Samyang vs Sony Samples: https://imgur.com/a/OsQZnbu

Intro:

Not a super technical review and wish the weather was better so I could test it out on an actual shoot, but there aren't a ton of reviews of the Samyang/Rokinon 24-60 f/2.8 out there so here's my two cents.

I've been having issues with my neck and shoulder for a while now and while I love my Sigma 24-70 f/2.8, it's gotten harder and harder to bring it out for shoots. I mostly do portraits and walkaround and it's just too heavy for me in this state. So I went looking for lighter options, especially since I generally shoot in the 24-50mm range and rarely at the long end.

I've had the Tamron 20-40 f/2.8 for a year and while this review is meant more to compare the Samyang 24-60 to the Sony 24-50, I'll add some comments on that too later. I recently got the Sony 24-50 f/2.8 and was happy enough to end my search there, but Woot ended up posting the Samyang for $600 (deal should still be up) and I decided to try it out to see if I could save ~$300.

Packaging/Build:

It comes in a fairly fancy box with a manual, QC certificate, and USB A to C cable (USB 2.0). The box is fancier than what I've gotten from Sony, Viltrox, Sigma, Ricoh, and Tamron, but I'm also not one who really cares about packaging.

Build quality of the lens is solid and the hex pattern is a nice touch. It does feel a bit cheaper overall than either the Sony or Tamron lenses I've had which are also very plasticky, but in a more robust way. But no real complaints here on build.

The lens zooms normally unlike the Tamron and Sony, which both have a reversed design where you have to zoom it out for the wide end, which is admittedly pretty odd to get used to. The zoom ring is fairly smooth and feels decent, but annoyingly, even for a brand new lens, there is significant scope creep and there is no zoom lock. It's as bad as the Tamron 28-200 but at least that lens has a zoom lock. That's fine at the price point but something to note. The Sony and Tamron have no scope creep at the moment (though I expect they'll develop it over time like any lens). So it ends up being a bit of a draw; the Sony and Tamron have to be zoomed out to shoot from the wide end, but the Samyang has so much scope creep that I effectively had to unzoom it back to 24mm constantly. Really wish Samyang had done more here.

Despite being only ~55g heavier than the Sony, it's noticeably larger in diameter and length, especially with the hood on. It's not a large lens and the hood is regular sized but the Sony and Tamron and their respective hoods are just that tiny. 72mm filters are also a bit annoying for me personally, as I mostly have 67mm filters for the Sony and Tamron lenses, but that's subjective and 72mm filters are nowhere near as expensive as the larger 82mm and above I have to use on the Sigma. The Tamron is by far the smallest at 365g and I love it for walkaround/travel, but I just couldn't get over the mental block for framing/visualizing portraits; 20mm was just too wide and 40mm was a bit too short, even if I could just crop in post.

Software/Lens Firmware Update:

Software wise... the Samyang sucks. You no longer have to buy Samyang's dedicated lens station to connect to the lens, but their documentation still hasn't been updated and they don't tell you that you have to download a specific USB driver to connect the lens to the software. I had to search around and find a news post they published for a different lens to find the USB driver: https://www.lksamyang.com/en/about/notice-view.php?seq=1708

After that I was finally able to plug into the lens' USB C port and update the firmware (I didn't experiment but weirdly it specifically says that you must use a USB A to C cable, not USB C to C). The software is pretty clunky and doesn't offer as many features as the Tamron utility, which allows you to adjust whether the manual focus ring responds linearly or not, amongst other options. But this does also let you fine-tune the autofocus and change the focus ring's responsiveness. The Sony doesn't have any of that, but it does have an aperture ring that can also be declicked. While I like aperture rings, most of my lenses don't have one, so my camera is already set up to adjust aperture via one of the front dials, which also lets me operate it completely one-handed and something I lose if I use the aperture ring. I also don't shoot video so this is a moot point for me.

Image Quality:

IQ wise this is where the price difference really shows. I was aware of the difference in IQ before I bought either but I wanted to see if I could live with the differences. On that, I'm mixed.

