I received this lens today and thought it deserves a thread of it's own so here goes.
I managed to shoot a few test shots before it got dark and here's some first impressions. (everythings pretty much as in the
lenstip review)
Build quality is good and the lens feels very solid. The front element is a huge chunk of glass with a plastic petal hood around it. Aperture ring has half clicks (except between f16-f22) and a metal button to lock it to A position (which works just as it should btw). Focus ring is not up to Takumar standards but OK, focusing makes a quiet "plastic sliding against plastic" sound.
This thing is sharp! Even wide open sharp sharp sharp!! Achieving critical focus is difficult but my split screen and especially the microprism collar helps. Probably I'll be mostly shooting at infinity with smaller aperture so this won't be a problem. The lens focuses quite a bit past infinity and the actual infinity seems to be somewhere around the 3m mark (have to remember that).
So far no bothering CAs in sight. Tried shooting a cloudy sky through tree branches but nothing. Barrel distortion is quite heavy and there's noticeable vignetting wide open, but both can be corrected in PP (if needed).
I didn't want to post my crappy test shots but here's one from tonight (wide open, lightroom defaults) Full size version here
click
Anyone else have this lens? How do you like it? Please share your shots/thoughts.