Samyang 300mm f/6.3 Reflex Reviews
I love this lens!
By William
Rated 5 out of 5
Date: 2021-09-01
I always wanted a 250 to 300 mm reflex lens so when B&H camera offered the Samyang reflex 300mm lens I jumped at the chance to get one. It came within a few days after I ordered it and I put it on my Canon D50 to get a few test shots. I was surprised how nice it was to focus and how sharp for a reflex lens this Samyang 300 mm is. I thank Samyang for making this lens and I thank B&H Photo for offering it as a cost effective, quality telephoto lens.
About as good as a reflex lens can get
By Emily
Rated 4 out of 5
Date: 2016-04-13
For the money, this is a great telephoto lens. You sacrifice a little sharpness with the reflex, but it still makes great images. Well worth the money for a telephoto lens.
Not a Good Fit for me
By Bob
Rated 3 out of 5
Date: 2015-11-10
Samyang Reflex 300mm f/6.3 ED UMC CS Lens for Fujifilm X Mount I used this lens on a Fuji X-T10 camera. I typically shoot at a fixed ISO 200, but for this lens, I increased the ISO up to 800 when needed in order to keep a 1/450 sec shutter speed, following the reciprocal rule of focal length and shutter speed. I also used focus peaking. Physically, the lens feels solid and adds very little weight to the camera. In this sense, it is a pleasure to use. Sadly, however, this 300mm lens is not in the same league as its cousin, the Samyang 8mm f/2.8 Fisheye II Lens for Fujifilm, which is brilliant. All of the attached photos were adjusted in Photoshop Elements. 1.) Before buying this lens, you know that this lens is dark. That fact really hits you when shooting in low light situations, and focusing becomes a problem. 2.) The lens should be stabilized - I experienced a noticeable camera shake when zoomed out. 3.) Often images are poorly saturated - colors are not as vibrant as your eye see them. 4.) Calibration of feet/meters on side of lens barrel is inaccurate 5.) There does not appear to be any point where infinity kicks in - you have to focus the lens no matter how far away the subject is. This is too bad, because if infinity kicked in at, say, 25 feet, then focusing on far off subjects wouldn't be such a bummer. 6.) Image Quality - Acceptable, but with a high rate of rejects. Even my best photos have a softness to them. In the photograph of my very photogenic cat, Fritz, the overall photo is good but you can see that the cat's eye is not sharp. 7.) Depth of field is narrow - note the eyes of the meadowhawk dragonfly are well defined, but the tail is out of focus. The body of the meadowhawk is a one-inch long and it's resting on a flat surface - the entire insect should have been in focus. 8.) I got better image quality for subjects close to me (within, say, 15 feet). However, I think that this is true of any lens. 9.) When a stray branch dangled in from of my subject, this out of focus branch appeared as a line of connected blurred circles. These circles detract from the photo. I read a review of this lens after I purchased it - it stated that this lens is for people who don't care about Image Quality! Another review said that this lens is better than nothing when that once in a lifetime shot comes up. I wonder. Did we purchase a large sensor camera just so our battle cry will be It's better than nothing? I'm not certain where this lens fits into my lens line-up: Its focal length is too long for portraits, landscapes, and nightscapes. However, the focal length is not long enough for many birds and other wildlife opportunities. Without stabilization, shots of faraway objects and shots of moving objects are difficult. In low light, it takes a while to fix your focus, hoping all the time that the wildlife will patiently wait. Image quality falls off with increasing distance to the subject, negating the advantage of a long focal length. If you subtract out the long focal length, my other lenses can do everything this lens can do and better. This lens is not a good fit for me. For some reason you can only upload 2 photos - I had about a dozen that that I wanted to share. - Bob
Samyang Reflex 300mm review-2015
By John
Rated 4 out of 5
Date: 2015-03-18
Before purchasing this lens I read through the other reviews and IMO agree with the other reviewers that this lens produces a reasonably sharp image at this price point. I shot a series of test images and found that if I applied the PS plug-in NIK Sharpener Pro and used Layer Masks to sharpen the in-focus area I could produce images that look very nice. The build quality of the lens is good and the focus ring operates very smoothly. The lens mount is precisely machined and fit onto my X-T1 without any problems. The lens comes with a pouch made of faux-leather and has no padding.
Compact, light and sharp
By GG
Rated 5 out of 5
Date: 2014-02-20
My first impression upon unpacking this lens was to realize how small and light it is. Then I was impressed by how smooth the focusing ring was, without stickiness or backlash, a must for this kind of lens. Once I got enough practice focusing with it, I was impressed with its sharpness. Make no mistake, you will need practice: depth of field is quite short and focusing is a real exercise in finesse. But once you get there, the results are quite rewarding. The weakest point of this lens is its apparent vignetting, but if this bothers you, it is easily fixed using image processing software.
A fine telephoto lens
By Spider Legs
Rated 4 out of 5
Date: 2013-10-25
I purchased this lens for bird photography, and I'm very pleased with it. It's compact, well-built, and fun to use. Once you've found focus the images are sharp across the field. I recommend that your camera have focus peaking to get the most out of this lens.
Interesting Qualities
By Thomas
Rated 5 out of 5
Date: 2020-03-26
The lens is difficult to use but is worth the effort.
There is no auto-focus and its takes time to manually get the image clear. It has a fixed aperture and the depth of field is limiting. Its best to always use a tripod because this lens is sensitive to shake. This lens should never be used on a windy day. When everything is right this lens produces good images that are sharp but not as sharp as a finer lens will produce. The doughnut shaped bokeh is very beautiful and artsy. In daylight its no problem getting proper exposure.
100% of the photos I took with this lens and then submitted to Adobe Stock were accepted and are currently for sale on their site. If the quality is acceptable to Adobe, who has a reputation for being very, very picky, its acceptable to me.
If you want to be creative this is a worthwhile item to add to your collection.
Extremely compact but not for everyone
By Gino
Rated 4 out of 5
Date: 2019-08-26
This lens is ridiculously small and light for 300mm.
The Good: Size, weight, very solid build quality, very smooth focus ring, no chromatic aberration whatsoever, PRICE, donut bokeh is pretty unique.
The bad: You need plenty of light with the fixed F6.3. It is very difficult to get sharp focus, let's just say you'll never get very sharp focus, even with peaking. Colors and contrast is lacking but nothing that can't be handled in post.
I'll add some photos, all shot with a Sony A6300 and tweaked a bit in Lightroom.
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