Seriously what do you expect?

[wildlight images]

1. You read reviews, analyze what others report or comment, you watch market trends and then compile your "want"

2. You used lenses when they were new in film, you use them still, you laugh at reviews measuring ancient artifacts against today's standards. Your "want" is 100% based on rendering, to the point you own specific lenses that each have a unique rendering quality and ability....like a Rokkor-PF 58 1.4 wide open for instance....

3. You study lenses, stay on top of trends, watch ebay and CL like a hawk, get killer deals and make killer finds then you post it for sale as quickly as obtaining it and then justify selling it as needed for your lens fund...



Yes, as a matter of fact, I am categorizing the types who frequent here and would like to see more categories added...it would be "who" we are or who we can be as I look to put it

[jamaeolus]

Are you with the NSA? Nobody should know that much about me.....

[luisalegria]

How about - I like this because "I find this charming or odd".

[cooltouch]

As for me and my lens acquisition and selling practices:

1. No
2. Yes
3. Sometimes

These days, if I buy a lens, I buy it to keep. There are a few exceptions. Sometimes I've run across a really good deal on an optic I have no interest in, and I've bought it for resale, but this doesn't happen very often. Several years ago, I picked up a large format Super Angulon for a killer price, and promptly resold it. More recently, I bought a camera that came with a very desirable lens -- a Tamron 17mm f/3.5. But I already own a copy of this lens, so I'll be reselling it. It's worth noting, however, that I did not buy that camera/lens combination for the lens. I was concerned that the lens would cause the camera's auction price to jump but fortunately this didn't happen.

I seldom watch Craigslist for photo gear, and typically if I'm looking for stuff on eBay, I'm looking for it to buy for myself and my own collection. Occasionally as I do this, I might run across a substantially underpriced item, so I might pursue it, but often it gets bid up too high to think about resale. One notable exception I can recall, similar to the auction I mentioned above -- I was looking for a clean Canon T90 and I found one on eBay that came with a lens. There was no information on the lens, and there were few photos. Fortunately one photo gave me a small hint as to what it was -- a chrome nose FD 55mm f/1.2. Nobody else who was bidding on this auction figured out what it was, so I picked up the T90 and lens for the price of the T90. I sold the 55/1.2 because I already owned an FD SSC version. And I sold it for substantially more than what I paid for it and the T90. I do like it when I can pull this sort of thing off.

I watch the auctions at Goodwill's site, but I don't really watch them looking for items to resell, although if I run across one there, I'll keep an eye on it to see if I might be able to pick it up at a cheap enough price for resale. This doesn't happen very often, however. These days, most decent items get bid up too high at Goodwill's site to think about resale.

[luisalegria]

Personally, I choose lenses mostly if they are shiny and have lots of knobs.
Unfortunately most like that are expensive, so I have to make do with what I can get.

There is a serious deficiency in the "shiny, lots of knobs" segment of the market.

[Nordentro]

In a few years as an active member of this community you will find many different reasons why people stick around...

[wildlight images]

Ok the object is; categorizing personality types accordingly to yourself involving your own reason for being into manual focus lenses...."all of the above" isn't a category...yet

So please add your own category or explain


I think it's as useful as any lens opinion or review, or should I say a necessary and welcome enhancement to any lens review or opinion?

And no no no, I work for a much darker, sinister, and more covert government agency.... the US Senate




(I've been a member of this community for years, my handle may not show it but I assure you...once I make up a username or password forget it, because I have and at 63 it will only get far worse.....like now, when I tell myself to write it down in case I forget...then I forget to write it down as fast as I thought that - when you get old all you have to talk about is medical issues or bowel movements, I choose to forget everything instead and people write me off as having alzheimer's or dementia ...frankly I like that, because I can work with that one...not turd or gall bladder operations though )

[baychlen]

I first found the works of Tilo Gockel, Andrius Macionas, Markus Keinath (resp. bokehramas, proj. lens, DSLR focal reducing) and learned much from them. Thanks is not enough to be said, so I add CHEERZ!

