• Welcome to Photrio!
    Registration is fast and free. Join today to unlock search, see fewer ads, and access all forum features.
    Click here to sign up

Which 35mm camera and lens has the worst image quality?

Don Heisz said:
Now now, come on. You can't actually focus with that beer in there.
Click to expand...

Rather, it's you can't actually focus with all that beer in you!
 
what about the early Nikkor 43-86 zoom? I've never used one but it has a pretty bad reputation. other wise if you really want to go downhill, a Lomo with a plastic lens.
 
Paul Howell said:
I think many 60s and 70s 3rd party vintage zooms will fit the bill, shoot wide open, no lens hood, hand held, do not use mirror lockup or a cable release.
Click to expand...
In '77 I bought a Tamron Adaptall 75-150/3.5. It was soft at all focal lengths and distances, and the amount of magenta-colored flare was almost beyond belief. It wasn't just my copy either- it quickly earned a reputation as a dud and was soon replaced by a new design. I still have that POS, because sometimes it's fun to fool around with flare effects. I take a picture of someone with the sun behind them, and they think it's so cool.
 

Philistine! You didn't value having gobs of the legendary Leica glow!
 
grat said:
Lomo Konstruktor?
Click to expand...

Oh God yeah I have one of those. Depending how badly you put it together (which is the default result given the vague instructions) you end up with various shades of shade in the photos. I guess if you stick a magnifying glass in front of it you get a tele. The Sardina was more usable
 

Once upon a time, I used something that ticked literally each of those boxes, and a few more. A Mamiya Sekor 200mm on a Mamiya ZM body. Not just that - add a Mamiya 2x teleconverter to it, and you're in business. Unique properties:
* Absolute lack of contrast
* Absolute lack of sharpness
* Guaranteed to not flare as long as no light source is present within the same universe the setup is used in
* Abominable build quality; don't expect the aperture to work if you ge tone, or to remain operational once you've acquired it
* The lens mount will erode away upon use (unique feature, highly sought after)
* Combination has such a disadvantageous weight distribution that hand-held shooting will be challenging under all conditions
* Forget about reliable tripod shooting as no lens tripod cradle is present. Camera's tripod connector is of dubious quality.
* Lens elements will be hazed with grime and oily residues - consider it an 'optical coating'.

I think you should be able to pick something up along these lines for cheap. At least the lens. The camera body will be more challenging as I don't think any of the Z-series have survived.
 
It's way too good for you, but get a Pentax Zoom 90WR. $20 on OFAS. Make it the cult camera it knows it should be.
 
What you're really asking for is what I achieve and try to sell on the auction site with a bellows and an antique France achromatic meniscus lens. True soft focus for 35mm. Look at the photos here, here, and here. The camera is insignificant. Once you have a bellows for your 35 you can put any old piece of crap out there for experimenting. Anything sold in quantity back in the day is going to be too good. Yesterday I sold two 90mm enlarging lenses from the 1940's, a Dallmeyer and a Wollensak together for $15 bucks. With a bellows, either of those would have perfectly met your original description.
 
I had a Promaster 100-400mm push pull that was the worst lens I ever paid money for.
 
I bet one of the Agfa Isolettes with an Agnar 85mm f/4.5 would do the trick. Particularly if it's one of the 98% of them on eBay that will come with the front focusing cell locked in place with Agfa brand green yak snot "grease". Might have to get creative to get it on a 35mm camera. I have an Apotar and Solinar of the same series that I got curious about, and designed/3D printed a simple barrel and helical thread mount that can be glued to a sacrificial camera body cap of your choice with a hole drilled out of it (EF-mount body cap in my case), so I could test it out on my DSLR. Of course I'm only seeing the center of the image circle where the lens should theoretically be at its best. The Solinar is surprisingly (or perhaps unsurprisingly) good. It lives on my Goodman Zone now which I use for shooting 6x6.
 

To be honest, it's not that bad. Better than anything I've seen from a Diana. Better than almost any meniscus lens in a box camera. I know that's a low bar, but given that I am pretty ham fisted....I managed to put together my Konstruktor kit in about 3 hours and 10 years on it still works. The centre of the image is surprisingly sharp, though it's definitely not sharp at the edges. Work within it's and it's far from a tool for really serious photography but it's certainly fun and able to take half decent photos.

I have a friend who disassembles 90s P&S 35mm cameras which no longer work for the lenses. She adapts them to fit digital cameras and gets some very....umm...interesting results. If one did the same with a working 35mm body it might be...umm...interesting.
 
You'd think a camera with a cracked lens would be the worst. And that's what Pablo Picasso started with. But instead of getting rid of it in favor of the sharpest lens the distorted view inspired his cubist style!
 
Somewhere in my junk piles I have a Leica 90/2.8 Elmarit with a BIG chunk out of the corner of the front element. Takes interesting portraits. I should find it and post a shot.
 

Hasselblad with planar 80
 
If you want a junk camera go for a disc camera, anyone remember them?
 
Old thread about 35mm camera and people start throwing all kind of non 35mm
 
Celestron C-90. Flary, soft, strong central hot spot, astigmatic. Re this last, the lens did focus, if you can call it that, to 10 feet (1:4), its advertised near limit. I focused it on a window screen @1:4. It would focus on the horizontal OR the vertical wires, not both at the same time. Classic.
 
MFstooges said:
Any thread over 365 days is old. There is even a warning on this site.
Click to expand...

Moderator's Note:
Please Note: there is nothing wrong with reviving an old thread intentionally. In fact, we encourage people to thoughtfully revive threads, when the new information is both relevant and appropriate for the thread.
The warning is there so people realize that the thread has been inactive for a considerable length of time when they make their post. For some threads - such as threads involving market conditions - the amount of time that has gone by makes a current response of little use. But in many other cases, the inactivity matters little.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register