[Leif]

As I received this yesterday, I thought I would some first impressions of the performance on a Nikon D200 body.

For close ups, sharpness is pretty much constant between F4 and F11, with a very slight drop at F16, and a bigger drop at F22, though F22 is probably useable. Edge sharpness is excellent even wide open, though the APS sensor will help here. Rather annoyingly focussing for a wide open shot is near impossible due to the shallow DOF. (I should add that this is a result of physics, and not the lens itself.) For distance, performance is excellent, though with slight softening at F16, and noticeable softening at F22. Again edge sharpness is excellent at all apertures.

Contrast is very high, and is something I've only really seen with the best lenses. My 60mm F2.8 AF micro and 28mm AIS F2.8 produce images with a similar feel.

I've attached some images to give an idea of image quality. These were taken using a cable release and mirror lock up, with a Uniloc 1600 tripod and Markins M10 ball head. In each case the image has had light USM applied.

The first four images are crops from some test photos of a brick wall. The images are crops at 100% from the top left corner. The exposures are F4, F11, F16 and F22. I reckong hat the sharpest is the F4 image, closely followed by F11, F16 and F22, with the last one being noticeably softer than the first.

The next image is of a Bee Orchid, taken this evening at a local National Nature Reserve.

And finally, the last two images (see the next post) are crops from some test photos of a driving licence (the licence almost fills the frame). The images are crops at 100% from the top left corner. The first is F4.5 (wide open) and the second is F8 (closed down almost two stops).

This is without doubt a high performance lens, and my own experiences suggest that the sample reviewed on the ePhotozine web site was a lemon, and a particularly sour and thick skinned one at that.

Now all I have to do is get outside and use the beast. It's a hard life.

Leif