R.I.87
I was looking for a lens for my A6000 that can do great macro while also doubling up as a portrait lens. I will say this: I dont think I could have done better. The lens is INSANELY sharp. The details preserved are incredible. Ive done 2:1 crops, and still been left with usable images. The bokeh is very pleasing. At close distances, even at f16, you get nicely blurred backgrounds, which just melts away. The colors pop. Im pretty sure some Minolta magic was added to this lens, because the colors are very like some great Minoltas. Build quality is excellent. It feels very good in the hand, and the push-pull AF-MF changer is the best there ever can be. It is incredibly intuitive, and VERY useful for macro work. The focus hold and OSS ON/OFF switches are great too, and truly make this lens very user friendly. The ribbed focus ring is a pleasure to use, and is damped differently in AF or MF modes. MF mode has hard stops at CFD and infinity. It is technically focus by wire, not mechanically coupled, but it doesnt feel that way. I usually set my camera to DMF for macro work, then adjust focus by shifting between AF and MF seamlessly. Focus tends to be accurate, but speed is all over the place. With a good subject-background separation, theres no issues at all. But without that, theres a lot of hunting, especially at the macro range. Perversely, the focus limiter adds to this. You can limit focus so the lens only hunts in the macro range, but this slows down focus a lot. Ive had quicker macro focus acquisition by setting the range to full. Yes, I know macro lenses dont have great AF anyway. But the fact that the focus limiter hurts, rather than helps, is troubling. Theres a reasonable amount of focus breathing when doing macro work. Ive grown to be able to predict it, and it doesnt bother me too much. All said, if you have an E-mount body and need to do macro work, you cant go wrong here, and not only because this is the only legitimate option.