Vivitar 35/2.8 - Test shots and comparison

[PhantomLord]

Hi,

Recently I bought Vivitar 35mm 2.8 with serial number suggesting it's made by Tokina.
However I'm not happy with this lens, first it didn't reach infinity, which was hard to fix, but done it. Second it's soft until f/4 and third, the worst, it lacks of corner sharpness even at f/8 or f/11 which is clearly visible on those sample photos.
To make my point I compared Vivitar to two lenses: Mir 1B - 37/2.8 (newer version) and Tamron 17A 35-70/3.5 zoom.

If you have any thoughts what's wrong with this lens, please share.

Photos taken on APS-C EOS 600d, with standard settings in camera. JPGs straight from the body. I strongly recommend to see those photos in original size. Here's set on flickr: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjHub2oP just go there, click the picture and then right click the picture to see all sizes, including Original.

Here's the lens itself:








Vivitar 35/2.8 @ 5.6


Vivitar 35/2.8 @ 8.0


Vivitar 35/2.8 @ 11.0


Vivitar 35/2.8 @ 5.6 (on this photo it shows great center sharpness)


Vivitar 35/2.8 @ 11.0


Vivitar 35/2.8 @ 4.0


Vivitar 35/2.8 @ 2.8


Vivitar 35/2.8 @ 2.8 (some bokeh. it was windy so purple flower popped out of focus, but it's small leafs are in focus - in the center of the image)


Vivitar 35/2.8 @ 2.8



Here's the comparison part:

Mir 1B 37/2.8 @ 8.0 (you could see lack of contrast)


Tamron 17A 35-70/3.5 @ 35/8.0 (I love this lens, nice to shoot with it and like this warm tint it adds to the photos)


Vivitar 35/2.8 @ 8.0


100% size crops of above photos:

Mir 1B 37/2.8 @ 8.0


Tamron 17A 35-70/3.5 @ 35/8.0


Vivitar 35/2.8 @ 8.0


Mir 1B 37/2.8 @ 8.0


Tamron 17A 35-70/3.5 @ 35/8.0


Vivitar 35/2.8 @ 8.0



Vivitar 35/2.8 @ 11.0 - test photo and the crop below


Vivitar 35/2.8 @ 11.0 - this photo shows exactly what I mean - leftmost tree is quite sharp, while rightmost tree is quite blurry. Those trees are in the same line and in the same conditions you could see corners becoming badly soft. And it's on APS-C
[url][/url]

[Ultron]

It looks like it is optically the same as the Tokina wide-auto 35/2.8 (AKA soligor wide-auto 35/2.

I use that lens on fullframe sometimes and so far the results seem very good to me, but I never did any test shots with it.
But there is a review on flickr that mentions corner softness
http://www.flickr.com/groups/eos-manual-lenses/discuss/72157631550447241/

Also some samples here
http://forum.mflenses.com/viewtopic.php?t=48034

[iangreenhalgh1]

Sadly I think you've got a bad copy, I had the Tokina 2.8/24, 2.8/28 and 2.8/35 and they didn't have these issues.