xf 56mm f 1.2 on a T-X4 - focus issues?

this might be an old post, but i just got a used 56 1.2 I'm not sure if my copy is good or bad, but here are my findings so far.

at f2 and up this thing is stupid sharp. capture one defaults to a slight sharpening for images, and with some lenses it looks natural. with this lens it looks over sharpened. the lens is so sharp on its own i turn off all sharpening and it is still super sharp (but now natural looking). f2.5 is like a razor blade.

below f2 things are harder to discern. f1.8 is mostly solid. i took it to a ren fest this weeken and can post pics soon, but shot it mostly wide open to test the feasibility of doing so in a general sense.

what i found was a frustrating set of photos with some amazing shots mixed in. a few things to note... first, i focus using single point smallest box or second smallest. back button focus. I'm incredibly steady with my hands. i can easily shoot at much lower shutter speeds than most without ibis. this isn't to boast, but to give a point of reference to what I'm about to say.

at 1.2 i focus by moving the box to a top side rule of thirds quadrant for instance. then focus on an eye. this means no recomposing, and practically zero movement on my part. with many of my shots, the subject was standing still, posing as well. so the least possible movement situation. i tried pressing focus and snapping a shot, i tried almost simultaneously doing as well (still waiting for green acquisition) to eliminate any time for movement. and many of these shots were at a decent distance (3/4 body) and not just head shots.

what i found was a few things. many of the shots were focused on something near the face instead of the eye. a coat, hair, some decoration on the head... and while it might seem i just drifted forward or backwards, i don't believe this is the case. it seems like all the areas that it caught in focus were high contrast edges. so i feel like sometimes the camera tries to find the contrast in the eye but defaults to something close with more contrast. I've seen this with other lenses too, so that strengthens my theory. i didn't use eye detection or manual focus. I'll try those next outing and see how they differ. my gut instinct says f1.2 requires manually focus tweaking most of the time.

another thing i notice was an unpleasant out of focus area near the critical focus plane. it exhibits chromatic aberration and a nervous appearance. but this is when focus isn't perfect. however, when focus is nailed, damn.

some images look tac sharp at 1.2 where it is focused. beard hairs, eyeballs, you name it. razor thin plane of focus, but if it's in it and focused it's super sharp. and the rest is butter. just make sure exposure is correct. this lens is very easily over saturated with exposure. what i mean is that if you expose properly,  everything looks good. if you over expose even a little, there appears to be a lot of diffraction type appearance, with things looking even less focused, soft, and sort of  aberrant. this is moreso than other lenses, possibly due to the longitudinal aberrations  otherwise, this lens is very reminiscent of the 35 1.4 and 90 f2 but possibly smoother. I'd say closer to look the 35 1.4 than the 90 f2 in how smooth the bokeh is.

anyhow, i found f2 was safe. i probably got almost all keepers at f2. most at f1.8. f1.6 was reasonable at a distance. 1.2 and 1.4 were fairly poor keep rates.

my take based on the reasonably limited testing is the following...

if you are a pro portraits photographer, this lens is superb. you can use it all around at f2 and when you do serious portraits and want wider, just use a tripod or continuos low mode and capture a few shots to ensure focus. other focus modes may even work better. I'll need to test more.

if you are a casual shooter, even doing portraits, f2 still looks amazing at 56mm, but I'd opt for the 50 f2 lens. cheaper, smaller lighter, faster focusing. why use the 56 if you're using f2 all the time anyway? rendering is not different enough to matter. there is a blind comparison by reggie something or other on youtube and unless you use 1.2 the 56 doesn't make much sense in my opinion.

however, 1.2 does look amazing when focus is achieved. and it gives you better low light leeway. I'm tempted myself at the idea of the 50 f2 but I'm going to give it more time as i really do love the look at 1.2 and the low light benefit. so we'll see.