NOT HAPPY with my DA 35mm F2.4AL

This is where I would say I am at the moment, much happier than after those first shots, but I can get good focus Manually and by using Liveview so I just need to regain confidence in the AF.

Virtually all (if not all) my lenses focus slightly beyond infinity. On the AF lenses it's more noticeable, but even the old manual lenses need to be tweaked slightly back from the maximum focus to be 100% accurately focused to infinity.

To infinity ...... and beyond ......hey it out guns the Tamron, who cares if it looks blurred in the view finder. I had 60 images and I couldn't tell where I'd pointed the focus, so just picked f8 from the 2.4 and f5.6 from the Tamron (sweet aperture). Quick comp from LR3.6


DA35 on the right, resized down from screen capture on iMac
[IMG]http://i740.photobucket.com/albums/xx49/df8/b9cd935b.jpg[/IMG]

DA35 f8.0
[IMG]http://i740.photobucket.com/albums/xx49/df8/554a8c3a.jpg[/IMG]

Tamron 17-50mm f5.6
[IMG]http://i740.photobucket.com/albums/xx49/df8/a942e4a9.jpg[/IMG]

Not that you can tell diddly from a resized 16M to 800 pixels

I'll take my notebook out next time. And note where I was pointing the damn AF point.......

i see jessops are now selling the da35 at just under £130 mark which obviously is not as cheap as amazon but at least you can try before you buy

You can't tell too much from one shot especially when you don't know where they are focussed. That's why I prefer lenses that work at infinity.... usually everything from about 5m to infinity is then in focus.

It might be the lighting, but the one on the left looks sharper, but considering it's a prime against a zoom I would be surprised if it was.

Mine seems quite sharp right across the frame, but the lights been bad.
It does look good though in the shadow areas which means it has good contrast.

I'm glad somebody's paying attention. DA35 on the left Glad you spotted my deliberate mistake. I'm full of cold...... cough cough

Here's the 35mm f2.4 at f8, on a K20D. This lens is one of the batch from Amazon.
[IMG]http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff250/johnriley1uk/02635mmf8.jpg[/IMG]

That shows good sharpness right across the frame

If that's true it shouldn't really matter where the actual focus point is so long as it's sufficiently far away - if you get that sort of focus range at infinity, you should still get a pretty big focus range on any distant object? (I presume Doug was sensible enough to focus on a similarly distant object in both shots!)

Anyway what puzzles me is Doug's choice of f8 for the DA35. Why not use f5.6, the same as the Tamron? The actual sweet spot of the DA35 is f4 (according to Photozone.de) although it's pretty consistent between f3.2 and f5.6, and only slightly less sharp at f2.4 and f8, where it is still 'excellent' in the centre and 'very good' at the borders.

Another issue is, I am much more interested in the performance of the lens at f2.4 versus the Tamron, especially at portrait/close up distances. For a landscape shot like the ones in Doug's examples, you'd probably reach for the Tamron unless you were determined to travel light. For a portrait or candid, the DA35 which is less threatening and should offer nicer rendering, is what I would go for.

At f8, sharpness-wise, I shouldn't imagine you could tell it much apart from any decent zoom unless you really pixel peeped (as in Doug's example above - would you really be able to tell those shots apart if you printed them, or resized them for the web? :wink It's the rendering at wider apertures which make a lens like this interesting - to me anyway.

I reckon if people are buying this lens expecting a significant notch up in sharpness over their zoom lens at typical outdoor apertures, they may be underwhelmed or even disappointed. If they are buying it expecting lovely bokeh, colours and rendering, they will be pleased with their new bargain lens!

cough cough, I had 5 mins! Cough, I'll be back there next week with my tripod and notebook, if I live that, cough, long ....

I'm reassured DA35 is Sharp (more than Tan 17-50), I still need to test the issue of why it is OOF in the viewfinder. I don't have this with any other lens I have.

Defo worth every one of the £67 I paid.

That looks sharp enough. Looking forward to getting mine.

Dutch Avengers eh?

We seem to share a taste in TV series as well as cameras .

In English with Dutch subtitles, so you know where to call if you're passing by!

Lazy, lazy, lazy.

But you don't have to do TESTS to draw the sort of conclusions I've drawn about this lens... Just take pictures and admire the lovely rendering!

As to why it isn't sharp in the VF but is when you take a picture - surely that can only be down to the dioptre adjustment? Unless age is taking it's toll on your eyes....

(or mind... :twisted

I can feel each nail as you hammer it in! Cough ...

Just done some quick tests on mine at f/5.6 by taking 3 shots of a
chimney, one with it in the centre of the frame, one LHS
and one RHS and there isn't much difference, which indicates
that it is an excellent lens. The Jpg AWB colours were
again spot on.

Also tried infinity focus on a house about 150m away.
One shot AF and one shot visually in the viewfinder.
The AF shot was slightly better, although I should have
done about 4 shots each for a more accurate result.

There's only the focus beyond infinity problem that
causes me any concern about this lens. I suppose
I'll have to use it AF which I rarely do with any
lens.