Thanks for kind words. I use pretty much the full range of focal lengths and I can't say that I use any one particular focal length more than another. In the shots above the clematis is at 97mm, the cornflower is at 106mm, and the butterfly is at 200mm (actually 280mm as I added a 1.4X tele-extender for greater reach which is nice when shooting butterflies).
Butterflies are pretty quit, flitting about so there is no time to be looking at the focus distancing scale. I'm not sure at all what it was set to but in real life it was about 3 to 4 feet away so perhaps just inside the MFD for the lens without tubes. This has got to mean that it wasn't even close to the MFD with tubes.
I just got my replacement today, this copy is WAY better than the one I returned. Wide open in MFD @200mm is very sharp and I do not see any haze/halo like the previous copy. I also tested it briefly around the house from 70~135mm in MFD, it's safe to say that I've got a good copy this time and am very satisfied.
Lens code of the second copy is UW0305, I'm keeping this one for sure.
Exelent IQ in these shots - esepcially the first two. Are these at the exact MFD? What body are these shot with? It would be interesting to see more samples at 200 mm MFD.
J Andersen:
Exelent IQ in these shots - esepcially the first two. Are these at the exact MFD?
I would like to know if it was really MFD at 200 mm. It is shockingly good (if it was not extensively post-processed). 70 mm shot is closer to what I experienced with this lens. The 135 mm shot is close to what I can get too (at this focal length).
