Stephen,
Thank you for your response. Much appreciated.
Lance,
I have always liked the sharpness of the DA12-24.
Yes, it is very sharp, but for some reason I am not as enarmoured with it as many are. I like to use the DA14 in preference and this is part of the reason for my purchasing the DA15, which I hope to pick up tomorrow.
The DA12-24 doesn't focus as closely as the DA14 (or DA15) nor does it have DOF scale, which I use extensively.
Ned made sure I got a nice DA*16-50 and I think it is good from 16-17mm and very good to excellent from 18mm forward. Color balance and contrast are superb.
Yes, this is what I beilieve, too. Quite an underrated lens (if you get a good one that is), IMO.
The DA 15mm performs as well as any of the above with a degree of sharpness centrally that can be pixel peeped but not readily noticed even in large prints.
Looking at the Photozone results, this seems to be very true.
I personally find the output of the above lenses not to be drastically different overall. I do prefer the color rendering of the DA15 and the DA* to the DA12-24.
This would be to do with the Limited type design, I would say. Limiteds do seem to have wonderful colour.
Additionally, the DA12-24 seems to overexpose by perhaps a quarter of a stop compared to the others. Why this happens....?.... I don't know. Coatings?
I have found this, too.
Where I have found the DA 15mm most valuable is in it's compactness, quick focus and dependable output when stopped down anywhere between a half stop and f8. I don't find curvature to be problematic at all in a lens with this degree of coverage.
The small size is a reason for my purchasing it, but the colour balance and overall IQ are the other advantages I see.
Consistant with all these wide angles (as well as with Nikon and Canon wides) CA is problematic at the edges. I purchased the K 7 a while back but have not had time to unbox it. It will be interesting to see if the in house CA corrections are superior to CS3 or just a gimmick.
CA is easily correctable in post process RAW, as you know, so I do not find it so much an issue with most lenses. Having said that, I do find the CA of the DA12-24 more difficult to correct than any of my other lenses. I am using Silkypix and in some cases, the CA cannot be completely removed, esepecially if I use the distortion correction in correlation to the CA removal, whereas with other lenses it is easily removed even with distortion correction. This only happens in sometimes, so I am not sure of the problem. The DA*16-50 ends up looking so nice when compared to the DA12-24 for a similar scene.
Early in my career I had the Pentax's FF 15mm. While it was an outstanding film lens (and a work of art) it did not produce particularly sharp images on a sensor. This DA15 can produce sharp images and is a heck of a lot of lens and output for the money.
As you know, the A15 was a FF lens and
hugely wide, whereas the DA15 is really a 23mm equivalent, so you can forgive the A15 for being not quite that good. ;-)
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Lance B
http://www.pbase.com/lance_b
