[MadMathMind]

That may or may not be true, but in your sales thread] you write

"The consensus on the thread I started seems to be that my expectations are too high for the lens and that there isn't an issue with this copy.

I feel that is a misrepresentation of this thread.

There are a number of people who suspected your copy may have issues. Your reports about AF difficulties and the trouble taking photographs of faces do not rhyme with what other people experience. Therefore, I think you should not misrepresent this thread.

Here's what this thread is, in a nutshell:

OP: I hate this lens
Initial responses: No way! Mine is awesome, so yours must be bad. Post photos.

Photos posted. Then these:

they look not that bad to me. what do you guys think?

I can't see any problems either...

I am looking at the first image at ƒ4 and ƒ2.8, I'm retired and i still don't have time to look at so many images. At the resolution required, I have no idea what is wrong with the photo.

Maybe it would be clear with a pixel peeper, but it's not clear from what's posted. All I can suggest is post a pixel peeper of the part you feel is inadequate.

After that, we get a bunch of photos from other people and a lot of "Oh, mine is awesome, so yours must be bad. Here's a web res image that looks great." None of those responses actually looked at the photos I posted and made an actual assessment of the lens/photos in question. Saying "Mine is great" means nothing because I don't know anyone's standards of great--my FA43 produces images that look fine at web res. Here's an album full of them (all 2048 by X and look great at that resolution, all taken with the K-1):
https://www.flickr.com/gp/madmathmind/EB91o5

Read the thread again. What we have in this thread past page 2 is a lot of "No, my lens is awesome and here's a photo." None of that helps me because aside from the three posts above, no one else actually evaluated my lens against theirs in any way, merely read my complaint and said "Something must be wrong." But not once in this thread do we have anyone who actually looked at the photos and said "Yes, you're right, those suck." We have quite the opposite. Just a lot of speculation that since I am unhappy with the lens, the copy must be bad, because it is impossible to be unhappy with it if it actually works (and you cite MTF scores to show me I must be irrational in not liking it).

What others think is great is seemingly not quite what I'm going for that. In that regard, the lens seems to be doing exactly what it does. But what that is is not pleasing enough to me. And like I said, it worked great on my K-5IIs. It's only the move to the K-1 that has made me unhappy with it.

[UncleVanya]

Here's what this thread is, in a nutshell:

OP: I hate this lens
Initial responses: No way! Mine is awesome, so yours must be bad. Post photos.

Photos posted. Then these:







After that, we get a bunch of photos from other people and a lot of "Oh, mine is awesome, so yours must be bad. Here's a web res image that looks great." None of those responses actually looked at the photos I posted and made an actual assessment of the lens/photos in question. Saying "Mine is great" means nothing because I don't know anyone's standards of great--my FA43 produces images that look fine at web res. Here's an album full of them (all 2048 by X and look great at that resolution, all taken with the K-1):
https://www.flickr.com/gp/madmathmind/EB91o5

Read the thread again. What we have in this thread past page 2 is a lot of "No, my lens is awesome and here's a photo." None of that helps me because aside from the three posts above, no one else actually evaluated my lens against theirs in any way, merely read my complaint and said "Something must be wrong." But not once in this thread do we have anyone who actually looked at the photos and said "Yes, you're right, those suck." We have quite the opposite. Just a lot of speculation that since I am unhappy with the lens, the copy must be bad, because it is impossible to be unhappy with it if it actually works (and you cite MTF scores to show me I must be irrational in not liking it).

What others think is great is seemingly not quite what I'm going for that. In that regard, the lens seems to be doing exactly what it does. But what that is is not pleasing enough to me. And like I said, it worked great on my K-5IIs. It's only the move to the K-1 that has made me unhappy with it.

Did you provide full resolution options for review? If not I would do so in the sales thread and if so i would reference this thread for them to decide on their own. Because I think your own analysis clearly shows that a strong well informed consensus view has not been reached.

