang 24 corner. The Samyang 24 upper right corner is at least as sharp as this one above but at F1.4 and without all the coma. And much of the sharpness appearance difference here is contrast/brightness. Two completely different times of year and skies(September with the Canon). Most of the Milky Way was not up on these Canon 24mm examples here so the sky was darker. Also the higher noise helps make things seem sharper.

Upper right of the Canon 24. Coma city all the way in. And again with the soft stars in areas. I really don't think the really soft looking star areas on any of these crops are the lenses. Just look at this Canon example above being the upper right corner. Stars out there look plenty sharp but anything but closer in on the left. Just has to be the way some stars shine/shine through.

Below are two full sized JPGs if you want to see some coma across the entire 24mm frames. First canon and then Samyang. Click on them and they'll open big. Sorry I didn't feel like giving away the full sized Milky Way image lol.

6400 ISO 5D III 15 second Canon 24L II at F1.6 Click Image To See Full Size of Stars/Coma

12,800 ISO 6D 15 seconds Samyang 24mm F1.4 at F1.4 Click Image To See Full Size of Stars/Coma

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