@JackBayer Post some pictures so that we can see how your lens is working.

@dream_beam Great test, I think that your lens seems to be similar to mine. It would be nice to see if someone is able to get sharper pictures at 1.6. I think that stills are a great way to compare softness/focus problems.

My lens was also unable to focus to infinity, but not that extremely. The maximum focus distance was around ten meters for me. Then after putting on and off the lenses several times suddenly the Lens focused beyond infinity and became very unsharp. I have no Idea what happened inside the lens...

$10 says you're turning the aperture ring thinking it's the focus ring because on the SLR Magic 12mm focus is where the lens meets the body and aperture is on the front end right where the lens gets wider. I've had my 12mm for months now and I still fiddle with the wrong ring from time to time. Force of habit.

@Shaveblog Are your lens sharp at 1.6. It would be great to see if anyone has a copy that's better than mine and dream_beams so that we could know for a fact if they are faulty or if they behave like other SLR Magic 12mm.

Please post some pictures.

@Alfaerik +1, I´d definitely love to see pictures shot wide open that are sharp in the distance.

@Shaveblog I´ll pm you my paypal adress for your ten bucks :)

I rechecked anyways, of course...when set to infinity-"un"focus I can hear elements moving inside the lens. :(

@soundgh2 Please post some pictures, so that we can compare our copies to yours. Lenses usually go softer at wider apertures, but they should at least keep some sharpness in the center. My slr-magic shouldn't even have the option to go as wide as 1.6 since the quality of the image is too bad, therefore it is false marketing to sell it as a 1.6-lens. It would be really useful to see someone post a picture of a 1.6 image that is sharp so that I could know for a fact that mine copy is faulty.

@Alfaerik I'll post some up tomorrow - was filming all weekend wide open (though a fader ND and looks sharp enough i.e. doesn't look soft enough to be unuseable, bit Lomo-like.

I received a replacement 12mm yesterday evening and I it´s 1000 times better than the broken one before, obviously.

My overall impression (now) is pretty much the same like the ones I´ve read here and there: A little on the softy side, rock solid (although I´m not sure what that really means, since my first one was broken right out of the box), smooth aperture- and focus ring, vignetting.

All pictures have been shot Raw and then converted/downsized a bit to Jpeg, all sharpening and noise reducing deactivated.

@ F1,6: (first two attached images) For such wide "landscapy" shots I guess it´s sharp enough only for video purposes. But I´d rather not. F2,0 is already much sharper.

Those flary highlights are always there at wide open, but at least the object (my blooming thyme) is in focus underneath all that flaring.

And then @ F5,6 and F11, both as sharp as it gets with this lens.

Edit: I added two samples of F2 to show the difference between 1,6 and 2,0

So, will I keep it? I guess so, but I´ll need to find a solution to use it with a follow focus...

@bheath Since I ordered it from an Amazon Market place dealer, who had two more in stock, replacing was no problem. And as with my first order which I "Evening Expressed" with DHL so came the second just 20 hours after setting up the complaint on amazon.de. (Shipment was handled by amazon)

As of now I can recommend the lens to the degree described in my previous post. F2 is what you get and an awesome wide angle. Spend a little more and you´d get the Olympus F2, which would probably be much more usable wide open as the SLR Magic @F2. But at the loss of manual focus (it seems to step-focus when set to manual on the lens, or when set to manual on the cam it motorizes its manual focus)...and then you get auto focus for photos.

In the end my decision was purely moneybased, "how much can I spend right now"...

@JackBayer Glad you got your lens replaced and that the new one is working to spec. I didn't know about the stepped focus in MF mode on the Oly 12mm, one more reason to choose the SLR Magic for video-leaning users.

I think this is something that rarely gets discussed on these forums - some lenses are better at video than stills and vice-versa. If I was primarily a stills shooter I'd probably go with the Oly, as it's sharper and has AF. I shoot the occasional photo with the SLR Magic and in this respect it's just okay, I feel. But for video, the samples I've seen of the Oly just don't have the appealing character and cinematic look of the SLR Magic/GH2 combo.

Some of my lenses are great for both stills and video, like the Canon FD35/2, Minolta 24/2.8 and Pana 20/1.7. But I see the SLR Magic primarily as a video lens, where its shortcomings are largely irrelevant and its strengths are abundant and welcome. This is the lens I've been waiting for since I started shooting M43 video.

@eiji I have maybe a third to half a millimeter play between the lens and the mount.

Here's a recording of one of my projects. Noktor 12mm lens, GH2, Cake2.3, 24H, smooth all -2. F around 2-2.5. ISO 1600 or more, don't remember.

2 things before you go judging sharpness from this clip:
- the space is filled with thick fog from a hazer, it makes the light rays come out but surely makes the picture softer as well.
- I'm filming AND performing. Which means I set the camera beforehand as good as I can, press record and move in front of the camera. I'm sure it can be improved by tweaking in shot.
(And of course the clip's downscaled to 720p and recompressed by Vimeo)

Password: preview