Milky Way

[Ken82]

I’m looking to get a decent wife field lens for Milky Way photos using a canon 6d. What are my options ? Thanks 

[MartinB]

I use both a Samyang 14 and 24mm with my 6d.  They are fully manual (which is great for night landscapes) and give high end performance at a very reasonable price.

[PeterCPC]

+1 for Samyang 14mm.

Peter

[RichLD]

Another +1 for the Samyang. I also have the Irix 15mm f/2.4 which is fantastic and has a infinity focus click-stop - it also has far less distortion than the Samyang. Both are cracking lenses for the money! ?

[happy-kat]

Just read a review on that Irix and I'm attracted to the lack of distortion the lens has.

[RichLD]

1 hour ago, happy-kat said:

Just read a review on that Irix and I'm attracted to the lack of distortion the lens has.

It's a great lens, very well made and a definite step up from the Samyang. I've got the cheaper/lighter Firefly version - fantastic build and image quality!

[MartinB]

There is also the 14mm Samyang f2.5 now as well!

[Ken82]

Thanks guys I’ll read a few reviews and consider the lenses you’ve posted. 

[Steve789]

I use a 6D for milky way photography. I have a Samyang 14mm f2.8 which is great for the money. Gives good results wide open although the stars are skewed as you get closer to the edges - still very good but noticeable if you're a perfectionist (not good for large prints).

I've recently bought a Tamron sp 15-30mm f/2.8 di vc usd. This lens is exceptional with much better stars at the edges than the Samyang. This performance comes at a cost though as the Tamron is much more money than the Samyang. It's also a beast of a lens weighing over a kilo and very large. I call mine the Behemoth. I wanted it because I found the fixed focal length of the Samyang a bit restrictive with regard to composition however in the short time I've used it I've rarely used it at anything other than 15mm.

[Spaced Out]

I use a 6D for landscapey milky way/aurora shots etc...

I started off with the Samyang 14mm F2.8 and enjoyed it but then I bought the Samyang 24mm F1.4 and I have to say it is better for doing Milky Way stuff. In fact the 24mm is now my default lens for most night sky shots and the 14mm has been relegated to mainly star trails where a wide WIDE angle is required.

Don’t get me wrong, the Samyang 14mm is good (very good for the money) but it has serious warping issues which become quite noticeable where straight lines are involved (for example a big seascape horizon), yes you can correct that via processing but it gets tedious. By comparison I find the 24mm lacks such obvious warping and you can shoot it at F2 to get sharp stars = lower ISO/less noise than the 14mm.

My standard go-to milky way settings for nice sharp stars on both lenses are as follows

14mm – 30 secs, F.4, ISO 5000 V  24mm – 20 secs, F2, ISO 3200

You can see examples I took with both lenses in some of these albums....

https://www.flickr.com/photos/132427272@N04/albums

For me it has to be the Samyang 24mm f1.4 over the Samyang 14mm f2.8 for milky way stuff.

 

[Scoresby]

Father Christmas has brought me money so I already had the Samyang 14mm lens of the list but I was just about to hit checkout when I realised I had enough money for the latest incarnation with auto focus £555.00 .... but after reading the description it all began to fall apart. 

 

I've got the Canon 750D ... which is a cropped sensor camera .... it has a crop factor of 1.61 ..... and it dawned on me that all that 14mm light would be spilling past the sensor .... so I can kiss my 500/14 = 35 seconds of open shutter time .... 

 

But .... how much in time am I actually losing ... is there an actual calculation to work it out. No point buying it if it is worse time wise than my 18mm kit lense which is designed for the cropped sensor. Also I have seen they do a cropped sensor version but where is it for sale. 

 

Anyone got any ideas. 

[Sunshine]

On 20/10/2018 at 05:12, Ken82 said:

I’m looking to get a decent wife

Me too!

[Ken82]

40 minutes ago, Sunshine said:

Me too!

Lol thankfully I have one of those who understands my astro expenditure ?