Two top quality & affordable wide angle lens for astrophotography

January 22, 2018

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time lapse astrophotography

Rokinon/Samyang/Bower (same company) have some great lenses for astrophotography like:

14mm f/2.8 (Amazon US/UK links) - around $300/£300 depending on the mount

Samyang 14mm f2.8 lens

24mm f/1.4 (Amazon US/UK links) - around $500/£400 depending on the mount

Samyang 24mm f1.4 lens

They are affordable and have wide apertures to get as much light in as possible. They also stay sharp with the aperture as wide as it gets both have very low levels of coma (comatic aberration). They are available in 8-10 different mounts for numerous cameras so it is very likely that they will be compatibility probably won't be a problem.

Lonely Speak picture with 24mm f2.8 Samyang lens

The 24mm f/1.4 is considered one of the best night photography and astrophotography lens you can buy. "Excellently sharp, especially when stopped to f/2. Manual focus...fast, wide and shows very little aberration problems." - lonelyspeck.com/24mm

The 14mm f/2.8 is cheaper and one of the most affordable full frame nightscape lenses. It's manual focus too, pretty big and heavy but the ultra-wide angle is perfect for sweeping landscapes. "It’s slow focus ring and inaccurate distance scale are minor quirks but a little bit of manual focusing practice with the lens will help most photographers adjust to its use. Given that most full-frame alternatives are at least $1000 more expensive, the Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 is one of the best super-wide astrophotography and landscape lenses available for any interchangeable lens camera system. If you’re trying to decide on what lens you should buy for landscape astrophotography or Milky Way photos, stop right there and buy this lens first." - lonelyspeck.com/14mm

All in all, two great lenses, if you can afford it, the Rokinon/Samyang/Bower 24mm f/1.4 is the best choice for all-around usability as long as you get a good one because a few have decentering issues. Buy it from Amazon and test it to make sure you have a good one using this quick decentering test.

Lonely Speak decentering problem with Samyang 24mm f1.4 lens

Lens Decentering: The boxes highlight the areas in the images below where you can see the apparent decentering of the first copy of the lens that I owned.