Leica VARIO-ELMAR-R 35-70 mm f/4 on Nex 7 (pics)

I've been going back and forth with this lens since it arrived yesterday. At first I liked it:

1. Not too big or heavy on the Nex 7.

2. Seemed nice and sharp.

3. Love the macro capability.

4. Very well built (but wish it had a better cap).

Then I took more shots, and last night I thought I'd return the lens:

1. Too much distortion at 35mm, and somewhat, at 70mm.

2. Macro shot had too much uncorrectable CA at f5.6, and blurry corners.

3. Wishing it was shorter (the darn converter adds an inch).

This morning, I used LR3 distortion correction to correct the 35mm shot, and found that it was still perfectly sharp. All right! Then I retook the macro shot at f8 and f11. It was much better, and nearly completely CA correctable. Yes! But it's still long....

So, now I think I'll keep her, and save $3000 (MATE). Here are some photos from this saga (so far). Click on "Original" to see the largest size I've provided here.

The first photo is of my favorite test place, the Boulder Theater. I'm going back today to test this lens against my Zeiss 24-70mm f2.8.

The next images are macros of a flat leaf, at f8.

Then there's my favorite test wall in Boulder:

100% crops:

Sea urchin macro (2 f8 images stacked):

Taken by my iPhone with perfectly horrible lighting, my Nex 7, Novoflex adapter, and my A77 with the Zeiss 24-70mm lens extended.

Comments, suggestions, advice warmly welcome!
--
Paul Richman
Pixels By Paul