f/2.8. Slightly cropped, curves applied in post-processing.
f/8. Uncorrected straight out of camera, showing the high flare resistance and contrast with the sun in the frame. If you are unlucky, you might get a little of this with the sun just outside the image too.
f/5.6. Boring picture, pretty much only showing that there is no light fall-off when using a full frame lens on an APS-C sensor, but the next one...
...shows the sharpness when sharpened in post-processing. 100% detail from the above picture. I wouldn't rank this lens as the sharpest there is, but it is adequately sharp.
f/2.8. Sharpened. Front bokeh is nothing but quite lovely, I must say. Having an unstabilized, tiny, very lightweight lens on the equally lightweight NEX does nothing for hand-held stability however.
f/2.8. Cropped and sharpened. Back bokeh is nothing to write home about. Wiry lines and bright-ringed highlights with a bright dot in the center.
f/8. Developed from RAW, D-Range applied. Sharpened. Remarkably, the lens exhibits absolutely no purple fringing.
Detail from above, at 100% pixel peeping level. Unsharpened (but D-Range applied).
Detail from above, at 100% pixel peeping level. Unsharpened. Detail is usually a little better than this, there was a slight haze over the sea.
f/8. Developed from RAW, cropped and sharpened. Using the lens in zone focusing is the easiest. It has a helpful marking for infinity focusing at f/8, using hyperfocal focusing. It generally works good for street shooting, the flip screen on the NEX really helps for horizontal shots, too bad I am more of a vertical shooter.
To summarize: the lens is good, but not awesome. In fact, the experience of painstakingly adapting it and then seeing the results well mimicks earlier experiences with "legendary" lenses I have hunted down and used: they are usually overhyped and not worth the effort. This lens might be, however, not because of any truly outstanding optical properties but rather because it's absolutely tiny. Then again, it lacks auto focus and stabilization, so it's a special case for sure.
That's it, folks!
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