p.1 #1 · What's your biggest dissapointment (lens)?
We've all looked forward, even aspired, to owning a particular lens and then been thoroughly disappointed with the results.
Which lenses have promised the most but delivered the least (in your experience)?
It's not an easy question, we've all had disappointments, but which one is the biggest? For me it's probably the Leica R 50/1.4 E60 which I intended to buy, compared with my own R 50/2.0 E55, and found too similar to justify. It doesn't make it (Leica R 50/1.4 E60) a bad lens, but it was a big disappointment relative to my expectations.
Also rans would be:
Contax 85/1.4
Contax 25/2.8
Contax 180/2.8
Nikkor 180/2.8 ED
p.1 #3 · What's your biggest dissapointment (lens)?
Definitely the 250mm Sonnar Superachromat. When I got it. It simply was not sharp. Yes, the colour correction was almost there, but sharpness was ugly. A star test showed a misalignment within the lens. But I was so disappointed that I did not come around to send it to Hasselblad for repair for years. Finally did it last winter. They did a "front lens adjustment". Now it delivers! No colour error, no aberrations, a razor! But oooouchhh the disappointment when I saw the first images.
p.1 #4 · What's your biggest dissapointment (lens)?
Sony-Zeiss 24mm f:1.8. I really expected that lens to be my workhorse on my NEX 5N, a trifecta of a lens. It is my favorite focal length, it would have been my lens for low light, and my high-quality AF lens. So I really lusted for it, yearned for it, coveted it. And without any worry, for I had previously bought every Zeiss lens I tried!
What a letdown. I finally met a Zeiss lens I neither liked enough nor bought, and it happened to be the one that was going to give me the greatest mileage!
Technically, it is not a bad lens, far from it, and others have bought it and are delighted with it. Simply, when I compared it with other alts, admittedly among the better regarded ones, it didn't measure up. I was so disappointed that I tried a second copy, hoping that I had been sold a bad apple. But no, the second copy was more of the same.
p.1 #5 · What's your biggest dissapointment (lens)?
Ah, shoud be a popular, or maybe a well patronised thread, would say it better.
Myself, every miserable bastard kit lens or mid level zoom I tried after reading reviews written for the true believers. They all stunk; they were sharp enough but had all the character of a drizzly English day.
I like even the weaker Contaxes I have. I have read the 25/2.8 and any non-zoom non-exotica tele lens in the Contax lineup were not the greatest, even on film.
What don't you like about the well-regarded CY 85/1.4, John? Some people rank it with the newer ZE version.
p.1 #6 · What's your biggest dissapointment (lens)?
AF Nikkor 28mm f/1.4D. Perhaps because of its "legendary" status I was expecting too much. But the copy I purchased wasn't even particularly sharp at f/2.
On the other hand, my Zeiss C/Y 35/1.4 exceeded even the expectations created by the official Zeiss 35/1.4 thread. More than sharp enough wide open and magical as well. Perhaps my favorite lens of all time (though I do like the Zeiss C/Y 85/1.4 too).
Given the contradictory reports about the Sony Zeiss 24/1.8, I await the arrival of my copy with a degree of ambivalence. Still, if it disappoints, there's always the ZM 25/2.8...
p.1 #7 · What's your biggest dissapointment (lens)?
Probably the Sony Zeiss ZA 24/2. It took Sony what seemed like forever to finally release a Zeiss wide prime and I guess I really expected the lens to be perfect. It is the best built AF lens I have ever handled but after going through two copies (the first was clearly de-centered), I realized the lens was never going to give me the tack sharp corner sharpness I had expected from it. It was also a lens I found almost impossible to MF due to the high gearing and one which was even tricky to accurately calibrate the micro adjust AF on. All in all, I just could not justify keeping it around.
p.1 #8 · What's your biggest dissapointment (lens)?
Up until now I did not really have a disappointment in the lenses I got. Maybe the Canon 85/1.8 was somehow a let down, but other than that I found my lenses always better than me ( that's not a big deal if you hang around here in the alt forum, you know what works ). I am still waiting to send my ZM35 to Zeiss because while I know it can be sharp, I don't get it always.
p.1 #9 · What's your biggest dissapointment (lens)?
