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

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.

" 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.

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Jeremy wrote:

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.

You must have meant 1976, since Karol Wojtyla became Pope in 1978.

- --
Mark Cudworth

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I just sold one of those lenses with a SPII body.
But never shot with it.
Really that bad?

Collin

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)

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

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)

"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

Matt Clara wrote:

[Snipped Text]

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

Well, yes, but the applications are somewhat limited. It's a bit like a
one trick filter.

--
Andy Hewitt ** FAF#1, (Ex-OSOS#5) - FJ1200 ABS
Windows free zone (Mac G5 Dual Processor)
http://andyhewitt.webhop.net/
(updated Jan 2006)