I am sorry that I did not tender any opinion, I don't own the 43, my interest is mostly curiosity. Perhaps posting more detail about what you find wrong, and posting shots from other lenses that show what you expect would also have moved the conversation along the path you needed in order to get meaningful feedback.

[Class A]

and you cite MTF scores to show me I must be irrational in not liking it

I referenced an objective measurement to dispel the idea that an intact copy of a FA 43/1.9 is incapable of yielding sharp pictures.

You are free to dislike the lens for whatever reason, e.g., that it isn't that hot wide open, that its corners take quite some time to pick up, that its bokeh can be weird, that you don't like the rendering, etc. But to say that the lens (as opposed to your copy) cannot focus in LV, has difficulty focusing on faces, is not suitable for taking photographs of people, has mediocre resolution, is all refutable.

Your lens review scores fly in the face of pretty much every other review of the lens. Do you think you are the only person caring about sharpness or other lens qualities? Fact: Your evaluated your copy much, much worse than almost everyone else evaluated theirs. You got a lot of opposition in this thread to the idea that the FA 43 is a dud. And your conclusion is that everyone agrees that your copy is just fine?

As I said, it is quite possible that your copy is fine. Looking at your shots, I did not see that your FA 77 were "heads and shoulders" above the FA 43 shots. You may have a strange way of looking at the shots. Frankly, I don't care (anymore). But to state that this thread ended in a consensus that your copy is fine, is just a blatant misrepresentation. If you must, just qualify your statement in the sales thread with the words "... the posters that looked at my test shots ...". It would still not give the full picture of what happened in this thread, but at least you wouldn't be misrepresenting a lot of posters who tried to contribute to this thread.

[redpit]

So, some sample photos with most of the requests satisfied. I still have to do the newspaper one. This probably isn't the best test for focus so let's discuss sharpness and detail.

For this first batch, I was about 4' (about 1m + some) away and focused on the chair's arm near the center of the photo. I didn't use a center focus point but rather one slightly off. ISO is 200. I didn't dial in any EV. Probably should have but this should work ok. I'm not really sure the best way to do 100% crops in posting so here's the images on my Google drive.

YOU CAN ZOOM TO 100% BY CLICKING THE MAGNIFYING GLASS IN THE UPPER RIGHT

I carefully saw your samples here and I cannot come to your conclusions simply based on these photos. Tha FA 77 is my favourite lens but Its rendering is completely different than the 43's and it is not a representative comparison due to the almost double FL of the 77. As others asked you and I agree, is there a lens with corresponding FL that you like and that makes the FA 43 unfavorable, or is it just that this FL range doesn't fit your style and doesn't work for you?

Sorry for my new intervention but I can't quite undesrtand what the problem is and why you rated this lens so bad...

[jls74d00]

Here's what this thread is, in a nutshell:

OP: I hate this lens
Initial responses: No way! Mine is awesome, so yours must be bad. Post photos.

Photos posted. Then these:







After that, we get a bunch of photos from other people and a lot of "Oh, mine is awesome, so yours must be bad. Here's a web res image that looks great." None of those responses actually looked at the photos I posted and made an actual assessment of the lens/photos in question. Saying "Mine is great" means nothing because I don't know anyone's standards of great--my FA43 produces images that look fine at web res. Here's an album full of them (all 2048 by X and look great at that resolution, all taken with the K-1):
https://www.flickr.com/gp/madmathmind/EB91o5

Read the thread again. What we have in this thread past page 2 is a lot of "No, my lens is awesome and here's a photo." None of that helps me because aside from the three posts above, no one else actually evaluated my lens against theirs in any way, merely read my complaint and said "Something must be wrong." But not once in this thread do we have anyone who actually looked at the photos and said "Yes, you're right, those suck." We have quite the opposite. Just a lot of speculation that since I am unhappy with the lens, the copy must be bad, because it is impossible to be unhappy with it if it actually works (and you cite MTF scores to show me I must be irrational in not liking it).

