I guess I'll take "soft" then...
I have recently been collecting fast 50 lenses I thought I didn't need; added a Pentax-A 50mm f/1.4 and Cosina K 50mm f/1.2 to the mix. Yes, it's called "LBA".
Until now, I've only used the FA 50mm f/1.4 wide open, in AF mode. Like most everyone, I found it to be quite "soft when used wide open" and rarely have a keeper from its use that way. I didn't think it was mis-focusing because pretty much everyone states that as their findings. I also didn't try manual focusing it, because between with its short throw, thin focus ring, K10D's lack of a decent split screen, my bad eyes but need to remove my eyeglasses to use the camera, it doesn't really lend itself to enjoyable manual focusing, or good result.
Then I got the Pentax-A 50/1.4. I first tried it with the 1.7x AF TC (I'll be making another thread about that later, because results with that too, were not what I expected). Took the TC off and did some normal manual focus shots. With the limited tungsten light, my bad eyes, need to take my glasses off when looking thru the viewfinder, and lack of a screen like the katzeye, I just used the focus hexagon and hoped for the best. I'll tell you, with its focus ring's "longer than I'm used to" throw, focusing with it was a joy. I loaded the RAWs and did some
minimal post processing. I was
very pleasantly surprised.
So, I'll say again... "
This is soft when used wide open"? If you follow my "Your Pet a Day" thread you've already seen some f/2.0 shots with the lens (the most recent f/1.4 one found @ the bottom here).
This one is cropped a bit both above and to the right. Being further away and then cropped gave me a bit more depth of field. Results are probably the best of the three posted here.
This one was only cropped to a 5:7 aspect ratio.
This was only cropped on the left from a 2:3 aspect to 4:5 only to give Nala a "rule of thirds" framing". I was quite close here, really illustrating the narrow depth of field.
I am floored by the difference the Pentax-A 50/1.4 manually focused gives me from the FA 50/1.4 AF'ed.
Me likie...you?