In article <3535eff9.2538743@news1.muenster.net>, lefeling@muenster.net says...
>Neuman-Ruether wrote about the S1 28-90/2.8-3.5:

>> The one I tried was a mediocre lens at best, having poor edge/corner
>> sharpness (even stopped down to middle apertures) and severe illumination
>> roll-off.

>I used one for a very short while. My experiences are very similar.
>Sharpness was ..."okay" for zoom, but I had the same severe vignetting
>problems. Maybe the results look better on print film.

>> Any 50mm is generally faster/smaller/lighter/sharper than even good
>> mid-range zooms, which the Vivitar wasn't...

>Obviously. As usual, it's a tradeoff between quality and convenience.

While many people seem to find mid-range zooms convenient (maybe since
one lens is thought to be able to replace a few others - but with the
quality differences, I dunno...), but I don't. What is convenient about
using a bigger, heavier, slower, harder-to-focus (and not just because
it is slower...) variable-aperture mid-range zoom??? This is a mystery
to me. Any single-FL lens in the same range is generally so much easier
to use, and a pair of lenses combined with minor "foot-zooming" just
does the job better (and, for me, faster, even with the occasional lens change). I do find tele zooms are often good enough to replace primes,
and the convenience-level improvement is noticeable with these since
"foot zooming" is less effective with teles. Extending this a bit, I
find wide-angle zooms totally useless unless I am forced to photograph
a fast-moving event from only one distant location. Mid-range zooms are
generally just too optically poor at wide stops compared with even
inexpensive primes used at the same stops (and the primes are often
faster). Why put up with the zoom problems when the alternative is
generally so much better?
David Ruether
http://www.fcinet.com/ruether