My Tamron 90mm Sp Di is great but too big to fit in my smaller A&A bag with the LA-EA1 on and NEX-7 in there.
I'm looking at either the 50mm F3.5 Oly Macro or the Nikon 55mm F3.5 Micro. Third possibility is I'll just give in and get the 30mm NEX Macro since it would be the most compact since it won't need an adapter but it's definitely shorter than desired FL.
The legacy lenses both seem to be very well regarded and almost the same price and size. Will be using it on NEX. Apparently both have less CA than the NEX when used on digital. To me, that is probably the most important feature over sharpness and bokeh.
Which has the least CA?
I think the Nikon might have the edge on infinity focus as it's apparently excellent at that.
I have not used those lenses but have a Canon FD 50/3.5 macro and have never seen it produce CA. It's simply too slow to show CA, I think.
Note that there are two different versions of the Nikkor. The earlier one was optimized more for close-up performance, according to Bjorn Rorslett's site anyway.
I own both. I think the Nikkor is a little better, but I can't say much about CA as most of the subjects that I've shot with these lenses were not CA prone.
You might also want to consider a Macro Takumar 50/4. Field curvature hurts the corners at infinity on full frame, but I think it should be quite nice on a crop sensor. Bokeh can be a bit busy even fairly close up, but I don't recall seeing much by way of chromatic errors (though I haven't tested it closely). At mid to close distances, it is one of the sharpest 50mm lenses I have used.
Im going to bring this up since I just got a Nikon 55mm f3.5 AI (the very last version) and I really love my OM 50mm f3.5 MC
Nikon : slightly better wide open, better bokeh (significant wide open, not so different stopped down), not an orphan mount
Olympus : slightly better stopped down off axis (both are equal in the center), smaller, better build quality (this is based on feel)
both are very sharp, both can be used on film and digital easily, and both are fairly inexpensive. you can't go wrong with either, but I would give a slight edge to the OM.
