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Almost a review: but this lens doesn't really need reviewing as such.
It's so stupidly cheap it's one those products where I'll take a chance on it and chuck it if it's no good.
I have to say straight up that if you thought of this lens, considered this lens or have already hit the buy button on this lens the above "taking a chance" scenario is not what you'll find.
it's a great/handy/fun little lens.
First up it weighs 'nothing'. Obviously it weighs something, but it's accurately described as 'weighs nothing'.
I used to have a Nikon 50/1.8 E and it felt heavier I remember. Dunno the specs on it, but that's how I remember it.
If I picked it up and had to estimate it's weight, I'd say maybe 50-100g or a carrot, or a pack of chips .. less than a (family) block of chocolate.
Quality of materials are cheap. Not cheap as in totally crapola .. just not Sigma/Tamron/Nikon quality plastics or feel of solidity(on the whole). But it doesn't feel creaky or loose or badly put together .. just feels like a cheap and nasty Chinese brand cordless drill type cheap.
Some will argue it's not metal and it's not durable .. those folks are better off reading proper reviews of Zeiss and Leica prime lenses.
Here's a quick post on thoughts, comments, feelings and opinion thoroughly lacking in detailed analysis other than the value for money side of the equation.
Price: Y35/2 came in at $120 and the Y50/1.8 came in at $90 .. they're cheaper for Canon tho. Nikon equivalents come in much much more expensive, but you can get slightly cheaper versions with AF constraints. eg. Nikons' 35/2 AF-D is only 4x the price of the Y35/2 but can't AF on D3xxx/5xxx and the older D50/60/40 and so forth type bodies that need AF-S. Both the Y's are AF-S .. but!
This all relates to the 35mm f/2 for Nikon.
Focus: sounds like a couple of mozzies making whoopee inside the lens, takes it sweet @$$ time about getting there on the whole, but not overly annoying. It auto focuses faster than a Zeiss prime tho .. which is unimportant once you realise that Zeiss primes on Nikon/Canon/Pentax bodies don't AF!
I think Zeiss do make AF-ing primes for some other non Sony cropped frame bodies .. but this is irrelevant ..
The important point is that AF has yet to annoy me. It's slow, it feels slow, but then again so were the 50/1.8 and 1.4 AF-D lenses I once tried .. I got the Sigma 50/1.4 instead of the Nikon wayyy back pre Art era. Still have it.
Handling: is weird! I'm so used to the way all my other lenses work, this one is a bit annoying. The only reason I mention this is that it sometimes annoys me(and I know it will into the future too.
Manual focus is coupled or not .. but not both! That is with all other AF-S type lenses I've just over ridden focus setting on lens using the focus ring. So lens may have focused automatically as per the request from the camera, but I didnt' like it and want to move it . with any lens up to these Y's I just grab the ring and re focus. Not so with the Y's. You have to move the focus method switch to M(manual) first for the focus ring to have any effect. SO the switch couples and decouples the focus ring mechanism.
If you AF all the time .. disregard this section. If you manually focus all the time, same deal. If you do both as you see fit too .. then you'll hate it too. I can't say it's a deal breaker for me.
Sharpness: good. actually really good in some situations to close to excellent in others. Your ability to hold steady is key to sharpness quality. I say that last bit as it is for me. On a tripod with MLU set and delays waited out for mirror to stop shaking the flimsy tripod on soft carpetted flooring .. sharpness is good to excellent.
CA: bad to not bothersome!What that means is that it's there if you try hard to induce it, but when you just shoot stuff .. it's not.
Bokeh: generally good haven't seen any bad looking stuff yet. Haven't tried hard, but have basically taken many images kind'a looking for it.
Some sample images:
Whole image.
crops at 100% zoom view for assessing sharpness and bokeh:
focus point at the edge of the frame through the vf. Note that I was half kneeling with a dodgy knee so some loss of IQ could be(is) me!
Bokeh at 100% pixel view looks OK. I can't imagine that it'll cause too much problem. I think its a 6 or 7 bladed aperture design.
CA. You can hardly see it, but it is there. You need to have really good eyes, or pixel peep heavily. Flare is OK-ish. Can be made if you try harder tho
100% crop of the offending CA rendering
Tone rendering: good. not too much contrast to make it look really modern, but not a ye olde worlde lack of contrast either
More sharpness and bokeh samples:
there is minimal bokeh fringing which shows up as green/magenta weirdness going from out of focus(OOF) behind the focus plane to OOF at the front.
If you look carefully at the tyre, the blurred area behind the sharp rendered area is starting to go green.
And bokeh and fringing quality again cropped to 100% pixel peepers preference
Look at the horizontal blur lines, some have green rendered edging. This can make bokeh appear more nervous. Not creamy bokeh, but not ugly. I'm rating this one as good.
Don't blame the lens for wild looking distortion. I don't do distortion tests, as I don't care for it on the whole, unless it's painfully obvious ... like the superzooms do it!
Absolute sharpness:
When focus is centred at the centre.
Sharpness is close to excellent, remembering that this is at f/2.
Proper edge sharpness image. focus point set to RHS edge of the thick black H looking pattern on the left.
Summary;
Brilliant value for money lens: lens itself with price isolated from the equation is only OK.
If you want stuff but have to pay the bills with limited resources .. the lens is awesome
if you want stuff and earn a squillion dollars a week, so money isn't a factor .. you probably will be dissapointed no matter how you look at it.
Fun factor ... very high.
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