As I said in my last post, the Astron 35-70 is one noisy and very lazy lens! In full blown sunlight this lens had a lot of trouble finding a focus point in all AF modes, very, very frustrating. Switching to manual is just as difficult as the focusing ring is pretty thin, therefore difficult to control.

Optically, it's not bad for amateur use and since I don't have a high quality zoom lens to compare it to it's hard for me to judge. Many of my test shots were a little overexposed (lenses fault, of course not mine). The lens isn't very sharp but hard to tell because of the focusing issues. Because the rendered shots are somewhat acceptable it's disappointing that this lens just can't be trusted to perform in the field.

So, will I ever really be using this lens on an outing? No way, the Astron has been banished to the back of my camera closet never to see the light of day again.

35mm, f/11, 1/60, ISO 100

70mm, f/4.5, 1/750, ISO 200