Show us the bad lens

[alaios]

Hi,
I am looking on lenses reviews and pretty much everyone looks happy happy. I was just wondering if one can share an example of a lens that was finding results as bad!

Alex

[aoleg]

I wasn't happy with MC Zenitar 50/1.9. Rather soft wide open, very low contrast and extremely prone to flare.

[kryss]

Maybe saved with PP, nice colours & hope you don't mind.Regards

[ForenSeil]

Bad reviews are rare because we wan't to resell our lenses
Also bad lenses are often not worth to make a review.

I wasn't happy with Industar-61 55/2.8 L/D for example
For my taste terrible colors and it suffered from flaring, low resolution (sweet spot F8-F11), low speed, vignetting, distortion,...

Tarcus 50mm F1.3 - terrible CAs, vignetting, etc., also stopped down very noticable.

Olympus OM 50/1.2 - the softest 50mm lens I've ever seen and not even cheap Used it only once and sold it immediatly

Jupiter-8 and -8M 50/2 - Often it has good reviews, but in terms of sharpness, contrast, distortion,... it's (or at least my copies were) almost always inferior to all more modern 50mm lenses from Minolta, Konica, Canon,.... - only good point to use it is that it has LTM RF-coupling (though my copies were always slightly inaccurate), it's compact and has smooth bokeh. I hope some people here won't kill me now for telling this

Voigtländer Nokton 50/1.1 - Decent sharpness wide open, nice build, but mediocre oof-transition and quite bad bokeh, and it don't gets decent when stopped down, which I would expect more for an 800€ (used) lens.

Voigtländer Nokton 35/1.4 - Quite soft wide open, glowy, CA's, vignetting, coma,... also still not decent when stopped down, maybe even Konica AR 40/1.8 is better ... I didn't like it at all for its price. Though it's said to work much better on FF sensors (I've used it on NEX-C3)

Leitz Elmarit-M 90/2.8 (first version I think) - The copy I had was just terrible. Terribly low contrast, soft wide open,... I'm still not sure if it was only my copy, but it was bad optically. Later versions are said to be mega-awesome though.

There are many other rather crappy (in terms of sharpness) lenses I had but at least they have some interesting characterisitics, like Domiplans and other triplet lenses around 50mm.

I also had maaaany zooms and mirror lenses I wasn't happy with, both vintage and quite modern, some really eye-raping for my taste Especially some japanese zoom lenses were making an simple Tessar looking like an Zeiss Otus.

I could give you more bad reviews if you need them

[Pontus]

[fermy]

[aoleg]

[Attila]

[Excalibur]

Surely the final judgment for results from an old lens should be :- If it's crap on a film camera AND 4/3 and full frame digital camera, then it must be crap.

[Attila]

Most sensitive device to lens quality is small sensor in my experience, m4/3, all others more forgivable to lenses.

[kryss]

Fermy....thanks for compliment,I shoot mainly Macro flora and love your tulips.

[Dogtag]

I'm sorry I don't know many crap lenses, I love the effects of the crappy fujinon 35mm and cheap ass pentacon auto 50mm, some are soft others are soft and low in colours and contrast but if you go for a real vintage look anything goes. Even with a crappy lens you can still take nice pictures. There are really crappy lenses like the plastic/toy lenses etc. but most glass optics are fun to play with when you accept their short comings (and that might be hard when you're used to CZ or modern AF lenses . )
All these older MF lenses have a character of their own, if you want crap buy a canon 18-55 AF lens.
There are sufficient sub standard lenses out there, I'm talking to you pangagor, pentor & avanar. but looking at pictures from 'crappy' lenses on a sony a7, compared to the 18-55 lens (sony and canon) I had in the past.. I rather have 10 so called crappy old lenses

[ForenSeil]

[alaios]

If the freshman can still have the same.. I can not see how a lens can destroy a good composition.
Let the flam start!

[tromboads]

+1 If the picture is well planned and prepared, lens, camera, all that wank just doesn't matter.

And because of that, all my lenses outstrip my capacity for artistic vision

[fermy]

[kryss]

fermy...... My pleasure. I may be interested in your Tair kit if shipping to Canada postal code T2H 1B7 is acceptable,even deep sea.Regards.

[ForenSeil]

[Attila]

People often tell on failure 'art' instead of trash

[Lloydy]

[Attila]

[kryss]

Lloyd... thanks for the belly laugh,I needed it.

[fermy]

[Billou]

I bought a Hoya 135/2.8 in a garage sale for cheap, I had some expectations because it's hard to fail with a 135/2.8, and their 28/2.8 is rather nice... But this is just terrible. Soft until f/8, no character, even the lens is ugly to look at. Stay away from it.

[memetph]

Color Skopar 35/2.5 simply does not work with my A7 ( vignette, color shift) , a big disappointment.
The Helios 44 ( 2 samples) with the same A7 .