Originally posted by Maffer Yah, the focusing can be tricky but I'm used to MF with M50 1.7. It's just too bad if this K200D fails with AF. How to fix the focus then? K20D would allow for adjustements. Otherwise let's see. I need a lens that:
A) is a bit wider than the M50 - check!
B) has AF for situations in which there is not a lot of time to hassle with MF - check!
C) allows for narrow DoF - check!
D) doesn't take a hell lot of room in the bag - check!
C) looks sturdy - check!
31ltd and the Zeiss lenses would be a bit out of the budget. So other real options would be pancake 40ltd and perhaps DA35 macro ltd which, however, allow only for F2.8. Of course there is FA50 1.4 which would be the cheap solution but is not any wider than the M50...
Zeiss is out of my price league and I am too lazy for MF lenses, anyways. Your reasoning sounds good except i wouldn't know whether the 43 is that much wider than the 50. But, the 43 ltd. is a better performer than the 50's though. Infact I think the 31 would be too close to the 43, that I am not even craving for it (frankly don't see the 31 to be any better after viewing the images at Pbase and Flickr).
I bought it as it would be a suitable portrait lens (I don't shoot just the face, but include the torso or the whole body with my portraits). This will d the trick and stopped down to F4, it would be perfect for landscapes for which I crave edge to edge sharpness and micro-contrast, none, not even the 31 is better at F4.
This is a new lens, and I am at the puppy love stage, so there is that factor.
But, unless you can do focus adjustment, I would not recommend this to you. My images at 1.9 were very soft prior to dialing in +120 in my K10D.