Interesting you should mention the 35/2 thusly. I had a similar experience.
Mine
(purchased brand new from Adorama 6 or 8 yrs ago) looked exquisite when it
arrived, except for about 5 paint chips laying around inside the lens. Oh well,
I didn't return it as it came in customary "just-in-time" mode for a 2 week
photo
trip the next week. Plus, I didn't think they would do much damage to the
photos. But something did.
I like to take night photos, sometimes moonlit, with stars in the field. This
means fast, wide open lenses because I use 100 speed chrome for prints. Anyway,
the 35/2 was purchased with this in mind and it disappointed. Bright stars out
of the central area were wildly distorted - worse than my Vivitar 28mm. I
finally got around to sending it to Oly last year. They said the lens was
"defective", although they didn't say in what way. They cleaned it out and
replaced the front element (I don't know why, it was unmarked, perhaps it was
defective?) I don't know if they turned any elements around <g>. The good news:
they did this work for free, after about 6 or so yrs of use.
Last month, I finally had a chance to begin some star field tests on it as well
as a few new-to-me Zuikos. The tests aren't finished yet, but when they are, I
can say something about the wide open 'stellar' performance of the following
lenses if anyone's interested: 21/2, 28/2, 35/2(non-defective models only!)
and,
if I have time: 28/2.8, 50/2, 85/2, 100/2.
Also in case anyone's interested, based on prior experience:
Known GOOD wide-open stellar Zuikos, based on a sample of 1: 50/1.8, 90/2,
250/2, 300/4.5
Known NOT GOOD: 50/1.2, 50/1.4
george
timberwolf wrote:
> "Dog" is a relative concept. In general, Zuiko OM wide angle lenses have been
> very superior (superior t N*k*n that is), while the fast standard lenses have
> been too flarey to be generally useful, the 3.5 Macro is so sharp it hurts,
> while
> the long lenses (above 100) have been acceptable, less acceptable the longer
> they got. The 50--150 zoom was something of a dog (I owned one and sold it
> quickly) but this was of course an early zoom design.
>
> And then there are the lemons. When I bought my 35/2, I found that it had
> such horrendous curvature of field that when I focused at infinity at center,
> corners were at about 2 meters -- 6 feet! I returned the lens and was told
> that one element hade been mounted in reverse ... What is the Japanese for
> 'Monday morning'?
>
> Hälsningar/Regards
> Lars Bergquist
> Timberwolf Type, the independent
> specialist in text typefaces - visit me at
> <http://www.timberwolf.a.se/>
>
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