I spent a perplexing but entertaining half hour playing with this lens today. I picked it up very cheaply on the 'bay, fascinated by the poor reports. I mean, how bad can it be, right?
It is - technically, at least - the worst lens I have ever come across. Really dreadful. Much worse than my plastic Holga and Diana. Not as sharp as them, even with the benefit of continuous, rather than zone, focusing. With close up subjects, neither my K3 / K5 or I can reliably decide when it is accurately focused (focus confirmation comes on at various points, but rarely when the best sharpness is achieved). What looks clear enough in the viewfinder can come out hazy with big halos, or near enough complete mush. With slightly more distant subjects (say, 6ft plus), focusing is a little easier and the results a little less shocking, but it doesn't get properly sharp until f11, and there's only one more stop after that (where things seem to get a bit worse again!).
And it does *crazy* things when there's strong sunlight from either side, or directly behind the subject. The halos get much stronger, and the bokeh starts tripping out, sometimes with Biotar-like swirling, often with pronounced ghost-like orbs wherever there are points of light!
And yet... I'm really enjoying playing with this lens. I get the feeling it might be great for soft, lo-fi black-and-white photography... maybe some moody portraits, dreamy abstracts and the like. I intend to take just this one lens out for an afternoon and see what can be done.
I can't believe Ricoh mass-produced this lens. It must have put a few people off photography all together, or at least had them questioning the reliability of their cameras. The funny thing is, I'm a huge fan of their 50mm F2... one of my favourite lenses, a great all-round performer. But this... this... Just weird! So bad, it's... good?
Anyone else have experience of it?
Some quick-and-dirty test shots - the first two, wide open; third at F11; fourth to show weird bokeh