Another one pulled out for the Flickr21 challenge...
Gateway to the Future by
Travis Butler, on Flickr
Sigma fp, Konica Hexanon 35-70/3.5-4.5 Macro
And a comparison photo, taken about 5 minutes earlier, which maybe gets a little bit at my dissatisfaction with the Sigma 45 Contemporary:
20220530-SDIM1008v1.dng by
Travis Butler, on Flickr
Sigma fp, Sigma 45/2.8 Contemporary
I shot the Sigma 45 in Program mode, while the Hexanon was in Program but effectively Aperture priority; so I let the fp pick f/11 for the 45, but manually set the Hexanon to... I forget the exact f-stop, but I was trying to blur the trees some so I think it would have been around f/5.6, and I had exposure compensation cranked down to compensate. So the shooting settings were fairly different.
All that said... I did the same editing settings in On1 to bring it as close to the Hexanon as I could. The Hexanon isn't even one of my favorites; I like the color (as with most Hexanons) and thought it did well for being a mostly-plastic kit lens; the plastic build certainly makes it handle better on the fp than my favorite Minolta 35-70. But it's not up to the IQ of the Minolta.
The 45 Contemporary did a pleasing enough picture. Taken by itself, I'd say it's fine. But the Hexanon has more life to it, for me. Look at the upper-right corner of the Arch; with the 45 you can just see a bit of a lighter spot, but in the Hexanon pic you can see the glint of light reflecting from the Arch's stainless steel, despite it being further out of focus. The color's richer and more vivid with the Hexanon. The 45's sharper on the statues (although I do wonder how much of that's the wider aperture and not being manually focused to best advantage with the Hexanon).
That's an example of the kind of thing I mean when I talk about tonality. I dunno. Maybe it's all in my head. What do you think?