Your worst lens

[Murray@uptowngallery]

UGH, Cambridge.

Did the topic change to who is the worst @&*(*#@ evil seller you've dealt with?

 

[Stephen Frizza]

ok forgive me not knowing the exact name of this lens but i bought a true fish eye for my canon camera this lens was not one of those dogie fit on filters it was a dedicated lens....all very nice but totally impractical, I suggest if you want to shoot true fish eye rent the lens. im not even sure where I've put that 180 degree baby. maybe its reincarnated as a paper weight or door stop somewhere?

~Steve
the Lighthouse Lab

 

[Removed Account]

Then there was the 58mm/2.0 M42 mount Biotar I bought thinking it would have good bokeh and turned out to have no redeeming qualities at all--

David, it's 2 am and I'm nearly done developing today's negatives (late start), then I see this image... the bokeh is making me nauseous...



- Justin

 

[Roger Hicks]

ok forgive me not knowing the exact name of this lens but i bought a true fish eye for my canon camera this lens was not one of those dogie fit on filters it was a dedicated lens....all very nice but totally impractical, I suggest if you want to shoot true fish eye rent the lens. im not even sure where I've put that 180 degree baby. maybe its reincarnated as a paper weight or door stop somewhere?

~Steve
the Lighthouse Lab

This thread is definitely revising some unpleasant memories. I'd mercifully forgotten my 12mm fisheye, 180 degrees side-to-side on 35mm, cropped top and bottom, empty corners: all the disadvantages of both full-frame (16mm) AND circular-image (8mm). It was silly cheap; I bought it on a whim; one (very cheap) job paid for it -- the interior of a newsagents, as I recall; and I sold it quick for about what I'd paid for it, so I came out ahead.

But I still use my full-frame Sigma fish-eye from time to time.

 

[benjiboy]

I don't have a bad lens, I've always stuck to to marque Canon FD and Mamiya TLR lenses and have always been happy with them, exept one Vivitar 75-150 Zoom once baught in a mad moment, that is at present here on my desk in my study being used as a paperweight !

 

[stark raving]

Most of my lenses have some redeeming quality, but the worst was one of those typical 400/6.3 generic telephotos - mine was from Spiratone. Low resolution, low contrast, and poorly built - kept coming apart (come to think, it's optical alignment was probably suspect after coming apart a few times :rolleyes: ). I kept it 'cause I was young and poor and it was the only long telephoto I could afford. Years later I got a Takumar 400/5.6 which was a revelation in comparison!

Two lenses which should be among my worst but aren't are an ancient Steinheil 105/4.5 short mount, and a Jupiter 8. Both have scratches, dust, and krud inside - I don't even look through the Steinheil anymore, it's too alarming. As a macro lens, it's scary-sharp. The Ukrainian seller threw the J8 in for free with a purchase 'cause it was too beat-up to sell. It's amazingly contrasty - I actually prefer it to the many-times-more-expensive Leica Summitar.

 

[Black Dog]

Yippee, I don't own any worst lenses!

 

[Richard Kelham]

You wxpect cheapo long telephotos to be rubbish so shouldn't be surprised when they are. I had one once to use on a Ricoh Singlex (the Nikon mount one) which was branded as a Rikenon but was in fact Hannimex. And totally flat and boring, of course. Lesson 1.

Except I didn't learn well enough it seems. Some years ago I bought a Nikon FE10 (as made by Cosina) for use as a general go-anywhere knock about camera. It came with a 35-70mm zoom, also branded Nikon, which I used for some time particularly for holiday snaps. Well, even holiday snaps can sometimes turn out interesting and warrant blowing up – which was when I realised what utter crap that lens is. Yup even worse than Nikon's early 43-86 zoom. Can't even use it as a paperweight as it's too light!

Lesson 2: cheapo kit standard zooms are likely to be rubbish too.


Richard

 

[Dan Fromm]

Yippee, I don't own any worst lenses!

What? Have only two?

 

[Phillip P. Dimor]

A 28-80 Minolta Maxxum zoom lens that came w/ an Minolta HTSi. Flare, distortion w/ the wide end. Lack of contrast, muddy/blurry, bad bokeh. Cheap construction, cheap feel. Blurry. Blurry.

Replacing it with a Maxxum 50mm 1.8 fixed lens was the best thing as that lens was outstanding w/ excellent contrast and resolution. It's probably the best 50mm lens for a 35mm camera that i've used, next to a k-mount Pentax 50mm f2 pancake lens.

