OK. The 19mm PC-E arrived, less than two hours ago and I had to let it warm up. Here are a couple of shots taken in our kitchen with the Nikon D810. They are short stacks of three or four layers, with a clumsy attempt to start figuring out how best to use tilt. Vertical tilt used here, but this is going to be a learning curve. I use tilt a lot with close-up, where it is very easy to see the effect, but here, FF, as others have said.... I have got some learning to do.
The lens is smaller (and lighter) than I imagined, which is good. It is, of course, solid. Finally, for my work, all of the different ways to shift, tilt, rotate, etc. are all there and are wonderful. It took me a while to figure out there is a separate LOCK on tilt, so be warned.
As for IQ, too soon to tell. It is not as sharp as the Otus (Otii), but sharp enough considering it is very wide. I will have to do a lot of playing around, and mostly inside, since it is bitter cold right now, with nights near zero. All in all I am pleased, but I have a lot of experimenting to do before I can say for sure. Certainly it is years ahead of my three PC-E lenses, which I am going to get rid of. I am grateful Nikon finally has gone for more quality in lenses, like Zeiss did with the Otus series. I did not finish the photos, but I did play with them some, so these are not just right out of the camera. Didn't have time to do both, right now.
Of course, I am only working it to my ends, which usually involve focus stacking, and I can't really take it outside in this weather, as another 8-10 inches of snow fell last night, etc.
The lens is not as sharp or as well corrected as the Otus series. However, it is sharp, and considering that it puts so much in focus, the lack of the utmost acuity is probably tolerable, especially if I can remember that I will be using this for landscape and not tabletop or studio work... unless (there always is the chance) that I find some useful way of using it close-up.
Considering that I stack and that stacks themselves are rife with artifacts unless very carefully done, in some respects this lens avoids having to stack at the sacrifice of a little bit of "sharpness."
I have not experimented with any chromatic aberration or whatever, but I will get around to that. Before I do much tilting or shifting I need to do some straight shooting. Here is one short stack (three) with the Nikon D810. At 100%, it is tolerable, even OK, but with this lens (at least for me) the concept of "impressionism" is important to keep in mind.
The lens cap, which is new for me, is a hard shell cap with a positive lock and requires a button pressed to release it. Since with the lens I won’t walk around with the lens cap off, I am glad it can’t slip off.
So, the flowers are a 3-stack shot, the room shots are a single shot, but perhaps with some tilt. I can’t remember.
If there is interest, I will keep posting. Otherwise, I will just test it to my own interests.
