| Review of: Sigma Mini Wide II 28mm F2.8 by glitterball on Fri October 23, 2015 | Rating: 8 | View more reviews | |
Views: 221317
Reviews: 30
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Despite some very serious flaws, there is something about the images produced by this lens that I like.
The flaws:
While centre sharpness is quite good, the sides and corners are weak - even when stepped down. For this reason, it is not a good choice for landscapes where corner to corner sharpness is crucial. In fact, chances are any images taken with this lens will be rejected by micro stock websites because of this.
Chromatic aberration is also quite poor.
The Good
The focus ring is very pleasant to use, the lens focuses really close and I quite liked the bokeh. I enjoyed using this lens for night-time shots of friends and family where the blurred corners and sides masked the lens' weaknesses. There is also a nice 3D quality to images.
I tried a few of these lenses and repaired some too, but ultimately there are better legacy 28mm lenses out there - the Carl Zeiss Distagon 28mm f2.8 is a better choice than this (though about 10x the price).
A word of warning to anyone thinking about repairing one of these: the second element from the front 'bubbles' very easily, so the utmost care must be taken when handling it!
Finally, I did some comparisons between this and the Sony SEL2870, Canon FD 28mm and Pentax-M 28mm f3.5 a while back:
http://www.ashleywootton.com/legacy-28mm-lenses-and-modern-kit-lens-comparison/ | |
| Review of: Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar MC 135mm F3.5 by glitterball on Thu October 22, 2015 | Rating: 7 | View more reviews | |
Views: 141019
Reviews: 14
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I tried two copies of the Praktica PB Mount version of this lens, with the hope of using it for some nice compressed landscape type shots.
The lens does have good centre sharpness and contrast and the build quality and feel were excellent.
Unfortunately there is quite a bit of Chromatic Aberration and the bokeh is quite distracting. Ultimately, although I didn't buy this lens especially for shallow depth of field work, it is kind of hard to avoid at this focal length, and out-of-focus areas have a distracting harshness about them.
I also found that this lens flares quite easily and that the built-in hood could do with being a bit longer.
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