truls
Lifetime Member
Posts: 568
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Post by truls on Apr 25, 2013 13:21:37 GMT -5
How can one know how good a lens is without trying it? Lets say there are variations of a Nikkor lens, some copies are excellent, some are just good. Sometimes I think lenses are sold on auctions due to some shortcomings the seller are aware of, of course not stating so. Are some brands of more similar quality compared to others, or does it boil down to wait and try lens before any judgement can be done. What about new lenses, are some "dogs" or is quality the same regardless of the produced lenses?
How can we be ensured getting a good copy of a lens?
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Stephen
Lifetime Member
Still collecting.......
Posts: 2,718
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Post by Stephen on Apr 25, 2013 15:05:54 GMT -5
You have to trust brands, like Leica, Nikon, Olympus etc, who are consistent, and offer back up if trouble is found. All things being equal, the same applies to s/hand goods, but yes, there are reasons that sellers are getting rid of the lens, drops the most common, fungus and scratches the next most common.
With budget "generic" brands like Vivitar, Soligor,Tamron etc., etc., then again, new they perform according to price. S/hand can be pot luck with them, for the same reasons as new branded lenses.
The simpler the lens type the more likely to be in good order, Zooms are far more likely to be in poor order.
Over the years the price of the original is the best indication of potential performance.
After saying that, even top makers have issued less than perfect lenses, they are usually standard type lenses made to save money, like using plastic rather than metal etc. The Japanese generally in the late 1980's till recently suffered from this cost cutting. Oddly in the same period Chinese made lenses, despite being cheap, got better, as they were after the market, and standards were kept higher than usual to gain sales.
Stephen.
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Stephen
Lifetime Member
Still collecting.......
Posts: 2,718
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Post by Stephen on Apr 25, 2013 15:06:16 GMT -5
You have to trust brands, like Leica, Nikon, Olympus etc, who are consistent, and offer back up if trouble is found. All things being equal, the same applies to s/hand goods, but yes, there are reasons that sellers are getting rid of the lens, drops the most common, fungus and scratches the next most common.
With budget "generic" brands like Vivitar, Soligor,Tamron etc., etc., then again, new they perform according to price. S/hand can be pot luck with them, for the same reasons as new branded lenses.
The simpler the lens type the more likely to be in good order, Zooms are far more likely to be in poor order.
Over the years the price of the original is the best indication of potential performance.
After saying that, even top makers have issued less than perfect lenses, they are usually standard type lenses made to save money, like using plastic rather than metal etc. The Japanese generally in the late 1980's till recently suffered from this cost cutting. Oddly in the same period Chinese made lenses, despite being cheap, got better, as they were after the market, and standards were kept higher than usual to gain sales.
Stephen.
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lloydy
Lifetime Member
Posts: 506
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Post by lloydy on Apr 25, 2013 16:38:28 GMT -5
Many of the 'third party' sellers such as Vivitar and Soligor never manufactured anything, they might have done some ( maybe all ) of the design and specification, but the actual making was down to the supplier. And that led to a huge variation in what the customer got. But, that didn't let the 'first party' sellers entirely off the hook, they made as many dogs as the third party competition. I've had a few major manufacturers lenses that I thought were very average, and the internet reputation ( hindsight ) backs it up. The third party manufacturers did have a lot of success back in the day, I've got a few Soligors and about the same amount of Vivitars, maybe a dozen of each brand, and most are decent lenses, maybe 3 of each are spectacularly good, and 1 is a door stop. How much of this variation is down to the original design and the manufacturing and quality control from a large variety of manufacturers is impossible to tell. I try to buy lenses in good condition, I'm a user not a 'polish it and put it on a shelf' collector so I don't look for 'mint' lenses, just good ones. Most of the third party lenses I have live up to their internet reputations, as indeed the major manufacturers lenses do. I think that buying old lenses can be a minefield, as Stephen says. The age and history of that lens will be the deciding factor. I've had bad luck with 2 lenses, recently I got a Tokina 17mm f3.5 that is a disaster, utterly unusable. And a few years ago I got a Pentax SMC DA* 50-135 F2.8. I sent it back, I sent the second one back. I love the third one, it's a fabulous lens. The Tokina is an old that I was given, the Pentax was brand new and cost me 2 months wages.
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