What others think is great is seemingly not quite what I'm going for that. In that regard, the lens seems to be doing exactly what it does. But what that is is not pleasing enough to me. And like I said, it worked great on my K-5IIs. It's only the move to the K-1 that has made me unhappy with it.

I'd have to concur with your assessment of the 43, I have all together stopped using it because the images I was getting were just not usuable. Shooting portraits and then having to chimp at every image to ensure it was sharp was getting repetitive. I have since just put it up on the shelf and use my 77 or 50 1.4. I had high hopes for the lens but it just has not produced the results I expected from the "Trilogy" set. Best of luck!

[MadMathMind]

As others asked you and I agree, is there a lens with corresponding FL that you like and that makes the FA 43 unfavorable, or is it just that this FL range doesn't fit your style and doesn't work for you?

I reacquired a FA50 f/1.7 and have been using that when my 77 is too long or I just want a wider shot. I've found it to my liking, although it doesn't make me swoon like FA77 does. What's interesting is that the FA77 and the FA50 have dramatically different T-stops because what's properly exposed for the FA77 (manual off camera flash settings) is often too bright for the FA50. Thinking about giving the DA55 a whirl. The focal length is starting to get too close to the 77's but I'll check it out.

What I found most displeasing about the 43, beyond its unreliability and just general disappointment in resolving power, is its distortion. I know, I've seen the barrel test images. If you get it perfectly parallel to straight lines, it's fine. What I observed was that unless you were absolutely perfect, the geometry would be very badly skewed. Huge field curvature effects. That made composing images painstaking and greatly reduced the amount of good images the lens produced for me. I don't see these issues with the FA50. At 43mm, the effects of perspective distortion shouldn't be inherently overwhelming like I was seeing.

I'd have to concur with your assessment of the 43, I have all together stopped using it because the images I was getting were just not usuable. Shooting portraits and then having to chimp at every image to ensure it was sharp was getting repetitive. I have since just put it up on the shelf and use my 77 or 50 1.4. I had high hopes for the lens but it just has not produced the results I expected from the "Trilogy" set. Best of luck!

Well, there's two of us now.

[UncleVanya]

I reacquired a FA50 f/1.7 and have been using that when my 77 is too long or I just want a wider shot. I've found it to my liking, although it doesn't make me swoon like FA77 does. What's interesting is that the FA77 and the FA50 have dramatically different T-stops because what's properly exposed for the FA77 (manual off camera flash settings) is often too bright for the FA50. Thinking about giving the DA55 a whirl. The focal length is starting to get too close to the 77's but I'll check it out.

What I found most displeasing about the 43, beyond its unreliability and just general disappointment in resolving power, is its distortion. I know, I've seen the barrel test images. If you get it perfectly parallel to straight lines, it's fine. What I observed was that unless you were absolutely perfect, the geometry would be very badly skewed. Huge field curvature effects. That made composing images painstaking and greatly reduced the amount of good images the lens produced for me. I don't see these issues with the FA50. At 43mm, the effects of perspective distortion shouldn't be inherently overwhelming like I was seeing.



Well, there's two of us now.

Maybe try the HD DA 40. It seems to work well on Full Frame and has excellent performance on apsc into the corners. No it isn't a speed daemon but it is the right focal length.

[Wheatridger]

Focus was narrower than I expected at F5.6, but the chair and the grass around it are as sharp as I can imagine. In the tree shot, I can hardly imagine a sharper, crisper result.

[6BQ5]

I have been thinking long and hard how to describe the 43mm renders and I think I have it.

Imagine shooting a roll of Portra (or equivalent) in your Spotmatic or ME Super, getting the film developed at your lab, and receiving completely grainless film with the crispness of digital. The 43mm will produce an imagine that is as close to film-like as possible in today's day and age without it actually being film.

Forget about in-camera simulations or image processing presets in your software. If you want the "film look" but don't want to shoot film then shoot the 43mm on a K-1. Just wait until today's hipsters find out about this combo and make a rush for all remaining stock of K-1's and 43mm lenses.