This happened about 3 months ago, so I succeed to buy some targeted lenses on Ebay, then I bought some promising lens with no info, probably with the idea to sell what I find useless for my needs. Then bought some more of the same brands I liked. Then hacked some for barbeque and found the lens are very complex devices. Icount I have now about 50kg of glass and metal. The last weeks I decided to mount all on firearm stocks and also convert to EOS - a new hobby was born. My family likes very much the fotosnaiper I received this week, they just dont guess what follows... The house converted to factory, is not the first time to happen.

Cheerz!

[BurstMox]

I buy only soviet. I often check my favorites sites for good deal and/or rare (or unknown) things. If at the end of the month, nothing interesting arrived, I check for "usual" lenses for few money that are missing in my collection to complete. Usualy it does not come to this point, that's why I have a lot of rare things, but I miss totaly common lenses like Jupiter-11A or photosniper.

[hemeterfilms]

I think the reason I hang around here is.....nostalgia.

I am looking to relive the thrill of opening and playing with my first camera - a Zenit B with Helios 58mm, then a Miranda DX3, then a Pentax ME Super.............

Old lenses bring that back to me. I still dabble with film but my lens collection and Sony A7 give me great pictures - but somehow its not the same.

[IAZA]

[TrueLoveOne]

It's just a hobby.

Is that okay?

[spiralcity]

Personally, I'm all about shooting and application over the latest and greatest specs. Specs are for engineers, usable glass creates excellent images regardless if the specs fall short of the greatest lens ever made. We all want good glass, glass that produces usable images to the common eye, that goes without saying. Specs rarely mean anything to me unless the glass is just so awful that it should never be used, but I haven't found many lenses that fit that category. I buy what I can use and what fits my budget. Budget dictates everything. I rarely sell any of the glass I have collected over the years.

[Mr G]

I'm a photographer and the vast majority of my camera's are manual focus, try and categorise me by explaining how I can get an autofocus lens to work on my trusty Rollei 6002 or my F1. Films not dead, it's zombiefied!

[kds315*]

I just like lenses, the more exotic the better.

[calvin83]

[visualopsins]

Looking forward to your answers troll.

[jamaeolus]

I am a collector/user/hacker. I like finding unusual optics to see what they will do in conjunction with my a7ii. I collect because I like the look and feel of the quality stuff from bygone era. I especially like the era of the "sweet spot" where lenses were still all or nearly all glass and metal but coatings had advanced enough that contrast and flair had mostly been conquered. I have a modern AF lens set I use but figure will depreciate. Then I have vintage glass that I use because optically it is still good but not up to collector standards, then the stuff I don't use or rarely use to try to maintain value for the future (speculating in vintage glass...). My personal favorite is the look of the Zebra era lenses.

[danfromm]

Good enough lens that I can use and can buy at a good (low) price, good.

All others, bad.

[kievuser]

[willy35]

1. YES

2. YES

3. NO

I came 1st here because I can not afford AF lenses, so many review here are a great deal of informations.
then I buy one and 2 and totally fall in love with manual focus.

So the categorie to add is

4. SINGLE SOON, reason wife want to divorce

[kievuser]

[jamaeolus]

Nice looking microscopes. I am hoping to dabble in those someday!

[cooltouch]

[iangreenhalgh1]

On build quality, it is something that seems to have been forgotten these days, Canon in particular make a lot of lenses that are utter junk, and not just the cheap stuff either, there was the infamous case of the 1.2/50 L that fell apart because it was held together not by screws or even glue, but by a bit of double sided sticky tape. Then there is the infamous EF-S 17-85, infamous because a large number of them simply stopped working. Even Nikon, that used to put such pride into how robust it's lenses were makes some fragile junk these days, I've seen a lot of cheaper Nikons with plastic mounts that had to have mount replacements because one or more lugs sheared off. My Sony 18-55 also sheared a lug. A friend who shoots weddings had a near disaster the other month, her Nikon 2.8/17-55, a 1200eu pro lens, let her down when the mount simply came away from the body during a wedding shoot. The screws it was attached with simply sheared, god knows what sort of cheap, crappy metal they were made of. Luckily she had a backup body and lens to finish the job. Looking on the internet, we saw quite a few other copies of this lens had also had the mount come off.