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Photographer Dustin Abbott shares a detailed comparison between the new Sony 11mm F1.8 wide angle prime for Sony APS-C mirrorless and the Samyang AF 12mm F2 released last year. Which is worth your hard earned cash? Find out here!
Read the Sony 11mm Review: | Purchase the Sony E 11mm F1.8 @ B&H Photo https://bhpho.to/3GcQSli | Amazon https://amzn.to/3aqdAL5 | Camera Canada https://shrsl.com/3jth6 | Amazon Canada https://amzn.to/3LX3xu8 | Amazon UK https://amzn.to/38kvoGG | Amazon Germany https://amzn.to/3LX3H4I
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Table of Contents:
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0:00 - Intro and Concept
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0:00
Hi, I'm Dustin Abbott and I'm here today to give you one of my comparison videos
0:14
In this case, I'm going to compare the new Sony 11mm f1.8 prime lens that was just announced
0:22
and is being released and comparing that to the Samyang 12mm f2 autofocusing lens that
0:28
I reviewed basically exactly a year ago. So these two lenses really do have a lot of similarities
0:35
though they're not identical. Obviously not quite identical focal length or maximum aperture, but
0:40
very close in both cases. And the price point is not radically different. So the MSRP on the Sony
0:47
is 548 US dollars. The MSRP on the Samyang is 399 US dollars. Though I will point out at the moment
0:56
The price difference is a little bit more because the samming is discounted by $50
1:01
And so there is roughly $200 difference in price between the two lenses
1:06
And there are, outside of that, there are a lot of various similarities in terms of their basic form factor
1:13
They are very close in size and weight, with the Sony being slightly smaller
1:18
The Sony is 66 millimeters in diameter, leaving a 55 millimeter front filter thread
1:23
and it is 57.5 millimeters in length. It weighs 181 grams. Whereas the Samyang is 70 millimeters
1:31
in diameter, leaving a 62 millimeter front filter thread. It does give me a little bit of preference
1:36
for the Sony in that regard, mostly because 55 millimeter filters are more common, more widely
1:41
available. The lens is 59.2 millimeters in length. And so it's only two millimeters longer and it
1:48
weighs in at 213 grams. And so about 20 grams heavier, again, not radically different, 20 to 30
1:55
grams. And so you're not going to really notice much of a difference out in real world performance
2:00
Other similarities are the fact that they do have fairly similar feature sets. They both have linear
2:05
focus motors. They both have weather sealing that goes beyond just a gasket at the lens mount
2:10
but some internal seals. The Sony probably having an edge slightly on that, but the Samyang
2:15
does have at least four seal points, and so it also has a number of seals. Autofocus I actually
2:21
found to be fairly similar between the two lenses in terms of speed and quietness. I'd probably give
2:27
a little bit of an edge to Sony, mostly because it's a native Sony lens and it's going to get the
2:33
best support, but frankly, I doubt that you'll actually experience much of a real-world difference
2:38
between the two lenses. They both have seven-rounded aperture blades inside. They have a very similar
2:44
optical formula. The Sony has 12 elements or excuse me, the Sony has 12 elements in 11 groups
2:50
The Samyang has 12 elements in 10 groups. So again, you know, on paper, there's a lot of
2:56
similarities between the two. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to give you a quick summation
3:00
of advantages of the Samyang and then advantages of the Sony. And then if you want to see how I
3:07
arrived at those conclusions, stay tuned for the optical breakdown that follows that, where I
3:12
demonstrate exactly what I'm talking about. But to give you the basic bullet points of what I
3:16
observed when comparing the two lenses, I found that advantages for the Samyang included having
3:21
much lower distortion. And I mean a lot lower distortion. More on that and I'll demonstrate
3:28
that in just a few minutes. It also has significantly lower vignette, about half the
3:33
vignette that the Sony does. Obviously, as we've already discussed, it has a significantly lower
3:38
price. Right now, about $200 difference. And when you're talking about a lens, in this case
3:43
where you can get this one for $349, $200 as a percentage is a pretty significant difference
3:50
between the two. The Samyang comes with a nice little case, whereas the Sony does not. Maybe a
3:55
little more of a minor thing there I would say that the Samyang is the better lens if you wanting to do interiors particularly if you wanting to do photography of interiors The correction profile for the Sony
4:07
will help in camera if you're doing video of interiors, you want to do real estate, for example
4:13
And so I think that's less of a big deal. But if you're shooting stills, there's just a lot less
4:17
to correct. And you're going to end up with some cleaner results, as we'll see in just a moment
4:21
So there are, though the list of advantages for the Samyang is smaller in terms of the total number of items on there
4:29
some of those differences are very real and significant. So there are some reasons to consider the Samyang, even though it's a third-party lens versus the first-party Sony
4:40
But let's talk about some reasons to consider the Sony. First of all, the Sony does have a few more features
4:46
It has a focus hold button. It has an AF-MF switch on the barrel
4:51
It may not be a huge deal to you, but it might. It also has a higher degree of magnification
4:56
You can get so close with this lens, at least a manual focus mode, to where you can pretty much bump your subject with it
5:02
And so it can get very, very close and produces a higher magnification
5:07
As we'll see in just a moment, the Sony has more consistent sharpness, not just in the center of the frame, but it holds it out better towards the edges of the frame