Canon FD 400mm f/2.8 L
Color saturation was weak, detail lacking until about f/5.6, mechanically crude, ergonomically a disaster, and critters were freaked out by the huge front element.
p.1 #10 · What's your biggest dissapointment (lens)?
That's surprising (to me)... The nFD 300/2.8 L is pretty awesome - one of my favorite lenses! It's the same from 2.8 thu to f/11 - well other than the DOF differences. I would have thought that the 400/2.8 was on par.
p.1 #11 · What's your biggest dissapointment (lens)?
philip_pj wrote:
...What don't you like about the well-regarded CY 85/1.4, John? Some people rank it with the newer ZE version.
I persisted with it for years and was never satisfied with it's wide open performance mainly, but it is very sharp stopped down. I was using an FD SSC Aspherical 85/1.2 at the same time and prefered it. I sold both when I compared them both to a Leica R 80/1.4, which I use to this day. This all dates back to the early 90's by the way. The FD was better wide open but the Leica won out overall.
p.1 #13 · What's your biggest dissapointment (lens)?
ZE 28/2. Did not like it for desert landscapes, due to field curvature. 'Yuck' was my first impression. But I got some of my best landscape photos from it (other comps with a stronger central subject), and my favorite photo of my niece that I took with it just pops off the paper. I miss that lens and wish I still had it.
p.1 #14 · What's your biggest dissapointment (lens)?
For me the Canon 70-200 F4 IS. It wasn't an optical disappointment - it was actually quite stunning. Colors contrast sharpness and AF speed were all there....It was that after I spent a good chunk of change on the lens I rarely used it.
p.1 #15 · What's your biggest dissapointment (lens)?
Sigma 50 f1.4 - Loved everything about it except the disappointing AF - even after it was sent to sigma for calibration it came back a bit better but still not reliable enough for me.Although i think that having this lens just confirmed that my preference for lenses is in the MF mode So i dumped all my AF lenses and invested in Zeiss ZE lenses and have not looked back and could not be happier.
-Jim
p.1 #16 · What's your biggest dissapointment (lens)?
Overall I know very well what to expect when I buy a lens, but if I have to choose one that would be the canon 85/1.2L II.
Heavy as a brick, slow AF, fly-by-wire MF,... it left me pretty cold. Nice bokeh though. I liked 50L & 135L better.
All zeiss now. No way back
p.1 #17 · What's your biggest dissapointment (lens)?
Nikkor 180 ED AiS. One I've had since film days in the 90's so can't say I was disappointed so much as saddened that it did not port over well into digital. Loads of CA of all sorts, subtle purple cast wherever you look, though quite a sharp lens. It was relegated to B&W shooting until a CV 180 APO displaced it. Now it sits idle altogether.
p.1 #18 · What's your biggest dissapointment (lens)?
Tariq Gibran wrote:
Probably the Sony Zeiss ZA 24/2. It took Sony what seemed like forever to finally release a Zeiss wide prime and I guess I really expected the lens to be perfect. It is the best built AF lens I have ever handled but after going through two copies (the first was clearly de-centered), I realized the lens was never going to give me the tack sharp corner sharpness I had expected from it. It was also a lens I found almost impossible to MF due to the high gearing and one which was even tricky to accurately calibrate the micro adjust AF on. All in all, I just could not justify keeping it around....Show more →
I would agree. That Sony/Zeiss copped out and made this a f2.0 rather than an f1.4 lens was a huge disappointment, and it's uninspiring performance as described by Tariq didn't help. I was ready to totally switch to Sony becuase of the lens. But, alas...
I also was pretty disappointed with the Zeiss ZF 18/3.5.
Reading some of the other posted disappointments, it seems to me that there are lots of people with unreasonable expectations. ;-)
p.1 #19 · What's your biggest dissapointment (lens)?
My biggest disappointment is that none of my adapted/converted lens do not infinity focus on my 5DMkII.
I conclude that my 5DMkII is one of the more finicky ones, bummer...
p.1 #20 · What's your biggest dissapointment (lens)?
Voigt 125. Spent ~1400$ on it for manual focus, and when I finally got my Sigma 150 OS I found the Sigma to be sharper, better corrected apochromatically, and with AF/IS. Oh and cheaper.
So i dumped all my AF lenses and invested in Zeiss ZE lenses and have not looked back and could not be happier.