Good, bad lenses

Maybe my 135mm F4.7 Wollensak Raptor for my 4X5 work. It’s only a simple tessar-formula lens, and isn’t the best wide-open, but it does have character.

Jim B.
 
Taipei-metro said:
44-2 in Pasadena Camera Show
pasadena, los angeles county
photo by taipei-metro
g6 lumix, zuiko 14-42
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Geez, I remember buying a good condition 1972 KMZ made Zenit E with bulky & smelly FSU leather neveready case and the KMZ Helios 44-2 lens for the princely sum of 5 Canadian dollars at the Toronto camera show in the late 1990s
 
RichC said:
I’m usually very exacting about my gear, shooting medium-format film and 42 MP digital to maximise resolution and tonal range.

But I have a soft spot for the humble Soviet Jupiter-8 - I’ve an early silver one. Not the sharpest or prettiest pencil in the box, but I think the aberrations, poor flare control and muted colours give it bags of character. It’s also tiny compared with my usual lenses (shift-tilt monsters).

I tend to use it for personal photos rather than for the “serious” stuff I do for exhibitions.

Not the greatest of photos, but the veiling flare gives this view of Brighton, UK, a romantic air...

3381903429_1576f6c6ac_o_d.jpg
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I also have a 50s Jupiter 8 and I also like it for certain things. .
 
I have several cheap Vivitar lenses (not the really great early ones) that don't have the greatest optics in the world, but they're small and light and pleasant to shoot with regardless of the edges being a little less than sharp. A 28/2.8 and a 24/2.8 are my favorites of them.

On a Seagull 203 folder I have, the stock lens is not technically good by any stretch of the imagination, but transparencies through that lens are beautiful. I don't know what it is about that coating, but the colors always look amazing.

I have quite a few FSU lenses that are actually quite good (and, therefore, don't qualify for Roger's query) but I have have one, a rigid Industar-50 that came to me mounted to a Zorki 6, that is really messed up. It looks like someone tried to clean the lens with a pair of dirty jeans after dragging it behind a bus for a few miles. Just nasty. ....and, somehow, shots taken through it look pretty good! It wasn't designed to be a "soft" lens, but that's exactly what it has turned into. It's a bit funny to me that this I-50, a lens with a reputation for being very, very sharp, will never be capable of being sharp again but shooting with it yields photos with a dreamy quality that I don't think I could replicate with any soft filter or smear of Vaseline.
It's just the right amount of ruined. Just the right combination of softness and flare. I don't use it very often; my style of shooting doesn't usually call for that sort of look, but when I do use it I'm always surprised that I like the results. It's a real winner of a loser.
 
I haven't put a lot of film through these lenses yet, but initial results were full of character: a pre-war 50mm Zeiss Sonnar f/1.5, and a circa 1950's 50mm Cannon f/1.5. Ok, I like Sonnars. Both relatively cheap finds on that big auction site.
 
I don't have experience with a lot of lens brands. But my pick would be the Yashikor 28mm f/3.5. It would flare if you said the word within 20 yards of the lens even if the sun was behind you. :D But I learned out of necessity to hide any flare somewhere in the photo, or try to place flare artistically somewhere. It was quite a shock when I got a Fujinon 28mm and spotted a shot I wanted into sunlight. No flare! I so wanted a flared shot. :p

But I got some interesting photos with that Yashikor lens. It came in a set with a Yashikor 135mm, for I think about $35.00 in 1974/4. Unfortunately I lost both in a house fire.
 
This is an interesting thread. Not many of us get to try out all the different lenses mentioned. Probably also drives some GAS in some of us too.
There is a related question; have you ever purchased a camera only because you found a great deal on a lens in that mount and needed a body to put it on.
 
jamin-b said:
I started having fun with a Portagon 100mm - that's a bad lens by any standard!
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Ah, yes, though I think it was spelled Portragon with an R. I used to have one but I much prefer the 90/4 Dreamagon with its weird "radiation symbol" diaphragm. Then there's the Subjektiv with its choice of glass lens, plastic lens, pinhole and zone plate, in about a 65mm mount, and of course the dear old Lensbaby.

In all fairness I think that the Portragon was easily the worst of that crew, even to the extent that I'd call it a bad, bad lens -- albeit deliberately bad.

Cheers,

R.
 
I've never gotten along that well with Nikkors - the contrast and colors never seemed right to me, most were adequately sharp but had no character, and nearly all of them had horrendously distracting out of focus rendition.
After trying virtually every normal lens Nikon made from the 60's to the 2000's, the lens I ended up with is the Nikkor 55mm f1.2 Ai. Virtually nobody recommends this lens, and it is seen as optically inferior to many of the other Nikkor normal lenses.

Why do I love this 55mm? It is smooth - not too contrasty but not too flat, softly saturated pleasant color rendition, decently sharp without being harsh, rolls off gently to a beautiful out of focus rendition. If you shot test charts I'm sure it would rank near the bottom, but for how I shoot it stands above the rest.
 
NickTrop said:
I will! "Dreamagon" -- sounds like the name of a kaiju (giant monster) in some old 60's Japanese science fiction flick...
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Dear Nick.

Hai desu ka!

Sorry for my appalling Japanese. I had a half-Japanese sort-of-girlfriend some decades ago and her mother (the Japanese half) lent me a book called "Japanese in Three Weeks".

The title was something of an exaggeration.

Cheers,

R.
 
AFenvy said:
. . . the Nikkor 55mm f1.2 Ai. Virtually nobody recommends this lens, and it is seen as optically inferior to many of the other Nikkor normal lenses.

Why do I love this 55mm? It is smooth - not too contrasty but not too flat, softly saturated pleasant color rendition, decently sharp without being harsh, rolls off gently to a beautiful out of focus rendition. If you shot test charts I'm sure it would rank near the bottom, but for how I shoot it stands above the rest.
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Yes, exactly. I had the 50/1.2 and found it ordinary, but I'd l love to try the 55/1.2. If you're feeling adventurous (and slightly rich), try the 58/1.4 also!

Cheers,

R.
 
Roger Hicks said:
Dear Nick.

Hai desu ka!

Sorry for my appalling Japanese. I had a half-Japanese sort-of-girlfriend some decades ago and her mother (the Japanese half) lent me a book called "Japanese in Three Weeks".

The title was something of an exaggeration.

Cheers,

R.
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So -- some years ago I had an epic commute to work and, being American, I (barely) speak one language properly. Dammit! I'm gonna to use this commute time productively, quit listening to the same old 60's/70's rock songs endlessly and vapid talk radio and learn a second language, I says to myself...

I picked Japanese and got mp3s of the Pimsluer series... And I listened to them over, and over, and over again. Hours and hours. At the pinnacle of this undertaking I was able to watch "Shall We Dance" without subs and understand enough to follow the plot.

Today I basically use two phrases:

Hiaku! (translates to "hurry!" You hear that one a lot in those old Kaiju flicks when the city evacuates as Godzilla approaches...)

And "chotto matte kudasai". "Slow down..."

... around the office when I want people to speed it up or cool their jets, respectively.

Can't say listening to those tapes over and over was time well-spent.
 
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