It's cheap and makes a lot of fun (but not perfect)

I have the lens for about 3 months and use it especially if it's dark and I still want to shoot out of your hands. Therefore, I have the iris usually open until fully open. It's my first and currently the only bright lens, so I take them in the dark for "everything" - so all I can do with it anyway: Portraits, outside, inside, things ... I run the lens on a Nikon D300s, where I usually shoot RAW, so (unfortunately) do not get a camera-internal corrections.

Technically positively:
- Sharp, quite openly. No visible degradation at the edges for me (but I have been photographed no to the effect critical motives ... I'll ever do?). I tend to be hypersensitive when it comes to sharpness.
- Vignette discreet enough to bother me as much as ever. I occasionally look towards targeted, and even _bemerken_ I do it rarely.
- Distortion weak enough not to bother me until now.
- Very good price
- Virtually weightless
- Connection to the camera is made of metal, and a rubber seal is also on the flange.
- Nothing turns or moves (outside) when focusing. The lens is therefore likely to never breathe dust.

Technically negative:
- The bokeh is bad, at least when fully open (highlights interfere with accentuated edges). Bothers me often that one time or another has me already beat an image or made much weaker.
- (Lateral) CAs at large apertures can be so strong that it occasionally been disturbing (I correct then this takes some time and is generally yuck).
- The focus ring feels not great, has something of a snug little cheap plastic.
- Significant ghosting possible if the light source in the image.
- Is personally not yet happened to me and just can not find the source: light sources such as street lights can have a green veil (I think it was green) cast over the entire image. If someone happens that makes night shooting in the city.
- No distance scale with depth markings (would the depth markings on and had to be happy as a guide ...).

My Experience:
I love the lens a lot of joy. In daylight and outside (I am much in the landscape and nature on the way), I use it only where I want very little depth of field, otherwise my Nikon AF-S DX Nikkor 16-85mm 1: 3.5-5.6G ED VR lens (image bar.) incl. HB-39 lens with focal distance of a subjective image quality evenly matched. But if the light is weaker, is almost always the top 35mm. The picture in the viewfinder is nice and bright (compared to the above-mentioned slow zoom), auto focus on my camera never a problem and very quickly. The lens is lightweight and compact, virtually weightless. Thanks to the large aperture I can take pictures inside under artificial light without flash; I hate flash. (Even more than I hate myself then with the sickening light of energy-saving lamps to beat around ... still ...). If I want shallow depth (without a telephoto to use), I use this lens also. The minimum focusing distance is close enough for everything except macros, but you do not always want to do so with a focal length, because then you have to ran too close. Taking pictures with the lens gives me most pleasure: that which I bought the lens, it makes within its capacity and in terms of price very good. For portraits, it is of course a little too short, but in many other gadgets they can not get in the way and performs its service mostly just the way I imagine it. But it is also not perfect, occasionally nervous CAs and especially the bokeh and possible ghost images.

Judging by the price I cope any that the lens could not be much better. She makes the most relevant situations for me very well, and my little problems. I have fun with it and be done with her pictures, I could not do without her. I would buy again why.

Finally, I read as much of it here: in all my joy about this lens I now disagree with the "Never again Zoom!" - A choir. Not when it comes to "zoom lenses make stupid": clearly misled zoom lenses to thoughtless composition, but only if you are lazy and never thinks about his paintings. I also do not buy the "prime lenses provide an oh so much better image quality" argument. Not, not if you have a reasonably good zoom lens buys in 2010, not when the snap halfway know what you're doing. The imaging quality of my standard zoom makes me happy, and I assert that I am much too hypersensitive, for that matter Gestarre on pixels at 100% magnification, and the like. The reason why I appreciate this fixed focal length, and I liebäugele also by purchasing a slightly longer fixed focal length, is the luminous intensity for low-light and little depth of field. So beautiful things I can do with it that I can not do otherwise. So my general recommendation: buy this lens only when you want to take pictures you can not do without this lens (keyword eg low-light).