My da 15mm limited is driving me nuts! There's lots to like about it but the corner sharpness is just not good enough. The field curvature and just plain blurry edges make taking a good photo to much hit and miss. Every time I think I've had enough I manage to take a decent photo and start thinking maybe It's just a matter of learning the quirks. But it's not really repeatable unless your subject is arranged in space to fit the optics of the lens. I shoot buildings and spaces.
I've come to the conclusion that I quite like the apsc trade off and also that I much prefer primes to zooms. It's primarily a matter of handling, framing and size not necessarily image quality. Also the k-3 with limiteds is still possible to casually grab when leaving home. It's not a project bringing it along. I wouldn't mind lenses a fair bit larger than limiteds though.
So looking around for options as I have been for ages. Requirements are minimal distortion ultra wide with good/great sharpness across the frame at f8. Speed is not an issue and I would buy f8 lens if it was good and priced accordingly. The main candidates are
- Laowa 12mm f2.8
- Irix 15mm f2.4
- Future Pentax DA* 11-18 2.8 zoom
They are all fast and huge! The coming pentax is a zoom which makes me unhappy but maybe I should go against my preferences. The irix *firestone* is cheap but soo big and I could use a bit more fov. The laowa is probably my preference but hard to get hold of around here. No one has the K mount in stock to get a feel for it.
So just venting really... and sulking in the knowledge that slow apsc primes is not on anyone's roadmap.