Thanks for all the replies. Really has helped. It seems the answer is somewhere in between.
The first one is the one I did first but, probably because I wasn't entirely happy with it, I fiddled a bit more and came up with the second one. But maybe I overdid it and need to back off a bit. I'll see what I can do.
Paul, The vignettiing was natural and wasn't an added extra by me. It's more obvious in the second because of the higher contrast and generally darker tones. I need to investigate it because I wasn't previously aware this lens vignetted that much. Maybe it was wide open: I don't record stuff like that. Personally, I prefer the vignetting in the first but I like the higher contrast of the foreground, so I'm with Jonas I guess.