"Got back from overnight travel to Denver. The FA* 300 f4.5 had arrived from Vancouver....
"Then I took it out for a quick test -- usual subject, a mud-brick wall shot on a tripod. Result: the lens is softer than the damaged F* 300 f4.5 that I just returned."
Okay, I shot some more tests today and re-evaluated the ones I shot two nights ago. Result: On some images the new (to me) FA* 300 f4.5 seems to be giving decent results, on other images seems soft.
A month ago I had an F* 300 f4.5 that was perfect on the outside but had spots across the rear element. I tested it pretty thoroughly before sending it back. It seemed to produce some decent images, but those spots bothered me. Anyway, I can take the new FA 300 and duplicate the same tests I did with the F 300. These duplicated tests are what made me doubt the new lens.
OTOH, the tests are not exactly the same. I am shooting the same subject, but the position of the sun has changed too much in the past month. So some of the test results are not strictly comparable.
So what does one do with an expensive (to me) and increasingly rare lens that is testing inconsistently?
1.Return it? Then I'd have my money back and could keep looking for a good one.
2. Try it some more, possibly miss the opportunity to return it, and try to sell it later if it is indeed unsatisfactory? This might work, but in the meantime I might miss a good one that comes up for sale.
I'll probably try it some more. Trouble is, I have one of my travel-months-from-h*** coming up and will be away three of the next five weeks.
Arghhh!!! How could I get three bad ones in a row?
Incidentally, I tried my tests today with both manual and autofocus, to see if autofocus was causing the problem. Guess what? Autofocus is far more accurate than I am.
Joe
