[Weevil]

Here's a DA 15 Milky way (and light painting) shot. It did ok but I've done better with a faster lens.

ok, thanks and what was the other fast wide lens you did use ?
Maybe the DA16-50 f2.8 would be better ?

---

Last edited by Weevil; 04-28-2016 at 09:19 PM.

[juristkostya]

Carpathians

[gazonk]

Question for the 15mm LTD owner:
Would that lens be okay to do astrophotography of the muilky way ?
I am asking because we normally use large apertures for that... and seems that this lens has soft edges at large apertures...
I am preparing for a 1st time experience, and wondering wich lens I shoud use...
thanks

Edges are so-so, but I was quite satisfied with this shot @f/4 anyway (a little noisy since I used ISO 3200 on the K-5). But I have minimal experience with astrophotography, so I might be easily satisfied

[Rondec]

Sunrise at Patoka Lake.

[LennyBloke]

On the coast near Torquay, England...

[SwedishTim]

Hello again, I asked a while back about the softness of my lens and I retried some pictures with suggested settings. In the included photo I used f8 but even though the photo is sharp in the middle it is awfully soft towards the sides. Is this to be expected? I can't see the same behaviour in other photos in this thread.


Thanks,
Timmy

[Rondec]

Hello again, I asked a while back about the softness of my lens and I retried some pictures with suggested settings. In the included photo I used f8 but even though the photo is sharp in the middle it is awfully soft towards the sides. Is this to be expected? I can't see the same behaviour in other photos in this thread.


Thanks,
Timmy

Can you try focusing on the nearer edge using live view or just setting your lens to hyperfocal distance? There is no doubt that the edges look weaker than I would expect here, but there is some field curvature with this lens and it may be that if you are focused right in the middle, the edges, which are in a different focal plane will look soft.

[juristkostya]

I'd say, it's a defect

[enoeske]

Hello again, I asked a while back about the softness of my lens and I retried some pictures with suggested settings. In the included photo I used f8 but even though the photo is sharp in the middle it is awfully soft towards the sides. Is this to be expected? I can't see the same behaviour in other photos in this thread.


Thanks,
Timmy

Definitely looks really bad. Exchange that one.

[gazonk]

Hello again, I asked a while back about the softness of my lens and I retried some pictures with suggested settings. In the included photo I used f8 but even though the photo is sharp in the middle it is awfully soft towards the sides. Is this to be expected? I can't see the same behaviour in other photos in this thread.


Thanks,
Timmy

Hmm. The middle doesn't look 100% in focus to me, so it's a bit hard to tell at the reduced resolution. Maybe you could post it in full size? Also, you should try manually focusing and then take a number of shots with slightly different focus settings to see how they turn out. It might just be that you need to tune AF for this lens.

[mattb123]

ok, thanks and what was the other fast wide lens you did use ?
Maybe the DA16-50 f2.8 would be better ?

Exactly.

---------- Post added 04-29-16 at 10:51 AM ----------

Hello again, I asked a while back about the softness of my lens and I retried some pictures with suggested settings. In the included photo I used f8 but even though the photo is sharp in the middle it is awfully soft towards the sides. Is this to be expected? I can't see the same behaviour in other photos in this thread.


Thanks,
Timmy

I agree it looks like there is something wrong. I see you shot at f/8 and from this distance everything should be relatively sharp (edges less sharp, but still much better than this).
I'd send it back for another. I recently sent back a different lens that showed similar results. First time I have had to do that.

[Richard & Sheila]

Hello again, I asked a while back about the softness of my lens and I retried some pictures with suggested settings. In the included photo I used f8 but even though the photo is sharp in the middle it is awfully soft towards the sides. Is this to be expected? I can't see the same behaviour in other photos in this thread.

Looking at the EXIF data you can see that the lens focus region is Macro. This lens is often focussed too close by auto-focus systems, I think. Try manual focus as recommended above. I'd try setting the lens to infinity as a first step to see what happens.

[house]

Hello again, I asked a while back about the softness of my lens and I retried some pictures with suggested settings. In the included photo I used f8 but even though the photo is sharp in the middle it is awfully soft towards the sides. Is this to be expected? I can't see the same behaviour in other photos in this thread.


Thanks,
Timmy

Looking at your exif I see it registers the focus distance as "Macro". I've had the same strange blurry photographs with my hd da15 and looking at the exif I realized all the problematic photos registered the focus distance as Macro despite being landscape photos. How this happens I don't know. I'm even unsure it's a pure focus problem because as far as I understand everything should be blurry when focusing macro on an infinity scene.

My copy of the lens misregisters distance so that it reads "close view" on correctly focused near infinity scenes. Never goes up to "distant".

[edit] Crossposted with Richard and Sheila which seems to have a similar idea!

By never attempting to use hyperfocal and never focussing 1/3 into a infinity scene the problem seems to have beed reduced but I can't tell for sure that's the cause.

Very odd behaviour though and not as it should be.

[dngr]

Looking over Montreal from the harbour with the SMC 15

[northcoastgreg]

Sunset at low tide on Humboldt Bay: