Another sunny day yesterday! So I set up my K10D to emulate my K110D -- 6 megapixels, Natural rendering and nothing boosted -- and mounted the Asunuma Close-focusing version on the K110D and the Sears non-close-focusing version on the K10D. (Good thing I had two M42-K-mount adapters.) Then I drove to the little Riverfront Park along the Illinois River, where I thought the sun would be behind me,I'd be sheltgered from the wind, and I would have a nice view of the bridge, barges, waterbirds, park equipment, and visitors. Except the wind was coming right down the river, the sun was behind the bridge, no barges passed, and the only birds, the herring gulls, were getting spooked to a distant corner of the parking lot by cars and dog walkers. I huddled on a park bench and did the best I could...until my hands started freezing.
Except where noted, these are all shot wide open (f/4.5), not a great aperture for creating depth of field in landscape shots, but good for finding a lens's weaknesses. Most of the shots are at either 90mm (a weak spot for the my copy of the Sears, we know already, even at f/8) or at 230mm. I shot a few with one camera, and tried to do the same shots with the other, going back and forth. These are the best executed pairs, failures were the fault of the photographer.
A -- 90mm, gull flock across parking lot, but I may have been focusing on the brown railing just behind them:
Sears non-CF
Asanuma CF
B -- 230mm same scene, but closer:
Sears non-CF
Asanuma CF
C -- 90mm, an interesting utility truck was temporarily parked in my view. Focus is on the yellow water jug.
Sears non-CF
Asanuma CF
D -- 230mm, treetops across the river, very near but not quite at the infinity focus point for each lens version
Sears non-CF
Asanuma CF
E -- 230mm, crack in sidewalk, at closest non-CF-mode focus point. Clouds may have briefly moved in enough to cool the color temp of the first of these.
Sears non-CF
Asunuma CF
F -- 230mm, floating doc assembly currently out of water, focus point was on the near center area. I meant to shoot this pair at both at f/5.6, but I now believe I shot the Sears wide open again....fingers were smarting from cold about then.
Sears non-CF
Asanuma CF
End of pairs, I'll add just a few more that I captured only with the Asanuma CF in the next post.
A few observations:
* At 90mm, the Asanuma looks sharper to me, but at 90 the Sears had looked less sharp than it is at 230 in an earlier test.
* Either I was accidentally nudging the Sears to less than the intended focal length, or the Asanuma has more reach at the same markings than the Sears, see pairings A and B.
* Both cameras have the same kind of sensor, but the K10D is especially regarded for its color; however, despite that advantage, the Sears seems to have been beaten in color warmth. I am guessing that the Asanuma has coatings or more advanced coatings. Also, the lens design changes may have corrected issues across the board, not just enabled the close-focus mode.
* On a 4x6 print, it might be hard to tell a difference between sharpness in the pairs for the treetops or for the floating dock, but the Asanuma seems to have a slight edge. In more that one of the tests it seems to have more depth of field at the same aperture, but that could partly be unsharpness in the Sears non-closer-focus version. Also, that is more visible in the 90mm shots, not this Sears's strong suit.
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---------- Post added 02-03-17 at 03:30 PM ----------
Here are three more that I only got with the Asanuma: the truck at 230mm, the sidewalk crack in close focus mode and from above rather than at an acute angle, and a gull on the wing (any unsharpness in this one is my fault). NOTE: The flying gull is at 135mm!
I couldn't get the truck with the Sears at 230mm before it drove off. Dang! I expected that comparison to be especially helpful.
Last edited by goatsNdonkey; 02-03-2017 at 02:34 PM.