disapointment/overated kit

Leica 21 3.4 Super Angulon. Brand new in the box and it vignetted like crazy. It worked pretty good at f16 and I have a bunch of pics on the livingroom walls from it. I kept it 3 months and the 2.8 preasph came out. Still have that one for 25 years.
 
A long-time Nikon user here, but I could never get used to the little LCD metering readout and the "not a spot" and "not an averaging" meter system on the Nikon F3. The rest of the camera was great for its time.
 
Its refreshing in a way to realise that its not just me being 'a grumpy old man' when I find some camera, lens or kit disapointing. At a cursory glance, it seems a lot of people have been disapointed with olympus cameras, (but not the glass). I loved Zuiko lenses, but could never get on with the ergonomics of their bodies, (om2 and 4). It is also interesting that others too found the Pentax 40mm f2.8 pancake disapointing
 
All the Kievs I've ever had--they felt good in the hand, but none worked properly.

Olympus 35RC--good lens, but a somewhat clunky and cheap feel.

Rolleiflex 3.5f--many excellent qualities, but not quite as smooth handling as some of its "lesser" sister models such as the older automats and the T. And as heavier, also more tedious to carry around for long periods.

Regards,
D.
 
Darren I love the Olympus 35 Rc but I agree it definately feels 'cheap' and I never did like the lever wind or as I prefered to call it 'dust enterance'. Its funny I have a love hate thing with olympus, great lenses but camera wise something always lets me down, the flare prone viewfinder in the AX, the strangeley place shutter selection dial on OM bodies, the bulkiness of the SP, the poor electronics of their early RF and so on
 
Considering the high price and reputation I found the 50mm Pre-ASPH Lux (v.2) to be just another 'good' lens. Maybe marginally better (more contrasty) than a Canon 50mm/1.4 but much less value than any cheap 50mm lens from CV. Even now when I watch my images taken with it I simply cannot see anything special.
 
rumbliegeos said:
A long-time Nikon user here, but I could never get used to the little LCD metering readout and the "not a spot" and "not an averaging" meter system on the Nikon F3. The rest of the camera was great for its time.
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haha, i totally agree. The F3 takes great pictures and feels great, but i don't even try to see the viewfinder display.
I hate that camera.
 
Well, I haven't been using much photography equipment so far, so I haven't got much experience with different gear.

Still, I was pretty disappointed with the Voigtländer 35mm f/1.4 Nokton MC, for which I had high hopes when I first purchased it. While being very compact and well-made, my copy exhibited massive focus shift in various directions, so I rarely got my subject in focus. The bokeh appeared very harsh and jittery to me, and I didn't like it at all. Also, the lens was rather soft wide open and both colours and contrast weren't very pleasing to me.

Another huge disappointment was that japanese-made Helios viewfinder, sporting alleged 35, 85 and 135mm framelines. I bought it to be used with the 20mm f/1.7 lens on my Olympus E-P1. It was a terrible and not very recommendable experience. The finder wouldn't fit in the flash shoe properly, and the framelines were far too tight. I could've just taken pictures blind instead.
 
JOE1951 said:
Mamiya 645, and Mamiya c330, Mamiya RB67. Could never get into medium format. It just seemed a clunky compromise between my prefered 35mm Nikon/Leica and 4x5 Sinar.

Just my opinion, not trolling, I know others will disagree, and more power to ya if you enjoy it. ;)
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It's so funny how people's experiences differ! Mine is the exact opposite. I have excellent 35mm (Olympus OM, 3Ti, rage of amazing f/2.0 glass, 21mm-250mm) and 4x5in (Linhof Technika) systems, yet I keep on coming back to the Mamiya RB67 (which was my first film camera) which produces, to my eye, my most pleasing pictures. Especially candids - it's so unobtrusive to use a waist-level finder, and after sheet film, a roll of 10 images is a luxury!

To each his own!

Oh - back to the original subject - my biggest disappointment? Finding out that large format images don't automatically look better than small/medium ones. Right after I got it, I almost sold my Linhof Technika. Images felt like just too much effort, for 16x20in prints that don't realy look better than the equivalent Mamiya-produced ones.

Until I made one or two images which really blew my mind, which made me realise I could never have made them with any of my other cameras. That made me perservere, and now the disappointment is over.
 
Zorki "C"............absolutely a pain in the fundament to load, a rangefinder that is too small and sounds like the "gnashing of the proletarian teeth" when the shutter is fired.
 
nobbylon said:
I'd love to know what you didn't like about the D700, apart from size maybe?
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I hate SLRs in general. I thought I should step up to the D700 from an M8 and get a little more modern, but I just couldn't get on with it and went back to the M8 within a month. I just like that old school simplicity of manual cameras. That said, I just bought a Canon 40d so, I'll attempt the DSLR thing again, but at a much cheaper entry price this time. Obviously I had no issues with the D700 IQ.
 
thawkins said:
Zorki "C"............absolutely a pain in the fundament to load, a rangefinder that is too small and sounds like the "gnashing of the proletarian teeth" when the shutter is fired.
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And as I contiune to think about it; the cheap plasticky feel of the modern digital camera that will be obselete in only a few years.
 
Zorki 4 and Pentacon Six.

The latter I really wanted to like, but found that in bright sunlight I could see diddly squat through the waist level finder. The prism finder wasn't much better either.

John
 
Disappointing:

Bodies:
Leica M8
Canon A1, AE1 (did like the F1)
Canon 5D, 5dII, 1Dmk3

Lenses:
Canon 50/1.2L, 35L, 135L
Nikon 35/2AF 50/1.8AF
CV 21/4
 
jonmanjiro said:
Hasselblad 503CX with 80/2.8 - nice enough kit, but painfully slow to focus and use. How on earth do people use these for shooting on the street? Hasselblad should be spelled "Hassle" blad :eek:
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... Do you mean by any chance the Hasselblad 500 C/M ... :D

Except my dislike for that digital stuff ... the only camera that I never really liked and could get used to was my Olympus Pen F ... Out of 2 rolls 135-36 all 144 (all !!) were totally miss-focused, using two different lenses ...
 
btgc said:
...

135mm lenses - who uses them, for what??? :)
...
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I take it you don't like that FL? That seems to have been a standad in RF and SLR for a long time. My first two lenses in SLR were a kit containing a 28mm and a 135mm. It was a good compromise between 100mm and 200mm. It was also a nice enough portrait lens.

YMMV
 
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