The Samyang 14mm F2.8 is an excellent and affordable lens for astrophotography. The build and glass is excellent, as is the performance of this wide angle lens. However, the focus ring seems to be off on some lenses and it is a ‘guess’ where the infinity focus (or the hyperfocal distance) actually is located for your lens. This can be quite annoying, since it can be quite difficult to focus with a wide angle lens at night. Luckily you can quite easily adjust the focus ring for your lens and have the marking of infinity at the correct focus point.
Calibrate the focus on the Samyang 14mm F2.8
All you have to do is loosen a few screws, get in focus on an object far away (infinity, past hyperfocal distance), move the focus ring and then re-align the markings.
This video explains it very well;
Step by step
It is best to setup your camera with the Samyang at a hyperfocal distance away from a window. The hyperfocal distance for a crop sensor with the 14mm lens is around 3.5meters at F2.8. This way you can see the focus shift from the window frame to the objects in the distance behind the window.
- Move the focus ring to slowly shift focus from the window frame to the objects you want to focus on behind the window
- Tape down the focus position so it won’t change
- Peel back the rubber band on the focus ring, this will reveal the 3 screws you need to loosen
- Loosen the screws with a 1.2mm (or 1mm) screwdriver. NB: Just loosen the screws, don’t take them out!
- Loosening the screws will free up a ring you can see through the hole in the focus ring. Move this ring by pushing gently on it with the screw driver through the hole. Move it till the end.
- Fasten the screws and move back the rubber band
- Move the ring with focus distance markings towards the body. Note that this might take a bit of force
- Move the ring and align the infinity marking
- Move back the ring with markings. You’re done!
Now it’s really easy to focus the Samyang at night; just move it to infinity and you have focussed!
OK silly question time…does this mean it is only correctly focused at infinity whilst at f2.8?
2 jared IMHO: I have Samyang 12mm f/2.0 MFT manual focus lenses. It seems my lenses focus position doesn’t change for different diaphragms. Thus I can find the focus at the same place, where it was detected for the first time.
BTW, I find this calibration way rather traumatic. Instead of this, I simply put an additional white mark on my lenses barrel opposite the point, after setting the lenses in infinity position.
The widest aperture gives the shallowest depth of field, so focus is easier to see. Changing the aperture should not require refocusing.
[…] echt normaal, maar wel een veel voorkomend probleem bij deze lens, maar het is zelf op te lossen: http://dslr-astrophotography.com/cal…ang-14mm-f2-8/ Sony α7, 28-70 | Canon 40D, FD 24 2.8, 35 2.8 TS, 55 1.2 ASPH, 70-200 4 IS, 430EX | Tokina […]
I have been looking at these instructons on how to “calibrate” focus on this lens. These instructions seem to emphasize lining up the “lens distance scale” with lens infinity focus.
I don’t care about the distance scale, etc.
What I want to do, is move the lens infinity focus stop, or increase lens focus travel, until I can move the lens PAST infinity focus and then come back to nail it, in live view.
But, once I loosen the three screws and start messing with it, I lose track of where i am.
If you have done this, or can explain the details a bit further, much appreciated !
same here. i dont care about the reading. and the marker ring is locked to nothing, it basicly doesnt matter to the focus ring apart from reading.
so what iss the point of all this?? just so you can put it to “infinite” then you can a infinite?
or why not just simply turn the ring all the way to the right?
The point is that it can be quite difficult to achieve focus in the dark with a wide angle lens. So being able to use the mark can be quite useful.
Turning the ring all the way to the right moves the focus past the infinite focus point, so that is not usable
With my lens, moving the ring until the hard stop doesn’t quite reach infinity focus. If I could only find a tiny enough screwdriver, maybe I could fix this.
WTF man? The damn video is in Mexican! How about using ENGLISH!!!
May I suggest turning on the subtitles and if you can’t stand Spanish you mute the audio?
Lol, didn’t know Mexican is a language.
Thank you for this tutorial! I have a Vivitar 13mm (new!) and the infinity is so messed up it is located around the 2 meter point on the lens. Difficult to find in the dark in freezing temps. Having infinity at infinity makes life much easier!
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I ended up moving the ring the wrong way 😛 Perhaps including the direction would be nice
Which direction did you move it? I’m about to attempt it and would like to know if it is clockwise or anti clockwise from the view finder side.
I TRIED THIS ON A ROKINON 14MM AND IT WORKED, THE ONLY THING I Couldn’t readjust is the ring… I think on Rokinon is buitl a bit different but really I don’t care as long as the pict is in focus..
Also be aware the the rotation of the ring it can be on the opposite direction of what the video shows… I tried both direction until it made sense.