Originally posted by Rondec This is a lens that I really want.
I have no doubt you would have a blast with it, you might even end up selling your DFA 24-70mm f/2.8 and switching to primes
Originally posted by Rondec Part of being a good photographer is figuring out what your lens's weaknesses are and avoiding those situations that bring those out -- it's a lot easier with some lenses than others.
The DFA21 has few weaknesses optically - it reminds me a lot of the FA31 in this regard, even with cheap thick polarising filters flare is extremely well controlled. As a result the DFA21 requires
very little in terms of post processing, stop it down to f/8~f/11* and you can be assured of excellent image quality across the frame. In lightroom classic: slight sharpening**, and remembering to check the remove chromatic aberrations is all that is really needed to get images ready for editing. Distortion is present but difficult to detect unless you are working with geometric subject matter that features a lot of lines that have to be rendered precisely.
Pentax K-1 DFA21mm f/2.4 @ f/11 1/30th ISO 100
* The DFA21 does have astigmatism, it is a very common optical issue with wide lenses. It becomes most apparent with near-far compositions, to counter it, slightly pull the focus back from the infinity point. Using magnified live view is excellent for managing this.
** IMO there is always a need for a slight increase in sharpening in images due to high frequency details being slightly attenuated from demosaicing process, for reasons that should be obvious pixel shift images will require less sharpening.