Managed to get my hands on the Otus 55mm lens for half an hours testing. Findings...
I agree with all the reports on sharpness, distortion and chromatic aberrations. The lens is superb from wide open to around f11 there is edge to edge sharpness. So optically it's as good as it gets. Handling again is superb much better than expected, no weight or size issues as feared. The only down side I could find was achieving accurate focusing especially when the lens is wide open but thats down to the operator and camera rather than the lens. The photo above is left to right whole image centre crop and edge crop taken at f1.4 at 1/8000 sec. Normal jpeg from camera. I understand that demand has far exceeded what was anticipated so production of the Otus has been stepped up. The 85mm Otus is coming soon. With increased manufacturing volume maybe the price will drop a little?
I agree with all the reports on sharpness, distortion and chromatic aberrations. The lens is superb from wide open to around f11 there is edge to edge sharpness. So optically it's as good as it gets. Handling again is superb much better than expected, no weight or size issues as feared. The only down side I could find was achieving accurate focusing especially when the lens is wide open but thats down to the operator and camera rather than the lens. The photo above is left to right whole image centre crop and edge crop taken at f1.4 at 1/8000 sec. Normal jpeg from camera. I understand that demand has far exceeded what was anticipated so production of the Otus has been stepped up. The 85mm Otus is coming soon. With increased manufacturing volume maybe the price will drop a little?