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#1
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The worst lens you ever had ... a collection of stories
The best and worst of anything are ultimately matters of
taste and experience. As there is no accounting for taste and experience is what life deals you we should not argue about someone's nomination. What is/are the worst lens/es you every took a picture with? Leaving out the plastic-fantastics: Dianas, Empire Babies and their cousins. My picks: o Cambridge 135mm f2.8 pre-set T-Mount. Uniformly fuzzy at all f-stops, could only be focused to a 'least fuzzy'. I bought it second hand, it was in like-new condition, now I am wary of 'mint' lenses. o Cambridge 400mm f6.3 {?} pre-set T-Mount. You would figure after one Cambridge, who would buy another ... o Schneider Xenar 150/5.6 of 70's vintage. This was, I am sure, a bad example but I went nuts trying to figure out why the pics were all bad, depth gauges - micrometers - pictures of newspaper pages, until I remembered: o Agfa Apotar/Solina, purchased with many months saving at age nine. The lens wasn't bad, but the focusing helix was frozen; new camera packed in orange tissue with a factory seal and the famous green-gunk disease had already hit -- the focusing ring turned but nothing happened. After a year of fuzzy pictures it hits - it's not my fault, it is the camera's. After I fixed it I obsessively kept re-checking the focus and adjusting the lens my microns until the screw threads stripped, then it was epoxy time and leave the lens alone. -- Nicholas O. Lindan, Cleveland, Ohio Consulting Engineer: Electronics; Informatics; Photonics. To reply, remove spaces: n o lindan at ix . netcom . com Fstop timer - http://www.nolindan.com/da/fstop/index.htm |
#2
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The worst lens you ever had ... a collection of stories
Good thread! For years when I started photography I used a Praktica
with a Carl Zeiss Tessar f2.8/50. It was an awful lens, when I finally bought a new camera with a cheap vivitar 28-70 zoom I realised what I had been putting up with. |
#3
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The worst lens you ever had ... a collection of stories
Nicholas O. Lindan wrote:
The best and worst of anything are ultimately matters of taste and experience. As there is no accounting for taste and experience is what life deals you we should not argue about someone's nomination. What is/are the worst lens/es you every took a picture with? Leaving out the plastic-fantastics: Dianas, Empire Babies and their cousins. My picks: My worst lens ever has been the Miranda 35-70 two touch zoom for my OM40. Truly awful, not a single picture comes out in focus. My best lens is the 50mm F1.4 Zuiko I have for the OM. Truly a classic lens. My most impressive picture considering I was using a Carl Zeiss Jena 70-210 on full zoom with a Vivitar 2x converter. I manages to take a picture of a trig point on the next mountain to Snowdon. The trig point came out very will, abeit still rather small, it was quite sharp. The Jena is a pretty good all-round lens though, and even after 20 years it still takes good pictures. Just to add to the Olympus theme of quality, the C960z digital I had still took far better pictures than my Minolta Z1 does. -- Andy Hewitt ** FAF#1, (Ex-OSOS#5) - FJ1200 ABS Windows free zone (Mac G5 Dual Processor) http://andyhewitt.webhop.net/ (updated Jan 2006) |
#4
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The worst lens you ever had ... a collection of stories
On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 19:18:31 +0000, (Andy
Hewitt) wrote: My worst lens ever has been the Miranda 35-70 two touch zoom for my OM40. Truly awful, not a single picture comes out in focus. Never owned a Soligor zoom, but the 50mm/1.8 Soligor on my Miranda Sensomat was just fine. I recently sold a 16x24" print from a chrome taken with that lens - in 1970. http://www.terrapinphoto.com/gingko_leaves.html rafe b www.terrapinphoto.com |
#5
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The worst lens you ever had ... a collection of stories
rafe b rafebATspeakeasy.net wrote:
On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 19:18:31 +0000, (Andy Hewitt) wrote: My worst lens ever has been the Miranda 35-70 two touch zoom for my OM40. Truly awful, not a single picture comes out in focus. Never owned a Soligor zoom, but the 50mm/1.8 Soligor on my Miranda Sensomat was just fine. I recently sold a 16x24" print from a chrome taken with that lens - in 1970. http://www.terrapinphoto.com/gingko_leaves.html There were two qualities of Miranda here though, up to the early eighties they were a manufacturer of good quality camera equipment. Then they got bought by Dixons, and were just branded cheap stuff from the far east. Unfortunately I bought the latter quality. Mind you, the actual quality of a picture is going to be controlled by the quality of the lens anyway. If the lens is going to produce a ****e image, then the rest doesn't really matter. -- Andy Hewitt ** FAF#1, (Ex-OSOS#5) - FJ1200 ABS Windows free zone (Mac G5 Dual Processor) http://andyhewitt.webhop.net/ (updated Jan 2006) |
