Roy Pertchik
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 p.2 #1 · How do you know if you got a bad body/lens? | |
fred mitcham wrote:
high end instruments vary from one copy to the next but one isn't better than another, they're just different, not defective. tones differ and musicians have their personal preferences.. but you'll never find a $2000 les paul with a crooked neck, thats not a subtle nuance, thats a defect.
Kind of a good point, but I'm not sure I would say they are just different; they can be better and worse too. Anyway, I'm just trying to illustrate the magnitude of the differences we are talking about: It's a small range. If a lens is a complete dud, you'll know it (like your crooked kneck guital analogy) But if a lens is normally functioning, there is still copy variation.
fred mitcham wrote:
what was wrong with the 3 lenses you bought that were unnacceptable?
Here is a wrie up of my 3 dud lenses from a while ago in another thread:
Out of the 9 lenses that have passed through my hands, in the last three years I had serious quality problems with three; 33%:
One absolute stinker was a 24-70 I got from Calumet. It back focused terribly. Nothing subtile about it, the pictures were visibly blurry. I brought it back with a test shot I made demonstrating the problem, and I gave a thorough explanation to the salesmen there because he was interested. He took it back with no problem. In the time I had it, I also decided I couldn't take the weight, so I exchanged it for a 24-105, which is good and sharp.
The second stinker was a 50 f1.4 The one I got had a very wobbly front section, and some rubbed off paint, and was very soft The truth is, I bought it (from B&H) and didn't use it for about 5 weeks, so by the time I noticed the flaws, it was beyond return. So I sent it to Canon. They said it had a broken traveler cam and fixed and returned it, and it's quite nice, though at 1.4, it's not as sharp as it is at 2.8. Still it’s what I think it’s supposed to be for a lens of this price.
The third stinker, I bought a 24 f1.4 in person from Adorama. They were a little pushy, but I understand they are a decent company to buy from. I used it a while and felt it was a little soft wide open, but, ok. After some time, I felt it was just unreasonably soft for a $1,100 lens so I started to seriously test and scrutinize it. I found it back focused, and sent it to Canon for calibration. It came back improved, but still didn't impress me. Then one day, I read that a not so infrequent problem with this lens is that the rear element sometimes has a billion little tiny air bubbles in it. I held mine up to the light, and sure enough, there was a galaxy of tiny bubbles in the glass. So I sent it back to Canon and pointed it out. They replaced the glass element, under warrantee, I assume recalibrated, and sent it back to me in less than 10 days or so. And now this is a very sharp little pup! F1.4 is very, very good, 2.0 and 2.8 are brilliant. Check yours for air bubbles.
The moral of the story: Out of 9 lens purchases from reliable dealers, 3 were seriously unacceptable. That's 33%. For this reason, I like to deal with a store face to face, because I don't want to risk having to do exchanges over the internet.
I will add that there is no question in my mind that the 50 f1.4, the one with the broken follower cam and the rubbed off paint, was a repackaged return. A camera store would be crazy to have a hassle free return policy if they didn't repackage and resell returned merchandise. But, I also think the number of enthusiasts who buy and scrutinize their gear is low in comparison to the huge number of consumers who go into even B&H and pop for a $1,000 lens and never scrutinize them. So the actual number of returned crap is probably a low percentage of what’s on the shelves. Still, it's there. But mostly, I think my experience bears out the assertion that Canon's QC is inconsistent and you really should buy face to face and test your gear.
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