That's very true indeed, but we started out discussing sharpness only. In fact, I found a lot of zooms which perform well stopped down at infinity. Many of these are weak at close range and/or wide open, though. If a manufacturer wants to look good on a lens test report, they just optimize for infinity performance. That way, they will get a high MTF score at photodo and get outstanding SQF from Pop Photo. (They have a sentence or two stating close range performance but in their wording everything is always good.) I use zooms indoor with bounce flash, so I really need good close range performance and wide open performance.
My friend's Nikkor AF 80-200/2.8D sucked when shooting at 200/2.8. Everything was diffused. Didn't know what's wrong.
Really, I wish the A35-105/3.5, maybe a modern version which is as sharp as primes like Paal said, is available in AF. Tamron makes a 35-105/2.8 but the AF version is only available for N/M/C, and its reviews from real users seem a lot more mixed than the good magazine reviews it got. I don't care about their 28-105/2.8 as size is a very important consideration. Their new 28-75/2.8 is small but I like the reach of 105 more. Furthermore I would rather wait and see more real users' comments before I decide I will buy it.
The A35-105/3.5 is indeed a very sharp lens, but I don't know how it compared against primes. However, I can tell you that the Tamron 35-105/2.8 is a junk lens. I had one when it came out. Expensive junk indeed.
But, replacing a Pentax lens with a third party lens ? That makes me feel sad.
If you don't mind the price tag of the FA*28-70... :-)
regards, Alan Chan
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