disapointment/overated kit

[Pioneer]

This is certainly an interesting thread.

In most cases I have enjoyed about every camera I have ever owned. If I didn't I just sold them on.

But there have been a few disappointments. The Nikon F is at the top of that list. Though it seems to excite many people I cannot understand why.

Interestingly, the Leica III is my favorite camera right now and I have it with me almost continually. If I need a large, bright viewfinder I attach one to the top. The rangefinder magnification is a great plus for me, allowing me to get sharp photographs almost every time.

This thread does show that one person's garbage can be another s treasure. It is obviously good that we have so many choices when it comes to our cameras.

 

[PhotoGog]

Well it's not a system camera, but I shudder recalling the day, in early digital days, when I bought a Canon Powershot G3 in 2004, the best I could afford. The experience sapped me of all juice for photography and it wasn't until years later when I picked up my Canon F-1 again that I got back into the swing of things with trusty, gorgeous rolls of Tri-X.

 

[benlees]

I really wanted my Sigma DP1 Merrill to be better than it was. Made some prints, but I preferred ones made with a Pentax K200D! Maybe there is something to those CCD's... :angel:

 

[Spanik]

Quite a few disappointments:
- any folder. The idea of having a small cam that is in fact a larger one is appealing. But each and every of them is a disaster. So slow before you can even take a photo, viewfinders that are not worth the name, focusing is more guesswork and terrible optics. And that only after you spend an eternity chasing lightleaks.
- Fuji xpro1. Got rid of it after a week. Slow as hell, a lightmeter that was worse than using f16, ergonomic disaster, af doesn't lock most of the time and manual focus is next to impossible.
- the whole Instax line. I love the idea but why does Fuji put lenses on those cameras that even Lomo would not dare to use? And it is not that Fuji doesn't know how to make decent larger format lenses. I got a bunch of them and all great glass.
- RF645. Must be the most frustrating camera I have: ergonomic marvel, great glass but no lenses other than normal and a tiny bit wider or longer, a viewfinder that goes out of alignment by looking through it and a so-and-so lightmeter. And even with those 3 hardly different focal lenghts they manage to make you use a bloody huge external viewfinder.
- Mamiya Press. I love it but where do those lightleaks come from??? A camera is no use if the only way to keep light out is by putting it in a changing bag.
- the Sigma DPxM. Great cameras if you can actually see what is on the bloody screen (they are no use unless full sunlight), have a very patient subject, don't have to use anything but 100 iso and are not further than 50 meters from a power socket. Oh and why there isn't a 35 mm is a mistery to me.

 

[ChrisPlatt]

Hexaphotocybernetic

Hexaphotocybernetic

A Canon A-1 was my first brand new 35mm SLR, following a used AE-1.
Electronic everything and too much automation to fight just left me cold.
I traded in all my accumulated Canon gear towards a brand new Nikon FM.
I have stuck to mainly mechanical manual exposure cameras ever since.

Chris

 

[charjohncarter]

Nikonos II: always a problem, flash synch, shutter, I could never get the underwater focus right.

Canon AS-6, I've had 3 of them; all failed, 2 AAA batteries to run the camera and the flash.

Canon AF35M seems like you had to change the batteries with every roll.

 

[bayernfan]

rollei 35 and minolta cle

 

[x-ray]

One other terrible lens was an 18mm f3.5 super Takumar I owned. It was sharp in the center stopped down but 1/3 out from the center it became very soft and unusable from 2/3s out to the edges. I sent it back to Pentax and they worked on it and made a little improvement but it was still unusable. Pentax exchanged it for another which was just as bad. My Pentax rep swapped his demo 18 for mine but it still was terrible. I exchanged that lens for a 20mm Takumar which was great.

 

[ferider]

In most cases I have enjoyed about every camera I have ever owned. If I didn't I just sold them on.

But there have been a few disappointments. The Nikon F is at the top of that list. Though it seems to excite many people I cannot understand why.

Same here. Beautiful to look at, but clunky and loud in use.

Nr. 2 on my list is my X100s. We still don't get along, and I've tried.

Other than that, I liked almost every camera I used.

Roland.

 

[gfeucht]

OK. I'll be crucified for this, but:

35mm Summicron ASPH. There. I said it.

I wanted to replace my ltm Ultron 35mm 1.7 because of its .9m close focus and tried three copies of the 'cron ASPH. All were both softer and had serious focus shift. I ended up buying the Zeiss 2.0 Biogon which was sharper than everything else, no distortion, and had zero focus shift.

I really wanted to and expected to love the 'cron, but it just wasn't great at all.

 

[Rob-F]

OK. I'll be crucified for this, but:

35mm Summicron ASPH. There. I said it.

I wanted to replace my ltm Ultron 35mm 1.7 because of its .9m close focus and tried three copies of the 'cron ASPH. All were both softer and had serious focus shift. I ended up buying the Zeiss 2.0 Biogon which was sharper than everything else, no distortion, and had zero focus shift.

I really wanted to and expected to love the 'cron, but it just wasn't great at all.

After all the good things said about the Cron ASPH? Strange!

