lens reviews are a dangerous thing. Sometimes they can shatter your contentment with an owned or desired tool, other times they can instil un-warranted confidence.
I never really know myself if a new lens will sit well with me until I try it for a while. Sometimes the magic just never arrives and I part with a perfectly good bit of glass just because (two 25mm and two 14mm Pana/Leica lenses for example that were excellent, but were moved on in the face of other options).
My preferred process is to discover a gem where one has no right to be. One example of this is the 17mm f1.8 Oly, a lens I cannot see myself being without, and recently lately, the little kit 40-150 has surprised.
All images taken on a variety of cameras within a day of each other and in RAW. Processing is standard for me with a little brush work and basic settings (why look at images that are not processed to my liking?). the files reacted much as I am used to.
If I lied and said this was taken with uber lens “X”, would I get away with it? Sharpness is plentiful these days, even at the bottom of the food chain.
Strong colour, even generous. No sign of any other faults, just a decent image. To be honest, if this was printed and the file lost, I would be hard pressed to work out which lens took it.
Showing signs of it’s lack of pedigree here. The edges are a little soft wide open at 145mm, although not as soft as I thought, as much of the left hand edge detail is actually out of focus (the rocks under the leaves on the left hand side are sharp).
Could this hang in a gallery? Quality wise, there is enough to get by with if the subject is strong enough. Most of my other lenses do have near perfect edges, so this is my low point, but is still well within an acceptable range.
A really sharp image edge to edge and again good control of flare, transition and colour. Taken at 65mm wide open.
A poor image compositionally, but “glassy eyed” and detailed. Nice contrast, not too much, not too little.