#6
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The worst lens you ever had ... a collection of stories
in 135 format
Vivitar 28/2 In 4x5 Wollensak Raptar 135/4.7 I'm certain that there are worse lenses, but for me these were pretty bad. BTW Nicholas, I'm in Westerville & will be coming up to Cleveland sometime in the spring. You up for lunch some Saturday? Collin |
#7
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The worst lens you ever had ... a collection of stories
" wrote in message oups.com... Good thread! For years when I started photography I used a Praktica with a Carl Zeiss Tessar f2.8/50. It was an awful lens, when I finally bought a new camera with a cheap vivitar 28-70 zoom I realised what I had been putting up with. I bought a Sonagar 85-205mm zoom for my Spotmatic from Wall Street Camera 30 years ago. Colors had no saturation and sharpness was lousy. Don't you know, I managed to take the only known photograph of an obscure Cardinal who was visiting Philadelphia for a religious conference in the 1980s, and I just happened to take the shot with that lousy lens mounted on my ES. Two years later, that obscure cardinal was introduced to the world as the newly-elected Pope John Paul II. Bummer. |
#8
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The worst lens you ever had ... a collection of stories
"Andy Hewitt" wrote in message
... rafe b rafebATspeakeasy.net wrote: On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 19:18:31 +0000, (Andy Hewitt) wrote: My worst lens ever has been the Miranda 35-70 two touch zoom for my OM40. Truly awful, not a single picture comes out in focus. Never owned a Soligor zoom, but the 50mm/1.8 Soligor on my Miranda Sensomat was just fine. I recently sold a 16x24" print from a chrome taken with that lens - in 1970. http://www.terrapinphoto.com/gingko_leaves.html There were two qualities of Miranda here though, up to the early eighties they were a manufacturer of good quality camera equipment. Then they got bought by Dixons, and were just branded cheap stuff from the far east. Unfortunately I bought the latter quality. Mind you, the actual quality of a picture is going to be controlled by the quality of the lens anyway. If the lens is going to produce a ****e image, then the rest doesn't really matter. Some folks with Holgas tend to disprove that. Jennifer Shaw's "Railroad Ties" is a good example: http://www.shotsmag.com/shots89-07.jpg -- Regards, Matt Clara www.mattclara.com |
#9
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The worst lens you ever had ... a collection of stories
"Nicholas O. Lindan" wrote in message ink.net... The best and worst of anything are ultimately matters of taste and experience. As there is no accounting for taste and experience is what life deals you we should not argue about someone's nomination. What is/are the worst lens/es you every took a picture with? Leaving out the plastic-fantastics: Dianas, Empire Babies and their cousins. My picks: o Cambridge 135mm f2.8 pre-set T-Mount. Uniformly fuzzy at all f-stops, could only be focused to a 'least fuzzy'. I bought it second hand, it was in like-new condition, now I am wary of 'mint' lenses. o Cambridge 400mm f6.3 {?} pre-set T-Mount. You would figure after one Cambridge, who would buy another ... o Schneider Xenar 150/5.6 of 70's vintage. This was, I am sure, a bad example but I went nuts trying to figure out why the pics were all bad, depth gauges - micrometers - pictures of newspaper pages, until I remembered: o Agfa Apotar/Solina, purchased with many months saving at age nine. The lens wasn't bad, but the focusing helix was frozen; new camera packed in orange tissue with a factory seal and the famous green-gunk disease had already hit -- the focusing ring turned but nothing happened. After a year of fuzzy pictures it hits - it's not my fault, it is the camera's. After I fixed it I obsessively kept re-checking the focus and adjusting the lens my microns until the screw threads stripped, then it was epoxy time and leave the lens alone. -- Nicholas O. Lindan, Cleveland, Ohio Consulting Engineer: Electronics; Informatics; Photonics. To reply, remove spaces: n o lindan at ix . netcom . com Fstop timer - http://www.nolindan.com/da/fstop/index.htm Worst lens was a Spiratone 200mm. It was bad in every way that lens can be bad. Best lens is a bit harder to determine. Among the best are the 105 f2.5 AI-S Nikkor, the 180 f2.8 AF Nikkor, and the 300 f4 Nikkor. Jim |
#10
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The worst lens you ever had ... a collection of stories
Vivitar 200mm f/3.5...actually it was a very good lens until the weather got
cold, then you'd need a pipe wrench to turn the focusing ring (MF days) Nikon 35-70 AF f/3.3-4.5...most useless Nikon lens I ever owned and the only one I sold (and within 6 months of buying)...at least for film cameras, that focal length range wasn't very useful and the shifty maximum aperture was a pain too |
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