After having had some fun with my Palomino Black Wing and my Pitt Oil BASE by Faber-Castell I have found pretty nice features in both of them but also some faults. Anyway, I love both of them.
Pitt Oil doesn't go through one page to another of your sketchbook, something that Palomino does. But Palomino's colour is nicer than the one of Pitt Oil. I have used most of the time Medium hardness but it seems that there are 5 different ones. I bought just three: soft, medium and hard.
Here I have used the the "Polychromos" pencils which are soft and bright, but in words of Faber-Castell they also have got many more features like "unsurpassed lightfast pigments, 120 vibrant colors, break resistant tips, waterproof, non-smudge". My palette is quite narrow I have just 24 different colours but blues are nice as you can see.
Last but not least, it is really important that you do not forget that pencils work better in smooth paper, better than in rough ones, because you do not lose the tip of pencil after a few lines and textures can be controlled better.