That Maxxum zoom lens was trash though.

 

[Lee Shively]

The worst lens I ever owned was a Miida 25mm f/3.5, obtained with a Nikon F camera body approximately 24 years ago. I had never heard of the brand before and I haven't heard of it since. It produced negatives that were about 50% in focus and 50% out. That is, about 1/2 of each negative was always out of focus--don't remember if it was the left or right half. The only thing I liked about it was the field of view. I threw it away and eventually bought a 24mm Nikkor.

The worst lens I still own and occasionally use is a much-maligned Canon EF 100-300/4.5-5.6 zoom. It gets poor ratings for sharpness at 300mm and mediocre ratings at other focal lengths. The zoom ring is loose and the lens zooms back and forth when you tilt it up or down. Despite the poor image quality ratings, I have several extremely sharp slides done with this lens at the 300mm setting with a Nikon 6T close-up lens attached. Back when I made inkjet prints from slide scans, I showed some of these photos and people were amazed that this crappy lens was used.

 

[fparnold]

Vivitar 75-260 in M42. Soft until well stopped down, lowish contrast, and too heavy to hold comfortably even at the short end. Still have it for when I feel like taking a Pentax beater out rather than risking my F2, but I'd be better off just getting a M42 adapter for an old 300 Tamron. (which, despite sub-optimal build quality, is not really a bad lens optically. I have some technically decent pictures from that one)

 

[bjorke]

I like to buy broken lenses and use them for fre4aky hand-helf franken-lens experiments. They are horrible, often scratched to hell, and I love them. I have also used lenses scrounged from $1 plastic little kid's binoculars, plastic magnifiers...

they are all great, all terrible. What they're not is GENERALLY useful.

for bad marks there, I have to go with the old Nikkor 43-86

 

[titrisol]

Zenitar 35-70 or something like that
Quality of the construction was almost as bad as the glass itself.

 

[Lee Shively]

A lens in the worst shape that really surprised me is a 60-year old Leitz Hektor 13.5 cm f/4.5. I found it at a rummage sale and paid about $30-35 for it. It is heavily scratched and full of paint chips, fungus and unknown other debris. I put a LTM to M adapter on it and shot it on a Leica M6 and the results weren't too bad--soft but kind of nice.

"The Ukrainian seller threw the J8 in for free with a purchase...." I got a Jupiter 8M in Contax/Kiev mount under the same conditions. It has a chip in the back element and lots of cleaning marks but it's remarkably sharp and contrasty.

 

[Dan Fromm]

Lee, earlier this month I bought an 80/2.8 Xenotar in Compur #0. The lens' front element has the classic "cleaned with brillo" look, but it puts a decent image on the GG. Gonna have to try it on film.

In my limited experience, a cruddy front surface doesn't always kill image quality. Internal haze, as in my two 135/4.7 Lustrars whose surfaces facing the diaphragm look sandblasted, is another matter.

Cheers,

Dan

 

[Murray@uptowngallery]

Whaddya think, damaged front surface is far enough from aperture it only causes a little diffusion, takes away contrast? Based on this logic, I'd think rear surface damage would have similar weight.

The inner elements closer to aperture are closer to the most critical point and imprint their signature more 'heavily' as a spatial filter (even before Fourier Optics added new terminology, the effect existed).

For anyone who doesn't clean their lenses with Brillo, there is also SOS and plain steel wool with no surfactant impregnate.

Disclaimer: This may be an example of vocabulary abuse. My theory may be way off, but maybe someone like Struan can move the words around to make my theory correct if it isn't.

My ugliest lens (I'm not counting cosmetic ones yet, just ugliest images), is probably a homebrew triplet made from 1-1/2 Polaroid Ysarex cells I found fit an empty Componon barrel plus some contact cement to rough guess center the 1/2 element. Once I figure out he actual f-#'s I should make a little more effort to see if it's ugly thru-and-thru or just needs ugly subject matter.

 

[CBG]

Hmmmm.

The contenders:

Nikon 50 -300 zoom. Soft heavy expensive. I got rid of it a long time ago. It taught me to hate zooms.

Soligor 21/3.8 Nikon Mount some 30 years ago. Soft punky image. I still have it in a box somewhere. Wouldn't use it if my life depended upon it.