5:15
I would say that the Sony demonstrates a little bit more accurate and a little bit better color compared to the Samyang. You know, trend for Samyang is that very
5:23
often the rendering is a little bit warmer. And so if you're more about color consistency, the Sony
5:28
delivers a little bit more on that front. Obviously the Sony has both a wider focal length and it has
5:35
a wider maximum aperture. That maximum aperture is a minor thing as is the focal length, you know
5:42
kind of depending on the scenario. We'll explore that more in just a moment, but certainly it is
5:46
there. And one final thing that I observed where I would say I favor the Sony is that I think it has
5:51
a little bit better flare resistance and certainly in some real world situations that we'll explore
5:55
in our optical breakdown. So there you have the summation of what we're going to find. Let me show
6:01
you now what I mean and so you can get those things visually for you. Let's dive in. Let's take a look
6:06
So let's start by doing an examination of the actual difference in focal length. And so here
6:11
we have 11 millimeters and we have 12 millimeters. So how much of a real world difference does that
6:15
make well as you can see our framing this was off of a tripod framing starts fairly similar on the
6:22
left side there's as you can see uh the sanding actually shows a little bit more so you know
6:27
somehow there's a there's a tiny tweak there in the way that they frame up even though it's from
6:30
a tripod you can see however there's a significant you know significantly more of the tree in the
6:36
frame i would say on a landscape level though you're probably not going to see a huge difference
6:42
between these focal lengths, if you look at these images side by side, they don't look radically
6:46
different in terms of what's in the frame and what's not. Though, I mean, down here, once again
6:50
you can see there's just a little bit more in the frame with the Sony than what there is with the
6:54
Samyang. If you take it indoors, however, obviously that becomes a really different
6:59
practice here in that the 11 millimeters look significantly wider than what the 12 millimeters
7:05
does when you get it into a smaller space. However, there is another point that is raised
7:11
by this, and that is that there is some significant barrel distortion on the Sony that the Samyang
7:16
does not have. And so what happens if we actually fix that distortion to get a usable image and then compare
7:25
So if we correct the Sony's distortion and we correct the Samyang's distortion, you can
7:31
see that there's a little bit that remains here on the Sony. It's a lot, and the profile is not available yet, and so both of these are manual corrections
7:39
you can see that the Sony does still frame wider, though obviously some of that advantage has been lost
7:44
simply by the fact that you have to correct less on the Samyang than what you do on the Sony
7:49
My point here, however, though, is that the Sony is wider even after correction
7:54
So I think that Sony has actually designed this lens to where it wider than 11 millimeters prior to correction and becomes closer to a true 11 millimeters after correction Another shot that kind of illustrates this point is we can see here this is uncorrected
8:08
so you can see the bulge on the windows of the barrel distortion, but it also illustrates a secondary point
8:14
And so framing is wider, but you can also see that there's a little bit of that window in the frame on both lenses
8:19
but you can see that the Sony is very flare resistant, contrast remains basically perfect
8:25
Whereas you can see the Samyang is losing some contrast. There's some veiling that is taking place there
8:30
If I step back a little bit further, that becomes even more obvious. We can see here that there is definitely a veiling effect of where that sun is in the frame coming into it
8:40
Whereas the Sony has remained really, really neutral. Very good contrast. Now this is a taste related thing
8:46
Some may actually prefer this look. A little bit more of a cinematic type look
8:51
However, I do want to point out this difference between the two lenses. So a little bit more on that distortion. Here you have a look at the vignette and distortion chart test and you can see that there is a massive amount of barrel distortion that is there. Furthermore, it is as we saw with just the real world images, it is not the kind of distortion that corrects easily because it's not completely linear. You can see there's a little bit of a bulge and I'll take the writing off for a moment. You can see kind of a bulge up and down and that's what we often call a mustache pattern
9:22
And so as a byproduct, you really can't correct. Like here, the lines are pretty good here towards the middle
9:27
You can see there's still some bulge remain. But if I were to correct where it's straight here, it would create a pin cushion distortion on the outside of the frame
9:36
So you really need the correction profile, which fortunately will be available for all retail copies
9:41
That is missing otherwise. By the way, just to give you a figure, this is about a plus 40 to correct
9:46
And as far as the vignette goes, I'm having to punch in a plus 69 to correct for the vignette
9:53
So distortion and vignette, heavy on this lens. So by comparison, the Samyang has much, much less distortion and significantly less vignette
10:02
And so as we can see here, it's not really difficult to correct the distortion here
10:05
And frankly, there's so little distortion there that you may not even want to mess with correcting it
10:10
Just look at the figures I plugged in. I did a plus five and then just a plus 34 as far as the vignette goes
10:17
So about half as much vignette and a fraction of the distortion
10:20
So that is a significant difference between these two lenses. So how do the two compare when it comes to resolution and contrast
10:27
So this is 200% magnification, 24 megapixel, a 6400. In the center of the frame, this is comparing F1.8 and F2
