Mr Ding 35 f1.8 Pactron on M10-P photos

Well, here are some photos with the long awaited Mr Ding Optics 35mm f1.8. A Chinese take on the highly regarded V4 35mm Summicron.

My thoughts-

Disclaimer- I have never used or purchased a Chinese lens before. So my comparison is against Cosina Zeiss / Voigtlander & Leica.

Build quality: it’s fine. If Leica is a 9/10, Cosina at its best is an 8/10 I would rate this lens at a 6/6.5. It’s has some heft to it because it’s brass. The aperture ring is good. The clicks are certain, there is some play at 1.8 & 16. Focus is pretty good, the weight of it is right on, but not quite as smooth as Voigtlander or Leica. But again it’s pretty good, not problematic. Together the focusing with its tab and aperture ring make shooting easy, I didn’t find myself fiddling with either or being uncertain during my first few hours shooting with it.

Finish- this is probably the weak point of this lens. I believe this it’s black painted brass. The paint looks good but the lettering could be better, there’s some bleed and the yellow is kinda thin, so you can see the black behind it. Again I think it’s ‘fine’. For some strange reason the finish and lettering on the lens hood is much better than my copy of the lens. So take from that what you will. If the lens had the same detail I’d be happy.

Optical quality- in a word, it’s great. This lens delivers optically in my opinion. I’m no pixel peeping lens scientist but for sure the IQ is there. Wide open it looses contrast and has a perceivable character which I really like. Stepped down from 5.6 to 16 it’s very sharp and the contrast is excellent. I won’t say too much more, just take a look at the pictures which a very minimally edited DNG out of the M10. (For the wide open shots just check the corners and you’ll be able to tell those are them.)

All in I’m happy! I took a small gamble on this lens and I think it paid off. I wanted a compact 35 and this delivers, certainly on the optical front. Perhaps if you go for the silver finish you may find yourself very surprised by this lens. I really think this is a good product, and the guys over there are trying to do a good job. Seems clear to me most of their investment was in the optics, which I respect. But given we’re dealing with Leica, fit, finish and attention to detail are going to be scrutinized perhaps more than normally.