Discussion - worst lens in your experience?

[Ash]

Hi all..

Just for discussion sake.. which is the worst lens in your experience you have used and have some sample to share? Or there is no such thing as bad lens, just how you use them.

[Sevo]

Worst? Excluding broken ones, the Nikkor 43-86mm. And any of the first generation 50/60-300mm superzooms I've ever laid a hand on was a stinker, too.

[stingOM]

Here' mine:
Hanimex 80-200mm f4.5
Sample photo of the lens (not mine: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gabrielky/4759562149/)

Ruined my nice composition of the fisherman.


Fixed a little to improve it:

[Nesster]

The Pentax SMC F 35-80 4-5.6, the kit lens that came with a ZX-10.

The problem with this lens is that it isn't so horrible as to be good (in a Holga / Lensbaby way). On my ZX-10 it vignettes noticeably, gets an antique looking loss of resolution at the edges, and isn't too sharp in the middle either. Actually, that is its one application: source material for fake vintage photography.

On digital the worst of the vignetting is avoided, but it still isn't much to see.

And the aperture is painfully slow.

On the positive side, it's light and small and takes 49mm filters. Which makes it a poor paperweight.

[estudleon]

Zoomar 2,8/36-82 in voigtlander mount.

Kaleidoscope lens. At 36 mm F/2,8, well, it was difficult recognice the subject.

Rino

[cooltouch]

[LucisPictor]

Gosh, cooltouch, that 1.5/135 looks gigantic!!

The worst lens I have ever used?

Hmmm.... hard to say. I have used some really bad lenses when I started to experiment with MF lenses on DSLRs. But that's quite long (and many lenses) ago, so I do not really remember.

Some of the ones I did not like were:
- Auto Reflecta 1.7/55 (The only 50ish that I did not like.)
- Revuenon-Special 2.8/35 (nicely built, but a really bad performer)
- Petri Auto C.C. 1.7/50 (just because of its crappy built, peformancewise nit bad)
- Greens London 3.5/135 (also because of its crappy built, took good pictures)

But I don't now if it was only my copies. I couldn't tell if the whole line was bad.

And at the moment a Marexar 2.8/35 puzzles me. There must be something wrong with it, because I cannot get one sharp photo out of it.

[ludoo]

The absolutely worst lens I ever had was a Cosina 20mm f/3.8: when it came pictures were so unbearably bad that I opened it to investigate, and discovered that its front lenses are plastic. Now it's sitting in pieces in a drawer, I hope to be able to use its mount for a conversion sooner or later.

[indianadinos]

... Super Paragon 35/2.8 ... and some others i no longer own ...

[Orio]

Well, there can be countless bad lenses in noname brands productions...
and I admit I did not explore them largely.

A little shift in subject could be to point out bad lenses I met that beared important names.
I can name two of these, the Nikkor-S Auto 35mm f/2.8 (pre-AI) and the Contax Tele-Tessar 4/300.
The Nikkor was the most unsharp lens that I ever tried from an important maker. It was really muddy, at all apertures.
The Tele-Tessar was sharp but it showed an intolerable amount of CA.
In both cases, I can not swear that the fault was on the lens design rather than a bad copy; I need to specify, however, that the Tele-Tessar was brand new when I got it (it was a new old stock).

[Andrew G.]

As far as I've seen, all four of Nikon's non-PC 35mm f/2.8 primes have been absolutely horrible. I suppose this is what happens when such a lens is being made alongside better f/2 and f/1.4 versions.

As far as the worst lens that I've used? I'd have to go with the Soligor (Tokina) C/D 100-300mm f/5. It doesn't sharpen up until f11-16, it's LOADED with lateral CA at all apertures, it has plenty of purple fringing and it's also loaded with spherical aberration, giving it that dreamy look wide-open. This look would be ideal for portraiture (it has good bokeh, at least) if the lens wasn't so slow.

[Laurentiu Cristofor]

[Helios]

Makinon 4/300mm ... Unable to produce any decent image ... Unsharp !

[LucisPictor]

[no-X]

Porst Extrem-WW MC 24/2.5. It's possible, that the lens has decentered optical element, I'm not sure - but optical performance was comparable to bottom of a pint.

Anyway, as all the previous post hints, buying a noname wide-angle or old zoom lens can be very risky. On the other hand many prime lenses in 50-135mm range can be are very good despite they are noname

[estudleon]

[cooltouch]

Sorry, no portraits taken with it . . . at least that I know of. I didn't use that lens much, to be honest. I just don't have much use for un-sharp lenses, even fast ones.

[justtorchit]

[Pancolart]

Pentacon 2.8/29mm. Even Meyer version didn't convince me this lens is capable of proper result. Tried few of each.

[Arninetyes]

My worst was a "Zoom-Nikkor" 70-200/4.5-5.6. I don't know who made it, but it was a terrible lens that came with an FM10 I picked up. The FM10 was a nice, lightweight little piece that was (for me) reliable and easy to use. It wasn't as solid as an old manual focus Nikon 35mm camera, but it was cheap and easy to carry. The original kit lens (another "Zoom-Nikkor", but a 35-70/3.5-5.6) and the FM10 were made by Cosina. The 35-70 was also bad (lots of flare, not very sharp), but at least it worked.

I have no photo samples from the 70-210. The ones I took were soft, at best, no matter how carefully I focused, and the exposure was nearly always off--the more I stopped it down, the more overexposed it became (sticking aperture blades, I'm guessing). Then, after having it a whole week and trying again to get it to work, the zoom stuck in the 210mm position--I mean stuck. It wouldn't budge. Since I didn't buy it new but it was part of a package, it had no warranty. It met a justifiable fate--death by disassembly.

I don't know who made this piece of crap, but any company should be ashamed to put their name on it--and that a major manufacturer like Nikon would is doubly shameful. It seems like something Kodak would do.

[Cistron]

My worst was the Nikon 55-200mm DX VR AF-S. Image-wise actually very good at 55mm, softer at longer end and the handling was annoying. Well, budget lenses ...

[Minolfan]

[RioRico]

There are no bad lenses, only bad photographers who don't know how to use them.

For instance, even a lens that is optically terrible can be used to burn ants and frighten birds.

[OM]

[Lloydy]