Customer: How sharp do you want it to be?
Samyang: YES.
That is my first experience with the nice bright Sammy.
As full reviews are available online, I will not regurgitate general knowledge, but rather highlight the experience with this lens.
Upon arival, I was taken back by its size (it is little longer, especially with the hood) and mostly weight. Looking at the "große laufe", or the "cannon of the lens" certainly will initiate some photographer boners and GAS issue of other togs around. It is probably re-dressed some of their older DSLR designs, and so the rear element is very far and deep in the lens, making the barrel about an inch longer than expected for mirrorless design. The lens is big and heavy, but fortunately not that thick as some other fast lenses for R and Z mount. Thank god for that. The weight of nearly one kilo is still "horrendous" and it will be hard to carry it around in set with other lenses for longer hikes and shootouts. Not a happy photographer light lens. It will either make my wrist grow some muscles or arthritis.
Built quality is nice. Focus ring is fairly firm and smooth. I would appreciate little more precise/longer throw, but well, at f/1.4 closeup, we are working with few milimeters of DOF, so harder focusing is expected. At f/1.4 and close focus, it is really a fight to get 100% what I need. at longer distances and shoulder portraits, it begins to be quite usable without hassle. Nikon Z5 does good job with aiding focusing too. I do not need peaking with this lens, as zoom view on large bright EVF is more than enough. Peaking still helps for certain genres (people, fur, text and such)
The aperture ring is little small, but one can make do. It clicks nicely and is smooth for its function. Too bad that f/1.8 aperture point is missing. It would be nice to have it. Real loss on usability issues due to the lack of this value setting is very close to zero though. Also the missing click is not a biggie, because the spacing between 1.4 and 2.0 lick is enough that one can set the aperture at ~1.8 still. I would want too much from such cheap lens.
So overall, the usability is good. Given my past experiences with Nikon and Samyang, I must say I am even pleasantly suprised, and not that keen on regret the mistake of ordering MF lens. If I nots consolidate it with a macro lens later on, it might even stay.
Regarding image quality, this will need more experience, but for very fast cheap MF lens, I am again, very pleasantly suprised. With some care in post, this lens can produce sharp images in the centre, for fair/4K/30-40inch wide images wide open. It draws nicely, colors are very nice too. After stopping down, it can get even better.
While it is raining heavily here, I cannot post much. So hopefully, more real world and test photos coming this week.
This shot was taken wide open, closeup. Very respectable performance.
