Originally posted by Rondec Nice run down of these lenses. I have to say, that I feel like they all render OOF areas pretty well, except the 50 f1.7 isn't so great. Can't really tell much about sharpness at this size and that isn't the point of the test anyway.
The thing about the 50 f1.2 is that while it renders great, the fact that it is a manual focus lens makes it less than useful for a lot of the kind of shooting I do. I have the DA 55 and it has a nice focus ring and should manual focus fine, but I am not a good manual focuser. Invariably I miss, even when stopped down to f2.8. Anyway, I guess I'll always be an auto focuser...
I was originally going to include some 100% crops, but given that I wasn't comfortable that I properly focused each shot, I thought that might be misleading. But as you said, that wasn't the point of the shots and being slightly off with the focus shouldn't have had a profund inpact on the OOF areas.
I agree about the A50/1.2 being excellent optically, but difficult to use (for me anyway). It fine for static shots where you can take your time and retake the shot if you missed the focus. But I have far less success with MF when trying to take shots of my kids unless they're glue to the TV/computer as in the above shot.
That's actually what prompted me to try the DA*55; I figured I could replace both the FA50/1.7 and A50/1.2 with the DA*55. You can see how well that plan worked out... damn you LBA!