Here's a few from today with the 55mm F1.8 - but none from which I would draw any real conclusions.
Fist impressions: it is very nice but yet again, I think I have a dodgy copy of a Sony Zeiss lens. I need to test it properly but I think it's softer on the left when focussed on centre, and focus falls a little closer on the left than on the right.
I shot for a couple of hours walking around and I tried a variety of focus modes (flexible spot, zone, face, single, continuous in various permutations) and for anything that is moving all I can say is either forgeddit or pre-focus. I shot 21 frames using continuous, both with and without face detection, of people moving painfully slowly on a congested ice rink and not one shot was anywhere near focus, barring one of a father and child who were effectively stationary.
Anything with bright or flashing lights is a no-no with AF, it just gets confused.
A shutter speed of over 1/125th is needed to be reasonably sure of no shake.
Rendition looks to be very nice and I think that a properly centred copy might give the 50 Lux a run for its money. OOF is nice, there's a tiny touch of CA, distortion is low, flare resistance seems good.
More to come.
Here's a gallery that I'll add to, mostly with full sized images developed from RAW in LR 5.3 and with sharpening at 50/0.6/70/20 which is a touch lower than I use for the D800E.
Tim, thanks for posting these. I am holding off on this lens until I see what your conclusion is.
I note in the image of the pylon thingie there are concentric magenta rings. Was this flat-fielded? If yes, the flat field process has issues. If no, the camera has issues. The most obvious ring does coincide with the riders so perhaps we are seeing a "spew trail".