[stoppingdown]

In the end I've bought the SEL1670: there were just a few pieces sold by Amazon Italy with about 150€ of discount and I tried one - after all I've know that I can return it.

 

I got it today and ran some quick tests, both at a chart and in the open. I will take a few time to evaluate the lens, but it's very likely that I'll keep it, as it performs better than my Nikkor AF-S 18-70mm f/3.4-4.5 that it should replace.

 

It passed the quick decentering test described here and the one at Lens Rentals (I think I'm able to understand it because I see that my SEL1018 fails both). But looking at the chart shots I'm pretty sure there's some amount of softness at 70mm, ƒ/8 at the left side, while the right side is ok. Even the left side, anyway, is better than the Nikkor because the latter has quite a bunch of chromatic aberration. While I should re-run the chart test with more care to alignments etc... I've run it also with the Nikkor and its chart is ok (I mean, both sides appear to perform the same) - this should be a validation of my test.

 

So, my question: is it possible that a lens is slightly decentered in spite of passing the quick decentering tests? As far as I understand reading your posts, it should be so, but I'd like to have an explicit confirmation.

 

Thanks.