@Ptchaw Re: distortion see Seb Farges video above.. the tilts at 0:44-0:47.. You won't notice anything wierd on a still because there are no points of reference! If you think about how extreme the OLY distortion is (uncorrected) it is not hard to understand why these things happen, and why the SLR Magic would be easier to try and correct in post.

On the OLY, extremes resolution is 30-20% lower than centre (30 wide open up to ) from wide open up to 5.6, when it starts to even out slightly more. Extremes and border resolution is pretty similar for this lens - troughout - the only exception is wide open when the extremes suffer quite a bit more than border resolution. On the SLR Magic, extremes resolution is 40-30% lower than centre in the extremes (40 wide open up to f4) whereas border resolution is in-between 5-10% of centre sharpness troughout the entire range. If you crop the image (to 2.35:1 for instance), you will loose the extremes alltogether.

The differences in construction is clear - slr magic sacrifice a lot in the corners and little in the borders whereas OLY sacrifice borders and corners troughout for centre sharpness - where you get about a 5% increase in resolution compared to the SLR Magic. I would hardly make that out to be such a massive difference as you describe. (tack sharp vs. super soft out wide)

I'd avoid both in instances where I want things (in focus) happening in left and right edges of the frame.

Then you talk about how you cannot shoot the SLR magic wide open.. well - the OLY starts from f2 not f1.6. Stopping down a faster lens to avoid flares cannot really be a problem in comparison to a slower lens - unless you need to stop down a lot - which you don't! It evens up already at f2-f2.8!

How these two work for stills photography is a different matter alltogether.

Now that I have the lens again with all elements intact, I'm looking for the right 58-77mm step up ring to use for filters..anyone have suggestions and what they're using?

@jo447 The ending to your video is particularly terrific - the fireworks look spectacular and the way the light reflects off of the people in the scene... I really liked it. What was the music?

Sorry, forgot to share my first opportunity to use this lens: it's exactl(e)ly what I thought - bitchy, flary lens with a personality :) I could have gotten an Oly 9-18 for much better results, but I was selfish. All in all, a great lens for the price!

@stonebat: Thanks, there was no color correction applied in post. Only a denoiser filter (starting at the starbucks section)

@Crazypete: Thanks, the fireworks looks really good with this lens (it actually looks pretty good without camera as well). The music is from ewan dobson. It's a great lens. It's a good addition to my voigtlander 25mm

Hi HillTop1, that's good news, I might get a free lens if everybody say that!!! :D I don't know if they are still in back orders. But I would say it takes around 1 month to get the lens after you order it directly from the manufacturer.

Mine feels way to soft at 1.6, almost unusable. Is it mine lens or is it the same for the rest of you? I would love to see some phootage to compare. Please post some pictures with 1.6 and 4.0 of the same subject, try to focus on something a couple of meters away.

oh wow, that sounds scary @dream_beam, can you upload some clips? @jo477, free lens, what you mean?

If you look at the video posted above by RRRR made by Seb Farges, at 1.6 it's not as bad. @dream_beam, is yours any close to that or way off?

@sunboy, thanks for the update. I guess slr magic made the "good" quality 12mm lenses and send them to their 'elite" class of friends and seller for reviews test footage then send shitty lenses to the rest of the people. I wonder how many people have this lens and it's having problems with it. Kinder makes me now think twice about getting this lens.

I am sure there are many good lenses out there and I am also surethat they are great lenses for the price. But SLR Magic seems not to be able to contol their production quality and so the fact that there are so many poor lenses out there after we had to wait very long time for them is inacceptable in my opinion. But I do not believe that they ship the good lenses to certain people only. I remember one guy who tested an SLR Magic preproduction lens on his Blog and had recieved a poor model too. Directly from slr magic. So I think they simply have production problems at all and due to the fact that they do not have a working, open way of communication with their customers and end users like some other companies have (e.g. black magick) I do not feel comfortable with SLR Magic.

@Jackbayer - you have 3 meters of focusing space until it reaches infinity. I believe you have only been adjusting the aperture? (in the front of the lens?)

Ok, I just did another test, outside. I couldn´t focus on a chimney, which is some 30m away, until I moved the aperture ring even farther down than 5,6.