How many really bad lenses are there?

I find the fetish for Leica lenses a complete hoot. Guys taking pictures of flowers, cats and "street photography" i.e. anonymous people walking down the street, seem to be the usual suspects expounding upon the necessity of having the best "glass".

PT Barnam was right. There IS a sucker born every minute.
 
I like having a few 'bad' lenses laying around. Take one shot with the state of the art lens and then another with the vignetting, soft focusing in the corner, poorly corrected for color lens and then pick the one you like. I liked this the best of two lenses (not a Holga):


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as someone else commented also, first zooms from -70/80's are usually pretty bad, both build (first use of plastics) and IQ, as CAD was still doing its baby steps, and human limits for manual calculations. guess lack of AF-motors too, zooms benefit this more than primes IMO.

other group that has plenty of dogs are FSU-lenses. am "aware" that with luck J3 can be equal or better than Leica ASPH, according to some 🙄
 
jarski said:
other group that has plenty of dogs are FSU-lenses.
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Not really, except by sample. In later USSR and early Russian years production quality often was a severe issue, to the point that the majority of lenses was broken right out of factory, but they are generally sane designs - which is more than can be said about much of the lenses sold by Hanimex and similar bottom feeders...
 
Teuthida said:
I find the fetish for Leica lenses a complete hoot. Guys taking pictures of flowers, cats and "street photography" i.e. anonymous people walking down the street, seem to be the usual suspects expounding upon the necessity of having the best "glass".

PT Barnam was right. There IS a sucker born every minute.
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This is correct but is it polite to mention it? :angel: 😀
 
jarski said:
other group that has plenty of dogs are FSU-lenses. am "aware" that with luck J3 can be equal or better than Leica ASPH, according to some 🙄
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I have to disagree. Certainly the later lenses had very poor QC but that relates more to poor fit and finish than optical defects. I have 28 (I think) FSU lenses, from which there is one that requires re-shimming. Assuming mine to be a random sample, that's not a bad rate! Furthermore, in mitigation the one that needs shimming is a pre-war FED lens that seems not to be matched to its original body any longer.

The biggest problem with FSU lenses is the kitchen-table bodging that many have suffered in their lives. Certainly, there appear to be some that may have come from the factory with defects but they are not that common. It's a little bit harsh to judge lenses that have somewhere around half a century of unknown provenance, FSU or not.
 
I don't know about least favourite lens but I've 3 favourites photos of my son on the wall at home, that I printed myself in the darkroom on FB paper. All taken on a 50 1.8 AIS Nikkor that cost me £59 used. 'Nuf said.
(I've not had a darkroom since Nov'09 (house move - work in progress) so we'll see what the Summicron ones print up like - eventually) 😉

Steve.
 
Roger Hicks said:
For a given value of 'lens'...

Then again, I'd have said the same about my long-gone 90-190/5.8 (no mis-typing) Yashinon. But I'd love to try it now as a soft focus portrait lens...

Cheers,

R.
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I believe I had the same lens, SM? I found the case, the lens is lost somewhere in the house, as I recall, if you shot something white in sunlight, you would get incredible glow around the subjects?

Preset?

I had the same thought about trying it today, maybe the next owner of the house will find it, or perhaps I gave it away.

Late 60's? I think I was using a Spotmatic.

Regards, John
 
To me "bad" lens imply "zoom" lens. I can see character in any kind of optical flaws, except for the somewhat dull, lower contrast average consumer zoom.

That said, there are plenty of superlative zoom lenses, so it's not about prime v. zoom, but rather that the defects of these lenses are the only one I don't find interesting.
 
I don't move in the circles of the normally touted great lenses by Leica, Zeiss, or others, except for a Zeiss 50mm f/1.4 T*, and some might argue if it is a Zeiss or not. But in SLR primes, I have and use Yashinons and Fujinons. Are they as good as your Leica lenses? I don't know, but they are pretty good, and certainly good enough for me. And I haven't seen Other people using lenses that are better than my Fujinons.

Granted, I don't get out much. 😛
 
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