10:35
We can see that in the center of the frame, the two lenses are quite similar
10:39
delivering a fairly, I would say, equal level of performance. If we move to the mid-frame, however, the Sony has a little bit of an advantage
10:48
You can see less contrast for the Samyang. And as we head down into the corner, we can see that the Sony's advantage just grows at this point
10:55
It is much stronger in the corner than what the Samyang is. So if we compare at f2.8 and we stop them down a little bit
11:03
both of them look really fantastically sharp in the center of the frame, I would say with a bit of an advantage for the Sony
11:10
In the mid-frame, we can see that that advantage continues. Whereas the Samyang looks pretty good, the Sony is looking great
11:17
If we go down into the corner, the Sony is looking great
11:21
And the Samyang is looking better, but not quite to the level of what the Sony is
11:26
One other thing I will point out is that the Samyang suffers more with lateral chromatic aberrations
11:30
which you can see here, whereas the Sony is a little bit more neutral. Now, if we compare at more traditional landscape apertures, F5.6
11:38
we can see once again that the center looks fairly close between the two lenses
11:43
However, in the mid-frame, the Sony definitely has some advantage, though the Samyang is looking better
11:48
And down in the corner, we can see that they are now looking more similar overall
11:54
And so at actual landscape apertures, you probably won see a significant difference between the two lenses in terms of their performance Out in the real world and taking a look at color you can see that as is often the case with Samyang lenses there is a little bit more warmth in the rendering of the glass
12:11
whereas I think the Sony is a little bit more neutral. In the center of the frame, they look quite similar
12:17
though I think that there is, you know, arguably a hair more contrast in some of these textures on the Samyang
12:22
than what there is on the Sony. But as we saw in our chart test
12:26
The closer you get off towards the edge of the frame, the more that the Sony advantage grows, though you can see it, is diminished somewhat by having a less flat focal plane due to the fact of that barrel distortion
12:38
So as you get down here towards the edge of the frame, in this case, the Samyang looks a little bit better at a closer distance for that simple reason that it doesn't have that major barrel distortion
12:49
Now, a clear win for the Sony is when it comes to maximum magnification
12:54
Though, again, there's a little bit of a caveat there due to the barrel distortion
12:58
And so you can see that in the center of the frame, both lenses are sharp, although the Samyang is delivering a really, really great looking result
13:06
Just really crisp, really clean looking. And the Sony is a little bit more muddied because of that, just not having a flat plane of focus
13:14
So I would give a little bit of an edge for the actual performance up close to the Samyang, but we can see as far as magnification that because you can get even closer by doing the manual focus, you can focus as closely as 12 centimeters versus 19 centimeters
13:31
You can get an end result of 0.20 times magnification versus only 0.09 times magnification
13:39
So a pretty significant difference. That shows up in the real world too
13:44
So out in the real world, we can see that that magnification not only produces the ability to get, you know, higher actual magnification, as we can see here, comparing the two
13:54
But it also means that you have the potential to diffuse a background much more with the Sony than what you do with the Samyang
14:00
Where the Samyang, even here at its minimum focus distance, the background is still pretty visible
14:05
Whereas here, the Sony is giving you a more softly blurred out background. So an advantage there for it
14:11
And so as you can see, these lenses do have a lot of similarities. I think they are naturally comparing and competing lenses
14:18
And both of them do have some significant advantages to claim. At the end of the day, I would probably lean towards the Sony as my top pick
14:26
even though that barrel distortion really does bother me. But because it is a first-party lens and because it gets great profile correction
14:33
I think that it will be less of a real-world issue than what it is in a chart testing
14:39
or a testing environment kind of thing. And also just because I feel like the Sony
14:44
even though it is more expensive, I think it is probably a good value for money lens
14:48
and one that certainly has a lot of significant advantages going for it
14:53
At the same time, however, I think that the Samyang is a very valid choice
14:57
And as you can see, it does hold its own in a lot of areas, even though it is significantly cheaper
15:01
So if you're on a tight budget, this may give you a sense of whether or not
15:06
you can accept those differences and think that the Samyang is still worthy of investing in
15:10
At the end of the day, my purpose in doing these is not to come out and just to declare an absolute winner
15:16
because I think that there's more nuance to the conversation than that, but rather is to point out strengths and weaknesses
15:21
and to allow you to make a decision as to what strengths you prefer
15:25
and what weaknesses you can live with, perhaps. And because at the end of the day
15:29
it's your money to spend. I'm Dustin Abbott, and if you'll look in the description down below
15:33
you can find linkage to both of my reviews of these lenses. also buying links to both of these lenses. There's linkage there to follow myself or Craig
15:41
on social media. You can also find linkage to check out our new channel, to purchase channel
15:46
merchandise, become a patron. And of course, if you haven't already, please click that subscribe
15:51
button right here on YouTube. Thanks for watching. Have a great day and let the light in
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