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Dad Photographer
What a beautiful image, Jim! This lens is excellent, too.
I guess I need to learn how to post images.
I doubt my lens has ever been disassembled, but I've learned never be certain of that. It looks like new.....black and chrome version.
Images can almost appear sharp, but compared to...say my Minolta M-Rokkor 90/4....it's clear they're a bit soft at all apertures. I'm a bit bummed out about that. I heard that it is supposed to be quite sharp. I've taken into account RF innacuracy with subjects that have "depth" so I can still get sharp even if the plane of focus is off. Again, it gets almost sharp, and if I didn't have genuine sharp lenses I might try to convince myself.... Ultimately, I guess it might be sample variation and I got very unlucky 🙁
Do you have a camera with LiveView?
Yes, I tried the lens on both the M9 and M240 (some shots with LV and even focus peaking). My assessment of sharpness is not hindered by RF accuracy, etc. I made images that rather decisively reflect the sharpness of the lens. The lens is just a tad soft. I explicitly compared with images from an LTM Elmar 90 of similar age. I have many other lenses of similar age I can also compare with. The sharpness of my Canon 100/3.5 is similar to perhaps my Jupiter-3 at f4 or so. I'm not trying to compare those lenses directly, just give an idea of the softness level. I really think I just have a soft copy of the lens. It's probably plenty sharp for most film users and images appear sharp enough at small image sizes. I'm not being overly critical, but if I compare the Canon with other lenses I have from the same era, it just isn't as sharp.
There is no evidence of this lens being serviced. If it was, it would have been a "professional" who I would expect to reassemble the lens correctly. What's more, the degree of unsharpness is nowhere near the level of a mis-assembled lens.
Although I'm disappointed to have received the low end of QC for this lens, I have plenty of other lenses to play with. I just won't be playing with this one.