YaY!
My 50mm f2.8 macro arrived!
Now the bad news, it's sh!t and it's going back.
Optical quality - I can't fault it. It's a really nice 50mm macro and it performs just like you think it should.
Build and handling - It's nice. It's light and compact, more so on the camera and in the hand than in pictures on line when it can look quite bulky. I'd be quite happy carrying my camera with this lens on it all day long.
And now the bad news. The focus is crap.
I expected it to be slow and it is. I thought it might be something like the Canon 50mm f2.5 macro I had years ago and it is. But now the bad stuff. In good light or rather in the light that passes for daylight in the Middlesbrough area when it works it's slowish but acceptable and a little noisy but ok. However, it's inconsistent and now and again everything looks ok and the focus square goes green and it's ever so slightly off when viewed at 100% or maybe it's nowhere near and you can see it's nowhere near in the EVF but it thinks it's nailed it. In a room lit to a normal domestic level by artificial lighting the focus slows down and the miss rate rises as do the number of inconsistent results.
With peaking on I shot several series of close up shots and watched the peaking as it wondered through the scene, sometimes bang on through the point of focus but sometimes off just a bit, actually and sadly it was more often just a bit off rather than bang on. 100% viewing on screen confirmed the poor results. Also sometimes it would hit a more distant subject time after time and then inexplicably fail and just hunt backwards and forwards. Maybe it'd hit four times in a row and then miss. Maybe after pointing it at something else and going back to the original subject it'd fail to lock on immediately. It's just inconsistent. This lens is a box of chocolates and you never know what you're getting.
How can this be when focus is taken off the sensor? I don't know... Swapping back to the 55mm cured the inconsistencies although I obviously couldn't duplicate the close up shots.
I've never sent a new product back before but I think this will have to be the first as it's just unreliable and all over the place. I had intended to use this as a walkabout but it's just too inconsistent. I had intended take this to Thailand but I just can't see it working at an evening meal at an outdoor restaurant let alone in the dark basement of a Thai temple. The 35mm f2.8 coped with both these scenarios without missing a beat.
I'll have another look tomorrow but I think that it'll have to go back. It's such a shame as optically and as a package it's lovely but the focus is sh!t. It's worse than the few reviews I read lead me to believe it would be.
I don't suppose anyone else has tried one?