Disappointments

[Sonnar2]

Give the Pen FT/FV a try, Brian, they are mechanically great.

Leica Summitar - sharp, but bad contrast and colors, mechanically poor.

C/V Ultron 35/1.7 - quite sharp wide open, but bad colors and low contrast. No big improvements when stopped down. Bad ghost pictures when the sun is anywhere in front of the lens.

C/V 21/4 - not as sharp as the 25/4 and 15/4.5, needs to stopped down to f/8 in landscape pictures.

Jupiter 9 - never in focus.

Olympus OM4 - bad visible shutter times in finder

Pentax MX - focussing screen darker than with an Exakta Varex 25 years older (Pentax invited the fresnel screen 20 years earlier and should have build it in)

Voigtlaender Ultramatic and Zeiss Ikon SL7096 - horrible cameras, heavy as plunk. factories who build these stuff do not deserve to stay in the market, and exactly this happened

 

[Rui Morais de Sousa]

Some Nikkor optics could never please me:
1,2/55mm
2,8/55 micro-Nikkor
2/85mm
4/200mm...
I am meaning the non-AF models. I have never tryied AF Nikkors...
Canon EF 1,4/50mm: I can't understand the hype about this lens, people comparing it with Leica glass, etc.
I can't stand the "plastic-crap-feel" of most modern lenses.
Some zooms can be awful with distorsions and bad performance.
Hate lenses that need programs to correct them: I think that we are beeing fooled about such things. People should stop buying such products.
We should not allow that quality suffers in the name of convenience (both for photographer and manufacturer) and/or profit.
Cheers,
Rui

AL-MOST-LY PHOTOGRAPHY

 

[OurManInTangier]

Canon 50mm 1.2 for me. I know people can get good results with it but it doesn't work for me. It's just too soft wide open and makes me only look for bokeh shots. My fault rather than the lenses though.

Also the 35mm f1.8G Nikon lens, a cheap alternative to the 35mm f2 but a waste of money on my D3 bodies. Totally unpredictable vignetting and a waste of my money...again my own stupid fault, seems like a pattern may be forming!

 

[David Hughes]

Canon Ixus or Elph. A great disappointment and put me off APS until people started giving them to charity shops and I bought a Kodak T550 for 40p (that's US 40 cents - using the software and camera exchange rate).

Nothing else except the VF's on cameras that show the lens, or worse the hood, as if it couldn't be avoided. And those silly little VF's on a well know German camera. And modern, mainly compact, cameras designed so that you can't fit a lens hood.

Regards, David

 

[Keith]

Canon 50mm 1.2 for me. I know people can get good results with it but it doesn't work for me. It's just too soft wide open and makes me only look for bokeh shots. My fault rather than the lenses though.

Also the 35mm f1.8G Nikon lens, a cheap alternative to the 35mm f2 but a waste of money on my D3 bodies. Totally unpredictable vignetting and a waste of my money...again my own stupid fault, seems like a pattern may be forming!

I'm glad someone else feels this way about the Canon 1.2 wide open ... it's very soft IMO. Perhaps we both got duds because others seem to think it's ok! 😛

 

[sanmich]

ultron 28 1.9.

I apparently got a dog, but the comments were so good everywhere that it took me some time to have the guts to buy an hexanon, and....what a difference!

 

[Dave Wilkinson]

I'm glad someone else feels this way about the Canon 1.2 wide open ... it's very soft IMO. Perhaps we both got duds because others seem to think it's ok! 😛

ditto!...I spotted one on a '7' body, in a London shop - a couple of years ago....fell under the spell of that BIG front glass!, and paid big bucks 🙁.....the '7' was fine, but that lens soon went on more travels! 🙂
Dave.

 

[Ronald_H]

Tokina 28-70 f2.8 AT-X Pro
Draws beautifully but incurable back focus. Unforgivable.

Tokina 80-200 f2.8 AT-X Pro
Had two samples of this lens in different mounts. The first was stellar in all aspects. The second has had a long list of mechanical problems and under certain conditions is very soft.

Nikon 18-135 DX
On paper a nice lens to use my D200 as an all singing all dancing P&S. But it distorts horribly, the control layout is stupid and it is not all that sharp

Yashica T5
According to many the best P&S film camera out there. But mine wouldn't focus correctly even when you threatened it with a big hammer. I sold it and bought an Olympus Mju-II (Stylus Epic). Immeasurably better.

