The worst lens you ever had ... a collection of stories

"istoo" wrote

Some of my more memorable pictures
Were made with good lenses: after all,
they made good pictures.

were made with cheap lenses.
Cheap != bad

I guess to be a really bad lens it would have to
make any picture made with it worse.

--
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

Cheesehead wrote:
Are there any *bad* Leica lenses which anyone feels free to mention?

: )

A pre-WWII non-coated Summitar gave disappointing (if not actually
terrible) results.

My 21mm R (70's vintage) isn't the best super-wide (17-21mm) I have.
I guess that should make the zoom crowd happy...
; )

In article , Randall
Ainsworth wrote:

In 35mm...anybody remember Lentar?

NOW I do; unfortunately. Back in the 70's I bought a quantity of
"bargain" 135 f/2.8 and 35 f/2.8 Lentars to sell in my camera store,
for people who just wanted a basic lens. Both of these lenses had
large, impressive front elements but were very light. The on-film
results were just awful. Fortunately, most of them broke before people
could waste too much film.

"seog" wrote:

One of the first SLRs I owned was a Zenit with some atrocious
58mm lens (whose name now mercifully escapes me) my father smuggled from
Poland back in the early 70s.

I think it might have been a Helios-44, a 58mm f/2 with pre-set
aperture, a lens that was unsharp at every aperture and focusing
distance.

Well, it was great for portraits.

Good point.

;-)

David Nebenzahl wrote:

Yes, comrades, I must come to the defense of these People's Cameras.
I've got bunches of FEDs, Zorkis and a Moskva 5, and there's some really
good glass on some of them; the Industar-22 and Industar-61 L/D stand
out among the 35s, and the Industar-## (forget the number just now) on
the Moskva (6x9, 105mm) is an outstanding Tessar.


You obviously never used the Helios-44 58mm f/2 for the Zenit SLRs.

Chris Loffredo wrote:

Some say that the yellowing can be cured by exposing them to sunlight.
Not sure if that's an urban legend or not...


Exposure to UV light significantly reduces the yellowing of the Pentax
Super-Takumar 50mm lenses for the Spotmatic series, so it certainly
isn't a legend.

However, I have no idea whether or not it works for any other lens.

"William Graham" wrote:


"Chris Loffredo" wrote in message
...
William Graham wrote:
"Tony" wrote in message
...

I very briefly had a Vivitar wide angle zoom that was so bad I thought
someone had applied a heavy gaussian blur to the prints. I can't remember
the range 17-24 or 19-35 or what, but it was quite disgusting.


You must have sold it to that French guy that made this weeks, "Picture
of the Week"....:^)

It seems like people can't recognise a subject anymore unless the picture
is frozen-action in oversaturated colour (do I sense the influnce of
digital here?)

I did nothing but B&W, and worked in my own darkroom for about 10
years....Have you seen that latest "picture of the week?" what are those
black blobs?


They are fallen leaves, blown onto a fence. At least, that's my
guess, and I think guessing is very necessary in this context.

;-)

"Bandicoot" wrote in message
...
"Skip M" wrote in message
news:JXpBf.12481$sA3.6799@fed1read02...
"Tony" wrote in message
...
I very briefly had a Vivitar wide angle zoom that was so bad I
thought someone had applied a heavy gaussian blur to the prints. I
can't remember the range 17-24 or 19-35 or what, but it was quite
disgusting.


If it was one of the AF Series One lenses, it may have been the one
known as the world's only zoom fisheye, the 17-35. What Cosina
did to the once proud line of Vivitar Series One lenses was nothing
short of criminal.


Pentax actually makes a real zoom fisheye, as in a lens that's _meant_
to
have that sort of distortion... (I think it's a 17-28, from memory.)

Agree about 'Series One'. I have an old 90-180mm f4.5 Series One macro
zoom
that is an amazing lens - a different league to anything with that
branding
made in the last twenty years.


Peter


Yeah, Pentax just released that lens, IIRC. But back then, that was the
trait the Vivitar was known for, and I'm sure it wasn't Cosina's intent! ;-)
I have a Series One 70-210 f3.5 and a 28-80 f3.5-4.5 (?) FD mount lenses,
great little things.

--
Skip Middleton
http://www.shadowcatcherimagery.com

"Tony Polson" wrote in message
Chris Loffredo wrote:
Some say that the yellowing can be cured by exposing them to sunlight.
Exposure to UV light significantly reduces the yellowing of the Pentax
Super-Takumar 50mm lenses for the Spotmatic series, so it certainly
isn't a legend.

In the web page below the repair is shown taking place in sunlight:

http://www.hermes.net.au/bayling/repair.html

--
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

"no_name" wrote in message
...
Skip M wrote:

"Chris Loffredo" wrote in message
...

Probably my worst lens "experience" was a Sigma 28-105 4.0-5.6 which a
magazine had given top points to.
Interestingly that was also the time in which I was taking my worst
photographs (the most snapshotty and least though-out).
The Sigma got traded in at loss in less than a year.


Only good primes now.


Funny how magazines love those Sigma lenses that turn out to be crap. I
had the same experience with the 2.8-4 version of that lens, thanks to
Shutterbug.


OTOH, the one Sigma lens I have is quite good.

I have a Sigma 17-35 f2.8-4 EX HSM and a 15mm EX Fisheye. The former was
good enough on my film cameras, and ok on my D30, but its weaknesses really
showed up on the 20D. On the 5D, it borders on unusable. The 15mm fisheye
is ok, but has an odd quirk with one of our 5D bodies. One that no other
lens has, including the Canon 15mm fisheye...
BTW, I bought both those lenses before I bought the 28-105...
--
Skip Middleton
http://www.shadowcatcherimagery.com