So, I had to go to Austria for business and decided to make the most of the opportunity and combine a 2-day trek in the mountains on the weekend. The company was so nice to pay a car for me on the weekend too, so I decided to divert the planned budget for the car rental to the rental of the DFA 50*
An almost mystical atmosphere welcomed me early in the morning, followed by a rain shower of tropical proportions (ode to WR!) and then a nice sun in the afternoon. I had only the 50* on the K1 with me as I wanted to use it as much as possible. You can find the photos here:
Sonnschienalm | Flickr
All OOC jpgs, downsized to 2000px. I only used a gradual (digital) filter on the alp at sunset to bump up the grass a bit.
Since the monitor of the camera decided to stop working the day before, I coud not check the results live. A "back to the film-era" experience!
My thoughts on the lens. I am no pixel-peeper, so resolution on the far corners at f1.4 doesn't really interest me. I look at the overall rendition of the image, whatever characteristic of the lens it comes from
The image quality is STUNNING. The pictures at early morning with mist and water reflection just breathe, I have the feeling of being just there when I look at them. I find he clarity of the water and the trees amazing. This kind of rendition is what makes me love my 43 and 77 but this is on another level. I don't think the 43 would have given the same results.
I found no weak points. I could shoot f1.4 or f11, backlight, side light, front light, close, far. It's the same. Quality, quality, quality. No weak points.
f1.4 is practically unusable hand-held. *edit: I mean at close distance here, due to shallow DOF.
The minimum focusing distance is quite close, surely closer than all other non-macros I have had. It gives some more freedom for close-ups.
The transition to out-of-focus area is always very very smooth. I find it pleasant. I found some family feeling with my other star lens, the 50-135. The 77 has a more unique and 3D rendering which the 50 does not have. But the words of the developers come to my mind, more or less: "particular renditions are pleasing to some people, but here we wanted to develop a lens that could deliver on every circumstance". So again, I found no weak points. If the 77 ranges from 10+ (3D pop on portraits for example) to 5/6 (fringing, huge loss of contrast with lateral light at times), the 50 ranged from 9.5 to 10 all the two days.
It is heavy but surprisingly well balanced. I had no problems carrying it all day, although I had to shift shoulder now and then. Construction is army-weapon-level. Manual focusing has the best feeling of any lens I tried.
What prevents me from buying it is the combination of weight, cost and focal length. If I have to spend this amount of money, I want a lens that I can basically glue on the camera, also considering that its weight alone is still ok, but if I would have to carry also other lenses it would become too much. And actually the 50mm have never been a focal length I "click" with. The 43 is just a litte wider but somehow it makes a big difference for me. These of course are just considerations based on personal taste.
With the K20 I loved the field of view of the 21mm, so if they come up with a 30-ish mm with this quality...
Last edited by kyukyu; 08-17-2018 at 11:06 PM.