Meaning of "GOOD LENS"

A "good lens" is what everybody else has.

A good lens is one that I can use well...some versions of a lens (Nikkor, Vivitars, whatever) may have a reputation for being "better"...the better 300/4.5 Nikkor ED vs older Nikkor-H, or the better Vivitar 70-210/3.5 made by Komine vs the "same" lens made by Kino, for example.

...but a better reputation means nothing if I don't get better photos...
...for any number or reasons, some known, some unknown...the Nikkor-H is more compact than the ED and I can better operate focusing and aperture rings simultaneously on the H, better for getting correct focus and exposure on the fly as it changes.
...and for some reason I can better focus the "less sharp" Kino-Vivitar than the Komine version...and I prefer the heft of Kino, some don't...so I get better photos from each of the "lesser" lenses...

...I'm not as picky as some are regarding the "aesthetics" of a lens...e.g. bokeh...but the more they show me their way the more I see their why...

The saddest thing is that I let go perfectly good lenses to get "better" lenses only to be less than impressed...oh well....

The question of what makes a good lens is so subjective as to make the question moot. One could argue resolution, contrast, intangibles like bokeh, etc etc. You will get as many opinions as posts. It all comes down to what the photographer likes.

A good lens is one with Nikkor on it.

When David Burnett makes pictures with a Holga that get published then the 60mm f8 single element plastic lens on the Holga 120N is a 'good lens'.

A good lens for landscape may be a bad lens for portraits and vice versa. It all depends upon what look you are after.

So a good lens may be a bad lens sometimes and a bad lens may be a good lens sometimes.

Gerald C Koch said:

The question of what makes a good lens is so subjective as to make the question moot. One could argue resolution, contrast, intangibles like bokeh, etc etc. You will get as many opinions as posts. It all comes down to what the photographer likes.

Click to expand...

I hold with this. Even NO lens, i.e. a pinhole, can be the best lens.

the best lens might actually be the one stuck between outside and your brain
without that (lens) it might be tough to make the aux lens work

A "good lens" is a lens that has a good balance of what I need. A "good lens" is a lens I carry the most and gives me what I want.

It is not possible for a given lens to be good at everything. A lens cannot be light, bright, sharp, distortion free, have a widest zoom range, have THIS and THAT.

I tend to like lens that have some reasonable zoom range (not super zooms or prime), sharp (Yes, I want SHARP), without extreme and ugly distortions, and LIGHT. Lightness is important to me. In terms of sharpness, I only want it to be sharp enough to take full advantage of the media I'm using. I could not care less about resolution figures being the best.