m-ex's reviews

  • Samyang/Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 IF ED UMC

    8 out of 10 points and recommended
    Sharp, f/2.8 really sharp
    manual focus, manual aperture control, strange distorsion

    Surprisingly sharp even at f/2.8

    Love this lens on FF, super wide, best money/performance.

    reviewed October 14th, 2013 (purchased for $320)
  • Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 II EX DG Macro HSM APO

    7 out of 10 points and not recommended
    Zoom, 2.8, price
    Heavy, poor AF, soft from 135-200, back/front focus.

    Used on D90, D600.

    If on D90 i couldn't fix front or backfocus issue, so on D600 i do. But the main problem i got spotted, that @ 70mm i got 100% front focus, and after 135 to 200mm i got slight back focus. So i can't rely on adjustments in camera.

    All in all if AF in lens was hitting the target right, than it was surprisingly sharp image until 135mm. After 135mm to 170mm if AF was right image was slightly sharp @ f/3.5, and on 200mm all the way it was little bit soft and blurry all the time :(

    Also on FF camera, sharpnes on the border of the image lacks of sharpnes oll the time. So if you will shoot on that glass on high mpix camera like D600, than use only center of the image.

    AF is not so fast as it could be, for example nikons 80-200D, is 2-3 times faster.

    All in all used that lens for 2,5 year and moved to fix lenses. And if in future i'll buy some kind of that zoom i'll look to Nikkors 80-200 or 70-200 VR.

    reviewed October 15th, 2013 (purchased for $1,000)
  • Nikon 35mm f/1.8G DX AF-S Nikkor

    8 out of 10 points and recommended
    Sharp @ 1.8, light, good AF
    barrel distorsion, vignette on FF body :)

    Using that lens on my D90 and D600 (FF body in FX mode)

    On D90 that lens produces very nice image, over all it's best price/image qality what you can get right the same as Rokinon 14mm f/2.8. Tack sharp @ 1.8.

    On D600 in FX mode, that lens is also great bargin, it produces great image on 1.8, with a slight vignette on the bottom corners, but if you are using that lens only on F/1.8, vignette wouldn't boder you at all.

    Also that distorsion an vignette can be easily fixed in adobe products like PS, or Lightroom.

    Very nice lens for DX, and very cool money saver for FX body, because when you will look to Nikkor 35 1.4, 10 times expensive, you can make some conclusions.

    reviewed October 15th, 2013 (purchased for $270)