 

[Pioneer]

OK. I'll be crucified for this, but:

35mm Summicron ASPH. There. I said it.

I wanted to replace my ltm Ultron 35mm 1.7 because of its .9m close focus and tried three copies of the 'cron ASPH. All were both softer and had serious focus shift. I ended up buying the Zeiss 2.0 Biogon which was sharper than everything else, no distortion, and had zero focus shift.

I really wanted to and expected to love the 'cron, but it just wasn't great at all.

I know nothing good or bad about the 35 summicron ASPH as I have never tried one, but I can certainly vouch for the Zeiss Biogon 35/2.

I don't know what Zeiss did between the 1930s and now but the current Biogon is a much, much better 35mm lens.

 

[DKimg]

For me oddly enough was the Plaubel Makina 67/670. I had so much bad experiences with the focus calibration being off to the fact that I had lots of mishaps. I'm speaking about going through 2 PM67 and 3 PM670. Once I found a proper PM670, I noticed that the lens didn't carry out the same sort of resolution compared to other MF cameras. The overall design, functionality and rendition of the image from the PM670 is awesome; however, for the price and headaches I had led to my most disappointed camera.

 

[Huss]

OK. I'll be crucified for this, but:

35mm Summicron ASPH. There. I said it.

I wanted to replace my ltm Ultron 35mm 1.7 because of its .9m close focus and tried three copies of the 'cron ASPH. All were both softer and had serious focus shift. I ended up buying the Zeiss 2.0 Biogon which was sharper than everything else, no distortion, and had zero focus shift.

I really wanted to and expected to love the 'cron, but it just wasn't great at all.

Weird, I have the opposite experience. Perhaps the rf mechanism in your camera is just not in tune for that lens? By the way this is no slight on Zeiss lenses. I find those fantastic too.

 

[k__43]

OK. I'll be crucified for this, but:

35mm Summicron ASPH. There. I said it.

I wanted to replace my ltm Ultron 35mm 1.7 because of its .9m close focus and tried three copies of the 'cron ASPH. All were both softer and had serious focus shift. I ended up buying the Zeiss 2.0 Biogon which was sharper than everything else, no distortion, and had zero focus shift.

I really wanted to and expected to love the 'cron, but it just wasn't great at all.

I second everyone else here - I made the switch from a Ultron-M to a ASPH and don't regret it. I didn't do it for sharpness but for ergonomics, it's better wide open than the Ultron too. Stopped down I don't see differences. You had a bad copy I'd say.

 

[k__43]

I was disappointed by the Fuji XE-1. It was so damn slow in bad light, doesn't really need to be dark just not sunny. I came from a Oly E-P1 and a loaner X100 (which impressed me a lot, although it was as slow). When the focus finally locked the subject was gone. Often it would missfocus. The high ISO performance of the XTRANS was better than the Oly but not much better than the X100 also looked weird compared. Sold it and bought a X100 (which I sold for the M9)

 

[Arbitrarium]

I agree with people being disappointed with the Olympus XA. I spent a couple of days with it and it's like trying to take pictures with an octopus. Much prefer the XA2/3. Point and shoot, not point, jab, flail, panic, shoot.

A couple of posters said they didn't like the OM1's shutter dial. I love it! Being able to change shutter speed, aperture and focus all with one hand, all within an inch of each other. I find it 100% intuitive.

 

[roscoetuff]

For me, it is the Focus-by-wire lenses with no lens barrel markings. I know these are the rage and the purpose is to get the freakin' photographer out of the picture and let the camera brain take over, but...

By my lights, a proper lens should have three blips per F stop (or more); it should have an aperture ring on the camera-end and a focus ring at the front of the lens; there should be F-stops and Distant scales; and there should be an indication of DOF. The focus ring should be wide enough to put more than one finger on it, and working one ring should not end up moving the other. I can adapt and I do, but like the fish told to fly, I've got my limits. Better than this is the idea that a family of lenses ought to have similar handling characteristics... like filter sizes... as if the engineers have a clue what the shooter needs. And we shouldn't be lured by small cameras for portability only to couple them to ginormous lenses... as if the size of the whole package isn't material.

Also can't stand having software updates to my lenses - like the engineers forgot something. Either it's engineered to take great pictures or it's not. And if it is, I should be able to take great pictures on any camera. So if you're going to have software updates, why not at least make them really useful to this end and give the user the ability to adjust the software? Maybe even like adjusting the infinity focus point, or focal plane... and give these things real legs to survive the marketing department's next one-night stand? or allow the owner to just port that sucker to another camera body set-up until marketing comes back to reality?

End of rant.

 

[newfilm]

my biggest disappointment are the voigtländer 35mm lenses (the 2.5, 1.7, pancake, mark I, mark II, everyone except the 1.4 🙂

because at the end, my very affordable Jupiter-12 is the one I keep going back to, I can't tell the extra cash that I paid for voigtländer show up in my picture (maybe I'm the dud in this equation), granted the ergonomics of the aperture ring is a real pain.

 

[santino]

Everything Leica R except the Leicaflex SL...
It just doesn't feel Leica to me and prices are on the higher end compared to Canikon and Contax.