Is there such a thing as a bad lens?

[zou]

Looking at some results from various kit lenses and cheap/battered old lenses I've noticed that if shot with appropriate care all of the (interchangeable) lenses I own are 'good enough', and with digital processing much of the low contrast and chromatic aberrations can be rectified. So are there any truly bad lenses, or just bad examples of otherwise ok lenses?

[Deleted]

What do define as bad?

[John Farrell]

You might be surprised what can produce a usable image...

www.lensrentals.com/blog/2008/10/front-element-scratches/

[zou]

Jan 16, 2023 19:42:26 GMT @bazarchie said:

What do define as bad?

Well, quite. 'Internet wisdom' would have it that most kit lenses are junk and older lens coatings render some lenses unusable. But I reckon that's baloney.

[squeamishossifrage]

I have only owned one lens I considered bad, and that was a Vivitar 35-80mm Series One for Olympus back in the late seventies.  It probably wasn't all that bad, but the guy in the shop assured me it would be just as sharp as the Olympus 50mm I had. It wasn't! Every lens I have owned since then has pretty much been up to expectations. 

I read an article a couple of years ago that made the point that in terms of resolving power the typical modern lens outperformed the sensor it was designed for by a considerable margin. Bearing in mind that all modern lenses are designed by computer, it is hard to see how there could really be any bad lenses. OK, an f:0.9 lens is probably going to be soft at the corners wide open,  but I think the main differences in apparent quality are going to be how rigid the structure holding the various elements in place is, and how much money the manufacturer is prepared to spend on fancy glass to reduce CA.

So no, I don't think there are any really bad lenses out there any more!

[zou]

Here's a basic example. Straight out of camera, and 2 minute tweaked. 

Out of camera - lacks contrast, looks a bit soft.
Attachment Deleted

Tweaked
Attachment Deleted


The front element of this Nikkor 35-105 resembles the surface of an ice ink after an ice hockey match, before the Zamboni comes along to sort it.  The critical issue here is that the shutter speed was too slow, which isn't the fault of the lens. Get that right, and suddenly we have more than usable quality.

Attachment Deleted

[gray1720]

Jan 16, 2023 19:47:58 GMT John Farrell said:

You might be surprised what can produce a usable image...

www.lensrentals.com/blog/2008/10/front-element-scratches/

Funny, I just knew what that link would be!

I may have a higher shite tolerance than others, or just assume it's the muppet behind the viewfinder but I've not found many clunkers. The one that sticks out a surprising me is the Kodak Anastigmat on my Duo620s, which I find startlingly contrast- free.

[peterob]

The two EOS EF lenses 28-80 and 70-300 I bought as a kit with my Canon 50E were awful but I didn’t know  it.   I was mightily impressed when I went to a 6x6 SLR and compared the 9x9” prints with 6x9“ prints.  Absolutely no contest. Medium format was streets ahead as expected.  Then I bought a 5D with 24-105 L and made the same comparison.  No difference to the 6x6 really so thereafter I only bought L lenses.  

[petrochemist]

I personally feel the two 1980's EF kit lenses I have (film era lenses built down to the lowest price, and now in poor shape as well) are pretty dire. No doubt good images can be made from them, but they'll require more effort than any £10 junk lens I've got!

In addition to these I once brought an aspherical lens element (I think it was designed for fibre optics) So far I've been unable to get it to form an image, though it might if I restrict the aperture to less than 1/3 the elements diameter.

Other than these (& perhaps my collection of old spectacles) I don't thick any of my hoard is bad, a few disappointing ones but not actually bad.

[JohnY]

Lomography built a company on bad lenses. They are said to have character.
Another view on characterful lenses here bythom.com/newsviews/do-lenses-have-character.html

[andymcd]

I had one of the Sigma 70-300 lenses that came in a bundle with a Nikon F80 back in the day. I hated that lens so much, it was slow to focus and very dim. Foolishly, years later I had a super zoom itch and bought the Tamron 18-250 for Nikon DSLR, that was just as bad.

I am sure that in the scheme of things those weren’t bad lenses but I loathed them both.

[andy]

Superzooms, Nikkors, mirror lenses, wideangles.....

The worst I've used was a Sigma 120-300mm f/2.8 varifocal as it seemed impossible to find a microfocus adjust setting that worked for more than one focal length.

[nickr]

Jan 16, 2023 21:22:32 GMT peterob said:

The two EOS EF lenses 28-80 and 70-300 I bought as a kit with my Canon 50E were awful but I didn’t know  it.   I was mightily impressed when I went to a 6x6 SLR and compared the 9x9” prints with 6x9“ prints.  Absolutely no contest. Medium format was streets ahead as expected.  Then I bought a 5D with 24-105 L and made the same comparison.  No difference to the 6x6 really so thereafter I only bought L lenses.  

Back then, Canon had 3 ranges of lenses - kit level, enthusiast, and L series. The kit level lenses were basically designed for enprints or 7x5 prints, whereas the enthusiast lenses were much better, certainly when stopped down.
The 50E's predecessor, the 100, came with the original 28-80mm USM, which was one of the intermediate level lenses, and really quite good - it's actually part of the same family as the 24-105L, albeit not as good. The Mk II onwards were kit level lenses, and not great. Still, better than the 28-90...

Canon learned a lesson with the first EF-S 18-55 for digital - suddenly, purchasers were pixel peeping, so wanted much better. Kit lenses ever since have been a lot better, and the enthusiast level basically became pointless.

Now I've got a LOT of lenses of various eras. The vast majority of them are capable of perfectly decent results - unless designed otherwise. There are some old third-party 70s zooms that aren't really up to much at all, though none as bad as the 28-70mm Hanimex in Praktica Bayonet that I used to have which was awful. But many of my less than stellar lenses have an interesting character, especially wide open, so I love 'em. Even the Domiplans...

[stevewmh]

Perhaps I've been lucky as have never had a really bad lens that's of no use for anything. Some of the technically not so good lens do seem to have a charm of their own when used for certain shots that's hard to create any other way

These days, I'm finding, a lot of lens are simply too good. The sharpness and detail can make images SOOC a bit much for my taste

Some of the old glass and cheap stuff are among my favourites

[zx9]

I have two EF-M 15-45mm IS lenses, one that came with the EOS M and one that came with the EOS M6 mk2, the older one that came with the EOS M is much sharper and needs less work in Photo Shop.
That said neither lens is un usable.

My LTM 50mm f/1.4 Canon is quite badly scratched on the front element and can be quite soft particularly when used wide open against the light on a film camera, much of this character can be hidden when used on a digital camera. Quite the opposite to my LTM 35mm color skopar which is great on a film camera but falls off / focus shifts at the corners on a digital camera, I can understand the fall off of illumination at the edges but not the focus shift.

Generally I think that a lot of what we would have called bad lenses for film use are saved either by lens profiling in camera or by the end user in software these days. Even a scanned negative can be corrected for geometric distortion, sharpness and vignetting, though perhaps not CA, so we now have tools to help us with bad lenses.