[Rover]

 I think that's somewhat of an exaggeration...although perhaps they have been looking over Fuji's shoulder  ....

....most lenses at that FL have strongish distortion but not many achieve the resolution of the Samyang into the corners.....corrected it will still be "way way" better than mediocre......the word on the street is that it's quite the opposite in fact...... also, it is often used for astro-photography where straight lines are not of high importance.

 At  â‚¬345 grey and €395 non grey... it's the sort of price a lot of people will pay for a lens that may not be often used.

  Because of all that, the Samyang (and in it's other guises) has become a "cult lens", however as you say one has to "fix bayonets" in the battle to find a good copy. (I'm just sharpening mine now B) ) 

 

  Oh and in the Nikon and Pentax mount it is AE.......sweet.....

I thought there was a shot of a Canon version - and it had electronic contacts too?

Personally I find Samyang's stance inexcusable. They should at least include the Dandelion chips. But that's beside the point.

It's a nice touch that this lens can accept filters, however large they are, because with pretty much everything else mentioned so far (15mm or wider) you're SOL for front filters. Unless you're using external filter systems with square glass, and that adds to bulk and cost greatly. I'm a little worried that they're emphasizing "bells and whistles" so much (the dual build versions with fancy names) - something's telling me that whenever the manufacturer is doing this, there's something wrong with the product itself, and / or the company is not confident in it. I'm still laughing at the "it has a metal ring at the front of the zoom ring to give it an upscale image" line from the description of the (otherwise awful) Canon 75-300mm f/4-5.6 III lens ("The silver ring at the front of the zoom ring presents high-quality appearance" is an equally laughable sentence from the marketing description of the Canon 28-90 kit lens - I see they were that desperate to push it).  Maybe it's just me though.