The Most Overrated Lenses

Orio · Expire: 2012-12-04

Interesting topic.
I think it's difficult to judge on overpriced, because it's difficult to set a price standard. What is the standard? If it's the average price of today's AF lenses, then 80% of manual focus lenses are underpriced...

Overrated...this is simpler as it has to do with "public opinion"... well I met a few overrated lenses... which does not mean "bad lenses" but "lenses that are not as good as told". One of them for me is the Leitz Summicron-R 90.
It is quite soft wide open and it reach professional quality sharpness at about f/5.6, a speed where it becomes quite useless to have a fast lens. After having tried the Elmarit-R 90, which is one stop slower, but significantly better quality wise starting from wide open, and constant throughout all apertures, I can say that it makes little sense to buy a Summicron-R 90 for 500-600 Euros when an Elmarit-R 90 last version can offer much superior quality at wide open for 350 Euros.

lauge · Expire: 2013-05-30

I think this comes down to who you are and what you expect from a lens. If you like Nikon and tries a Canon then the Canon lens would be overrated to you as you don't get the Nikon look.

The lens Esox lucius referes to is a good example of that, I remember once reading a discussion about the Minolta 24/2.8 that Leica also used for their R lenses, and one person wrote very pragmatic that you pay a premium for Leica but you get a Minolta lens so even though the lens is standard quality for Leica people doesn't like it because it's not 100% Leica pedigree.

Some people can look beyond this and make stunning photos with almost any lens. I have seen really great photos taken with the standard kit zoom AF lens or P&S cameras.

jjphoto · Joined: 17 Mar 2009 Posts: 414

I still hold hope of a reasonably priced FF mirrorless body, or at least one closer to FF than any current offerings.

ChromaticAberration · Joined: 23 Dec 2010 Posts: 819 Location: Portugal

Even though you guys already gave a good contribute to the topic I would just like to clear things up.

When I meant overrated I meant lenses which popularity is not on par with their real potential.

And as I expected I really am very impressed reading names like Pancolar, Zeiss, Helios and of course, Leica, which by the way, if a year ago someone tried do sell me a Leica M8 I would have probably refused because the name always reminds me of low-quality stuff, can't tell why really...

I can give you an example.

A CZJ 135 MC Sonnar is fetching much higher prices than any other 135 lens. However! Does it pay off in image quality to spend that extra for the Zeiss glass instead of a Mamiya, or a Vivitar, or whatever?

My personal belief is that people are paying much more for lenses that in day-to-day situations will most surely not be that much better.

Contrast for example is probably the most overrated quality of a lens since most (if not all) photographers will end up post-processing the final images, specially for contrast boosting ending up with as "contrasty" images as the most popular lenses would produce.

Don't get me wrong I love manual focus vintage/retro lenses, but as I read around the forum I see that not all photographers, amateurs or pros, enjoy the qualities of some of the so called "premium glass" but that does not stop them from getting sold for hefty sums of money.

justtorchit · Joined: 12 Oct 2009 Posts: 269 Location: St. Louis, MO

Great topic! I like Big Dawg's likening of lens choice to religion and politics. A nicely illustrated parallel indeed.

I also can quite agree with Michael's comment about not having much experience far beyond the Nikon, Canon, Tamron, Pentax realm. I simply cannot afford to!

That being said, I have been extremely pleased with the results I have gotten out of my relatively modest kit (though hardly "inexpensive"). I look at the images being made all over the world each and everyday. From the journalistic work to product shots. And I find I can get just about any look or effect I need with the lenses I have (including Nikon's pro bread-and-butter lenses: AF-S 17-3/2.8, 70-200/2.8 VRII, and even the Tokina 90/2.5 which I use daily). I have just about never gotten into a situation where my lenses simply couldn't deliver.

I suppose the fact that I am using my kit day-to-day, and considering my purpose is to make imagery to which I and the client are the ultimate critics, and finally, that to date I have not found a "hole" in my camera kit, I would have to say the most overrated lenses are those which are far more expensive than the ones I already have!

Leica is certainly a name that comes to mind immediately for me when I think "price and expectation to actual potential". Though I have always appreciated their design, the M9 & company are so exponentially more expensive than what I use, they had better fly me to my destinations along with capturing the images for that kind of money!

Also, the older vivitar S1 lenses, save for the 90/2.5, seem to fetch quite high dollar despite meager performance. I definitely love their build, but their optical merit is not worth, IMHO, what they go for on the bay. But again, relative to Leica, we are talking about peanuts here ($100-200 for the viv's vs. $1000+ with Leica)

MoonPix · Joined: 26 May 2011 Posts: 43 Location: United States

dsadsadas

peterqd · Expire: 2014-01-04

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9096 Location: Houston, Texas