I need a bad lens

August 4, 2005 1:36 PM

What is the worst SLR camera lens you have ever used?

Years ago, I bought a Sigma 24-70 or 28-70 zoom lens for a borrowed Pentax camera. Although the lens made it possible to explore a variety of focal lengths, it could never produce a truely sharp focus. Since then, I have gradually collected high quality sharp lenses and cameras.

Now I would like to add a really terrible nikon mount lens to my bag to balance out the really nice lenses. Should I just get the current version of the same lens? I'm worried that they have improved the focus, how can I get the worst example of a lens of this type?

posted by b1tr0t to media & arts (20 comments total)

Look for the cheapest lenses in some weird brand name. Why do you want a crappy lens?
posted by carter at 2:18 PM on August 4, 2005

There's a Nikon 70-300mm zoom on Amazon for like $170. That strikes me as being too cheap to be a quality lens, so I've been afriad to buy it. You should get it and if it sucks, you'll be happy. If it's too good, you can give it to me. :)

Yeah, why do you want a bad lens?
posted by knave at 2:35 PM on August 4, 2005

You should try a lensbaby. It's a fun way to do blur/focused stuff with a lens instead of photoshop. The output is kind of low quality too, and it's cheap ($99 IIRC)
posted by mathowie at 2:36 PM on August 4, 2005

Here's the link. It's only $133! And there's only 1 left!
posted by knave at 2:37 PM on August 4, 2005

Seconding the lensbaby. Also capable of weird 'stretching' artifacts.
posted by mnology at 2:58 PM on August 4, 2005

That Nikon lens gets 4.5 stars on Amazon. Anything specifically Nikon is not going to be bad, I'm afraid. Neither is anything made in Japan.
posted by carter at 3:27 PM on August 4, 2005

Why don't you shoot in manual, and leave things out of focus? Maybe smear some fingerprints on a cheap lens, or try and scratch it.
posted by carter at 3:29 PM on August 4, 2005

Yeah, if you're looking for blurry, I'd go with the lens baby. It's fun too!
posted by trbrts at 3:55 PM on August 4, 2005

I think I'll order a lensbaby 2.0. The cheap Nikkor is too long (70mm on digital is equivelant to 105 at 35mm) and it is probably a bit slow. I suspect I would have to drop-kick it in order to get truely horrible pictures. I am not sufficiently dedicated to willfully break my toe in pursuit of my art.

Why don't you shoot in manual, and leave things out of focus? Maybe smear some fingerprints on a cheap lens, or try and scratch it.

All good ideas, but I don't have any cheap lenses. The only lens I own slower than a 2.8 is the Tokina 12-24. I have a few soviet cameras (even a lomo), but the cost of processing film rapidly exceeds the cost of just buying a new lens.
posted by b1tr0t at 4:11 PM on August 4, 2005

You can abuse filters too. They're cheap and disposable and smearable.
posted by smackfu at 4:14 PM on August 4, 2005

One of the most basic measures of quality of a lens is how many optics it has. More usually equals worse, as that's more chances for light scatter, dust motes, etc. To get those insane zooms (I once sold a 28-200 smeg-umm-sigma, what an abomination) they have to put in a lot of optics. I'd hope Sigma has improved - they certainly didn't have much farther down to go when I sold their stuff (grudgingly) back in the late 80s.

Really if you just want a dicey focus why not do what photogs have done for almost as long as there have been camera? Get a clear UV filter and some vaseline. Or whatever other ucky substance you'd care to smear on it. That Lensbaby thing is interesting but UVs are cheap as hell and you can just wash it after use to re-customize your smear.
posted by phearlez at 4:22 PM on August 4, 2005

You can get nifty effects shooting through plastic and glassware--ashtrays, glasses, bottles, etc. Hit the thrift stores.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 6:18 PM on August 4, 2005 [1 favorite has favorites]

Vaseline is messy. You can spray clear acrylic on filters for similar results, and your camera bag will stay clean.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 6:22 PM on August 4, 2005

I had a Vivitar 75-310mm lens with a Nikon mount that was something like a foot long, with 26 or 27 glass-glass interfaces in it. Minimum f-stop at 310 was something like 5.6. In addition, it had considerable chromatic aberration and was very forward-heavy. When you swung out the built-in lens hood, it was like a giant 14" photographic dong swaying lazily against your belly.

I think it's not bad for the reasons you're looking for, but man, it sucked.
posted by ikkyu2 at 7:38 PM on August 4, 2005

ikkyu2 - I don't think that vivitar is what I'm looking for, but it might be amusing to mount it up to the old 8008s and leave it somepalce in my office... (if I didn't work from home)
posted by b1tr0t at 9:05 PM on August 4, 2005

I'm reluctant to call it my worst since I looooove the soft focus from the 1:1.4 50mm Miranda Auto, its capable of getting so-so sharp shots but its even more fun trying to get out of focus ones.
posted by squeak at 1:29 AM on August 5, 2005

I once had a very budget 500mm mirror lens, I think the brand was something like 'Centon', that was utterly unfocusable. Sigma have some newer fast wide angles out for digitals that wide open (f/1.8) are pretty stinky. Vivitar, unfortunately, don't produce the quality lenses that they once did. Their old Series 1 stuff could better than most brand name models. The last few years they've gone very budget and sloppy. I tried some cheap mid-range zoom or other of theirs a couple of years back and it was a total mess.

If you've money to burn, Nikon, Pentax and others make 'soft' versions of some of their lenses, for the portrature market - where you can adjust the degree of softness. I can't comment because I've never been able to afford them. I believe they employ some sort of contrast softness, rather than focus softness, though.

Back in the days of the trad portrait/wedding studio photographer with a Hasselblad, a bit of material cut from a pair of nylons and held over the lens with an elastic band was the way to get that misty soft look in portraits of young ladies.

Meanwhile, for fun and experimentation, all the useful ideas so far are probably more interesting.
posted by normy at 3:55 AM on August 5, 2005

Couple of other ideas:
Get an old/cheap UV filter and attack it with the business end of a screwdriver. You might also enjoy some pinhole photography if you like this sort of thing.
posted by normy at 4:04 AM on August 5, 2005

Second the 500mm Reflex f/8. It's dogshit. If you already hate bokah-donuts, you'll hate it more.

Fixed aperture of f/8. Oh, but it's so small they say! As if you could handhold anything other than bright, harsh daylight with the thing.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 6:36 AM on August 5, 2005

Whil looking around for information about turning a bodycap into a pinhole "lens", I found the lens in a cap. They also have a perspective correcting lens for US$21.
posted by b1tr0t at 12:12 PM on August 5, 2005