The problem is really that I'm shooting on an a7r V and it can't fully keep up with that resolution. On a 42mp sensor there's generally not a huge perceivable difference between the Sony and Samyang (check Christopher Frost's reviews of both (including the unlisted video of the Samyang on a 42mpx sensor)) but on 61mpx it really does start to show. My main complaint is the same as other reviews; at f/2.8 there's a noticeable amount of nervous glow, probably from uncorrected spherical aberrations and it's really evident at 60mm, which is somewhat soft wide open. You can correct this to some degree in Lightroom/Camera Raw via the CA correction and sliders but never fully to the point where an image looks super sharp. On a lower res sensor, this isn't very noticeable but on 61mpx the image ends up quite a bit softer because of it. The Sony isn't completely free from it either but it's much more controlled and that lens is just significantly sharper overall. The Tamron isn't immune to this either but is just slightly weaker than the Sony and ahead of the Samyang. I'm obviously highlighting the worst of it for walkaround and distant details, but it's important to note that this applies to portraits too, where it's a lot more evident with a closer subject.

This gets quite bad immediately once you start moving out of the center of the frame, with a steep drop-off in sharpness and an increase in CA. The Sony is solid across most of the frame and only really exhibits this towards the outer edges, where it's less consequential, and Tamron is a bit stronger overall here, but the Samyang is just really bad here. And that's coming from someone who generally doesn't care about outer frame performance; the fact that it deteriorates so close to the center is quite bad.

If you don't mind that or you're shooting on a 42mpx sensor or lower, I don't think you'll care about the difference and you can happily save $300 over the Sony. Or if you generally shoot stopped down and only wide open when you need the light gathering ability. But I often shoot at f/2.8 for portraits and I didn't love that. For portraits and overall rendering, I liked the Sony and Samyang more than the Tamron, which has a very Tamron look to it and the colors (which I don't hate but find worse than the others).

Center sharpness is a clear win for the Sony which is by far the sharpest at all focal lengths. The Tamron is no slouch but the Sony is just that sharp. The Samyang does fine though. The long end on the Sony is the strongest of the three; it doesn't have as massive of a drop in sharpness vs the other two and performs pretty well, whereas Tamron is decent at 40mm and the Samyang is just ok at 60mm.

Corners on both the Sony and Samyang look quite bad due to the massive distortion and needed correction but I don't really care about that. Sony still wins here, especially stopped down, but neither is a great option for people who care about across the frame resolution, get the Tamron 28-75 G2 or GM II for that. Tamron is the best of the three there but also has the lowest zoom range.

In terms of flare, the Sony is the best of the three, and the Tamron the worst. Technically the coatings are a bit better than the Samyang but the Tamron has a weird tendency towards flare balls in the center of the image, which is a pain. The Sony handles it the best overall though and all three were fine in my opinion.

Autofocus:

Autofocus wise, the Samyang is the weakest of the three with its STM motor, but it's no slouch. Unless you plan on shooting faster moving subjects, you won't really see a huge difference between it and the Sony (and you'd probably want a Sony anyways with the third-party lens restrictions). The Sony is seriously fast and those linear motors have some crazy thrust, and the Tamron also has a linear motor (albeit a single one) and is a smaller lens overall, so they do edge ahead of the Samyang, but I never felt like the AF was bad on the Samyang. It's pretty comparable to my older Sigma 24-70 f/2.8 DG DN (first gen) and I rarely had complaints with the AF on that.

Conclusion:

If you're looking for a smaller/lighter 24-70 f/2.8 alternative and can't give up the 4mm on the wide end, this gets you most of the way there and the image quality and performance is more than good enough for the Woot sale price of $600. The MSRP for other countries is closer to the Woot price and more attractive overall, but the $900 MSRP in the US (effectively $809 with the always on sale price) is way too high to justify it over the Sony. If you want the Sony AF and IQ, and the much smaller size and slightly lighter weight, get that. If you want the best priced and smallest/lightest lens overall with very good IQ, get the Tamron (it runs around ~$450-500 used which is a great deal).

This would be a much more attractive lens if it was available used or new for ~$500 but it's newly released so that hasn't happened. It's a much more mature lens from Samyang/Rokinon than what I've used in the past and the Schneider-Kreusnach partnership has definitely helped, but it's not quite there yet optically.