Why do we talk such rubbish about lenses?

benjiboy · Apr 8, 2014

Ian Grant said:
My experience of East German lenses is otically they are excellent (except the Domiplan), actually the mechanics aren't bad either but there lubricants were awful, Russian lenses are similar. I has an optically superb Pancolor on a Prakticamat (first TTL meter camera on sale in the UK) but the iris diaphragm was inconsistent and n ever stopped down to quite the same aperture as it was set at.

Aside from the East German Meyer & Zeiss lenses I was thinking of the poor quality of many cheaper Japanese lenses which despite often better build quality were optically way behing the East German lenses.

You worked in the retail trade and must have had quite a lot of customer feedback over the years, I know that the one dealer I used (my Ilford Professional supplier) was very particular about what lenses they sold, he'd been involved as an importer with a high end camera company. It was and still is a bit hit and miss unless you can road test a lens first. We were constantly loaned MF and sometimes LF equipment to try before we bought, I had an RB67 system to try for a month late 1970's and was allowed to try LF lenses before buying, or they were sold on a sale or return basis if we weren't happy when second-hand.

Ian

My first S.L.R was a Craptica Super T.L. Ian with a Zeiss Pancolor and the lens after about a year became so stiff it was very difficult to focus, the repair guy said it was because the focusing helicoid was Aluminium and had worn and would only get worse, so I got rid of it and got a Pentax 50mm 1.8 lens.
I too worked in the photographic retail trade for nearly 25 years, and got far too much customer feedback, however I do remember talking to the Hasselblad rep. at a trade show at Olympia who told me that his company test all the lenses that they get from Zeiss Oberkochen, and have to return around 40% of them because they are below the required performance standard they require.

Xmas · Apr 8, 2014

benjiboy said:
Third party lenses might be O.K optically and some of them are pretty good but where the majority of them fall down is in the construction materials and engineering quality of the mechanics because they are made for cheapness, for example East German Lenses Praktica/ Zeiss lenses have lens barrels made of aluminium which isn't too bad in itself, but so are the internal focusing helicoids which is why with wear they jam up.

Were Jena lenses 3rd party other than for Stuttgart?

Al on Al needs lube but Id prefer that to poly carbonate on poly carbonate.

All lenses are made for cheap cept the Leica apo asph 5cm...

benjiboy · Apr 8, 2014

Xmas said:
Were Jena lenses 3rd party other than for Stuttgart?

Al on Al needs lube but Id prefer that to poly carbonate on poly carbonate.

All lenses are made for cheap cept the Leica apo asph 5cm...

I don't understand what you are trying to say.

Ian Grant · Apr 9, 2014

benjiboy said:
I don't understand what you are trying to say.

Xmas said:
Were Jena lenses 3rd party other than for Stuttgart?

After WWII Carl Zeiss Jena produced some lenses for Zeiss in West Germany, however they had sometimes had problems getting specialist optical glass and some lenses like Tessars had to have slight design adjustments to suit the glass batches available. Whether these could be called third party I doubt it as until the mid 1950's the two sides of Zeiss in the East & West still hoped to re-unite as a single company

Rolleiflex had issues with the post WWII CZJ Tessar which led to the switch to Opton Tessars from the West, although some of these may have actually been made by CZJ but passed Zeiss West Germany's much stricter quality controls.

Ian

Why do we talk such rubbish about lenses?

benjiboy

Xmas

benjiboy

Ian Grant

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