Samyang is raising their game recently so I really want to see how this compares the the Japanese Cosina made Zeiss Loxia. I understand that the last 10% of performance is always expensive, but I am curious just how much of that last little bit is just Name recognition instead of actual performance.
I don't know if you have used any of these Samyang before but I know I would never get one again. It's not all about optical performance either. Admittedly, I think the Samyang is closer to 95-98% of the optical performance of a very good Zeiss (e.g. Samyang 14 vs. Zeiss 15). Sometimes they are even better (e.g. Samyang 35/85 vs. regular Zeiss 35/85) in term of sheer performance. However, Samyang has the following major drawbacks:
- Huge QC issue, de-centering, mis-aligned focus ring, non-uniform aperture blade. It's quite a lottery to get a good copy, which might involve multiple exchange.
- Poor construction: plastic construction that might not keep the optimal/original spec over extensive use. If you don't mind re-buying the same lens in a couple years, this might not be that big of an issue. A Samyang costs about 5 times less than a Zeiss on average.
- Forget about fixing your "in-spec" lens, most likely you will get another copy and a new lottery cycle begins.
I personally have tried 5 different copies of the 14/2.8 and all of them had various degrees of decentering. All of them had mis-aligned focus ring.