another silver lens...

Well I agree with you that the distance scales aren't very useful on the 12mm, much less than I thought. This is the first thing I looked at on the 17mm and alas I came to the same conclusion as you.

However, this sophisticated mecanism produces at least one good result compared to other lenses focusing by wire : they give you a real feedback as you are focusing, a much better experience than with a lens completely focusing by wire. Yes, you can go past infinity, but just a tad, not much further : this is a feature shared by most legacy lenses too (it ensures that they will work well with any body, whatever tolerance they have). However, you get a stop, you can't turn the lens without feedback for an indetermined time before returning. This is a great advantage with respect to other lenses.

But you are right the distances scales aren't so useful : why include having marks for F22, F11 and F5.6 is not enough. Why don't they drop F22 and use that place to add F2.8 or F4 ? Why not showing F8 ?  if they drop F22 the space remaining is enough to allow more interesting marks.. My guess is that they don't do it, because it would lack precision, unlike legacy entirely mechanical lenses. So yes, this is apparently a retro thing, which is less useful than I hoped. But don't drop the baby with the bath water : manual focusing is much better than with usual focus by wire lenses. At least it is with my 12mm.

--
rrr_hhh