Love how you describe and show the characteristic and rendering of lenses. This is no exception (even though you didn’t use those words). Thanks for making the video!
it's interesting indeed, but the lens you compare it to is larger even if it's a small lens that looks fun as well. The Laowa is a pancake style lens so they try to reach different markets. The samyang you mention passed under my radar going to have a look at it!
That lens is 2.5 longer than this. So it's comparing that lens with this one is pointless. Pancake lenses always have compromise but people who look into pancake lenses care mostly for size then other things. Also at that focal length majority of things will be in focus anyway so autofocus ain't big issue.
@JungleCatImages I think it all depends on your personal needs and preferences. I own the Samyang you mentioned and I am in currently the process of replacing it for that Laowa, which simply suits my needs/preferences more. Samyang is two stops faster (which can be very useful indoors, like shooting hand-held in a church, etc.) and has AF. Laowa is much more compact/lighter, has much better build-quality, has aperture ring and, last but not least, is wider (and while 2mm doesn't seem like much, I'd argue that in this specific case it;s actually quite significant - after all, we usually buy ultra-wide lens for their wide angle view).. If you compare the above list of advantages, suddenly, the price difference between the two lens seems quite understandable. Especially if you take into account the fact that one of Samyang's advantages - AF - isn't that much of a factor for many people using a lens of this focal length (if you shoot Laowa at f/8 - your hyperfocal distance is 0.64m - everything from 0.32 to infinity is sharp; why would you even care for an AF is such a situation?) Also, Laowa is rather unique among those Chinese lens manufacturers since it specializes in wide-angle lens and is known for correcting them very well. In other words, you're not paying $350 for some cheap Chinese, slow, manual focus lens in this case but rather for an incredibly compact (for its focal length), well-build and optically good ultra-wide lens (btw. check how much you need to pay for a Laowa 9mm f/2.8 zero-d, which is also a manual lens). And finally, to avoid any misunderstandings, I'm NOT trying to convince anyone that Laowa 10mm/f4 is better that Samyang AF 12/f2. I was only trying to show you how differently different people may look at these two lens (and their prices), depending on their personal needs/preferences/perspectives.
@@Apachers Definitely.. different horses for different courses.. It's great that there's so many options available right now, and new ones being released all the time.. I wish I could have, or at least try, them all..