Any old 200mm or 300mm lens with a cheeeeep 2x And a cheeeep 3x teleconverter added to make a 1200mm or 1800mm disaster. The image becomes so bad it gets good again. They are an example of what's called good bad. Everything turns to mush. I love it.

Best,

C

 

[snegron]

By "worst lens" I will assume it is the lens that we hate with a passion because of either poor workmanship, cheap optics, or unexpected bad results despite our efforts to obtain good photogrpahs.

If so, on the top of my worst lens list is the Nikon 18-70 AF DX lens that came with my D70 kit! How dare Nikon put "ED" on a lens as crappy as that! It was soft and made of plastic, even the optical elements. I was so happy the day I sold that thing together with the camera it came with!

Next on my worst list is the Nikon manual focus 35mm Series E lens. It fell apart on me several times and the elements fogged up permenantly for some reason (not fungus, I think the glue that held the plastic optical elements togethere went bad). I still have this lens and call it the "Edsel" of my collection.

A bad lens that I actually use is the Nikon AF 35-80 f4-5.6 D (the one with the metal lens mount). It was Nikon's first lens to be manufactured in Thailand. It has fallen apart on me several times, I have super-glued it back together, but the images are very sharp! It is not built like a traditional Nikon, but the images are great. I like taking this lens (and a tube of super glue)with me on those ocassions when I need good images but there is a high risk of loosing, damaging, or getting my equipment stolen.

 

[Dan Fromm]

Murray, I've not bothered to think through why badly marred front surfaces don't ruin image quality. I have, though, started being more open minded about lenses whose fronts look bad, especially when the price is right.

Two examples of cruddy lenses that shoot beautifully: 420/9 Apo Nikkor with a horrible circular gouge, ~ 1" in diameter, dead center. Shoots as well on 2x3 as my other Apo Nikkors, i.e., its a very fine lens. 210/5.6 Boyer Zircon with a front that's all speckly and a brother of the 420 AN's gouge. Another very fine lens that stays home only because it is no better than my other 210s and is just too heavy.

So I have high hopes for the cruddy Xenotar. I got it for a very right price ($20) so if it doesn't work out I really won't have much to complain about.

Cheers,

Dan

 

[Russ Young]

Of maybe 120 lenses I've owned, one really stands out as pure crap: Soligor 20mm bought c. 1972. Not sharp anywhere. Bad light fall off. Stops on a rotating wheel that didn't line up correctly when using the detantes.
Herr B- I own both of those cheapo soft focus lenses and probably they're better!
Russ

 

[epatsellis]

Dan,
I agree with Murray's observations, I have a 210 componon in a synchro compur that has a horrible gouge out of the front,

a little blakening and it shoots just fine, and if I didn't fall into a Symmar-S and a 210 Angulon, I'd still be shooting with it. The only effect I've foundis that OOF highlight points show the defect in the circle.

Russ, I have one of those Sima SF lenses for probably 20+ years, not bad for what they're intended for.

erie

 

[Pioneer]

What is Your Worst Lens?

I have seen a bunch of threads about great lenses, sleeper lenses and so on. How about the worst lens you own. The lens that can't seem to take a decent picture no matter how hard you have tried.

I don't mean damaged lenses. There are some very good lenses that go bad because they were abused in their youth.

It really doesn't matter whether they are interchangeable lenses or are mounted permanently to a camera.

I'll start it off with the one I consider a true example of the genre. It is the Steinheil Cassar 50/2.8 mounted permanently to my Sears Tower 50. This is a rebranded Iloca Rapid camera that I believe was actually manufactured in Germany. (I am not positive on this point.) The lens itself is so low contrast that with some subjects it is not entirely certain what the picture actually is. In the beginning I was actually thinking that the shutter speeds were wrong, but when checked they were correct. Sometime later I spotted another one at an antique shop in Reno, so I paid $10 for it. Unfortunately the lens on this camera is even worse, if that is possible.

Since I can't in good conscience re-sell them, I guess I now own them forever. Maybe they will make good fodder for shotgun practice.

 

[blockend]

Worst lens I had was on a Kodak Retina 1a. The camera was in good condition, the lens clean externally and internally, but the pictures lacked contrast, sharpness and all the usual characteristics of a good lens.

 

[Paul Howell]

Petri 55mm 1.8, low contrast, I have not tested for resolution, but my impression is worse of all my 50mms. But then I have another Petri 50 1.8 or 1.7 an EE lens for the Petri EE line which is quite good, not great, but good.