28-70 Vario Elmar - more pincushion distortion to left of image

[wlaidlaw]

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I have recently bought a Series Two (ROM) 28-70 Vario Elmar-R lens for using on my R9 and R4 cameras. I am fully aware of its limitations but at the wider end 50-28, the Series Two version of this lens is not at all bad and will be a useful lens for travel use, where I am much more of a wide angle user. My 24mm Elmarit-R spends more time on my R9 than the 50mm Summicron does. The ability to zoom to 28mm outweighs for me, the better quality of the 35-70 lens. 

The pincushion distortion at the 70mm tele end, is still quite noticeable and apparently was not really worked on for the optical cell update on the Series Two ROM version of the lens, which concentrated on the wide end performance (resolution & vignetting), where its performance is quite within acceptable limits. The odd thing about my lens is that the pincushion distortion is very slightly worse at the left hand edge of the image at 70mm than the right hand edge. I wonder what could be the cause of this - optical cell decentered? The lens is seemingly in pristine condition with no evidence at all of hard use or being dropped and I would have thought optical cell decentering would have more symptoms than just asymmetric distortion. Could this just be sloppy manufacture by Sigma? Has anyone else got this lens, where they could see if their's does the same thing. 

Wilson

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