Minolta Dimage 2300
A rebadged OEM digital P&S in the non zoom 2Mp days. Non standard color space, very noisy at anything over 100ISO and not sharp.

 

[Spider67]

The Industar 61 L/D did not buy it especially but what a disappointment. Bad sample maybe.
Also could not believe the hype about the Canon QL 17III as it had a very average release button and was not so much smaller than my Bessa.
.....I was very pleasantly surprised by the 35 RC, which of course made me praise it ...so that someone may be disappointed by because of me

 

[bobbyrab]

EF 85mm f/1.2 L II.

Not a bad lens, but in my experience with it, it isnt particularly exceptional either.

You should maybe get it checked, mine is stunning and is the only Canon lens I have that is close to what I like about good rf lenses.

 

[bobbyrab]

I also do a huge amount of very low light level work, and it's slower to focus than other lenses, but once there it locks on better than any of my other Canon lenses, I've been so delighted with it, it exceeded my expectations in every regard.

 

[wlewisiii]

Most Olympus cameras. Great optics, the mechanical build quality was a disappointment.

This is probably it for me as well; the SLR's are especially disappointing given how people rave about them. But what do I know? I love Tessars ... :angel:

William

 

[NickTrop]

Yashica GSN. What a clunky piece of junk with a nice lens.

Not starting a war of words over a camera... but "a piece of junk" is harsh and far from consensus. First off, the lens is terrific - that's what takes the pictures. Secondly, it has a wracheted film advance, parallax-corrected viewfinder, and a meter that is far more accurate and more sensitive than any camera in its class. Its indicator lights allow you to pre-meter scenes, and it has an innovative stepless shutter. It also takes modern, still-available batteries. Stellar lens + sensitive light meter + wrachted film advance + parallax-corrected frame lines + stepless electronic shutter (up to 1/30th sec) =/= "a piece of junk". Styling? Very "Brady" - who cares? Look around the Internets and see what talented amatuers can do with this camera...

 

[FPjohn]

43-86 mm Nikkor.

yours
FPJ

 

[Soeren]

Leica MP
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Just kidding😀
Not really a disappointment but close is the Canon QL 17 GIII I never got familiar with. Thats the one that made me feel limited. Kind of funny since I like shooting with the Ikonta 531/16 and don't feel limited by that.

 

[Ronald_H]

The Industar 61 L/D did not buy it especially but what a disappointment. Bad sample maybe.
Also could not believe the hype about the Canon QL 17III as it had a very average release button and was not so much smaller than my Bessa.
.....I was very pleasantly surprised by the 35 RC, which of course made me praise it ...so that someone may be disappointed by because of me

Opinions, opinions... The Canonet was to me one of THE surprises. Dirt cheap and capable of stunning results.

 

[mfunnell]

[..]the handling of a Mamiya 645! - ok on a tripod...otherwise....:bang:

Funny! I have a Mamiya 645 and it never occurred to me to use it in any way except on a tripod. Something I knew before I bought it. I don't know what that proves (and suspect it proves nothing whatsoever) but found the comment vaguely amusing nonetheless.

...Mike

 

[dee]

Contax 193 and Olympus OM 1 - fine cameras but just not me ... stick with Minolta SRT and later , XD7 ...

 

[D.O'K.]

(a) the supposedly wonderful Ross Xpres 105mm lens (used 2 examples, both on Ensign Selfices): in fact soft until f11-16, and with miserable contrast at all apertures;
(b) all lenses of 35mm focal length (the view's too wide to be standard and too narrow to be wide);
(c) Olympus SP: could have been a perfect fixed lens RF but for the super-clunky shutter release and the lack of depth of field scale...

Regards,
D.

 

[mfunnell]

Hexar RF -- A big disappointment in its whimpy set of controls.

Hmm.. I'm not trying to pick an argument, though I like my Hexar RFs, but I am wondering exactly what you mean by "whimpy set of controls" in comparison to other M-mount cameras. I'd understand if you didn't like the low-magnification finder, or the (slightly) lower contrast RF patch or it's shape or form, or didn't like the control layout or the whole "motorised M" thing.

But you seem to have some other objection, which I probably don't share but which I'd be interested to hear of. Not to argue but just to know.

...Mike