Worst and best lenses you have used ?

[kiwi]

If you're like me you've had a few lenses in your lifetime, owned or used

So, what is the worse lens, and which is the best

No hearsay please, only your experience


My worse lens without doubt was the first, a nikon 55-200 kit. slow and soft

The best is a nikon 600 f/4 I used for one game

Your turn

[xjjohnno]

Worst were some of the old Soligor zooms I bought in a batch buy on Ebay, their CD series from memory. I've yet to decide on the best.

[Wayne]

I would say;

Worst = Nikon 18-55 kit lens
Best = AFS 400mm f/2.8VR I rented for an airshow

[Allann]

Canon 18-55 kit lens
Canon 600/4

[I @ M]

In terms of sales ---
the (apparently crap) Sigma 10-20 is a consistent money payer, the mighty 55-200 VR sells a few ,
Mustn't forget that other heap of garbage (according to multi forum denigrates) in the Sigma 70-200 that has consistently performed well and probably paid for it's self a few times over.
Gees, we could cover a few focal lengths here but sticking to the topic ---

Money making best probably is the Sigma 24-70 and worst lens in the bundle would be the Nikkor AF 70-300mm f/4-5.6G

In terms of satisfaction with shots the Tamron 90 and the Sigma 100-300 would rate very highly, then of course the trustworthy 50mm F/1.8 and the newly acquired dx 35mm F/1.8 are becoming stars.

Ah hell, I love em all despite what a few pre pubescent internet warriors post on DPreview.

[RaoulIsidro]

Worst lens: Sigma 28-70mm f2.8 on a Nikon mount. Bad copy maybe, but the replacement was the same.
Best lens: EOS 85mm f1.8 on a 5D

[Rod038]

So far the best lens I have used is the Canon 18-55mm kit lens I got with my 500D. It hasnt let me down yet.

[Edgar]

Worst lens used and owned - Canon EF-S 18-200mm F3.5-5.6 kit lens, a dust vacuum and not sharp at all.
Best lens used and own - Canon EF 70-200mm F2.8L IS II, the new Mark II version is terrific.

[Captured frame]

The worst lens Canon 18-55 kit lens.
The best lens Canon EF 135 f2 L sharp as a tack wide open.

[Xenedis]

Back in 2005 I bought a Canon EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM. I shot with a Canon EOS 20D at the time.

It was an absolute lemon of a lens.

It was incredibly soft, and suffered very pronounced chromatic aberration in the form of purple fringing. It also suffered distortion.

I shot a number of tripod-mounted images at the same apertures with both that lens and the 18-55 I had at the time, and found that the 18-55 out-resolved it, even at f/8!

I got rid of it, replaced it with an L, and never looked back.

My impression was that my particular lens itself, as opposed to that product, was defective, as I had seen images captured by other owners of that lens which were sharp.

I cannot comment on the 'best' lens, as all of my lenses are the 'best' at what they do. They are all sharp and none leaves me wanting. I'll spare you the details; my gear is linked from my sig if anyone wants to know what I use. Happy to discuss finer points if anyone is interested in a particular lens.

[Jules]

Worst lens: A Tamron 70-300 f4.5-6.3. Ridiculously stiff zooming mechanism and AF slower than a turtle.

Best lens: My little Canon EF-S 60mm f2.8 macro. Sharp, sharp, sharp from 2.8 with beautiful bokeh and just perfect on a crop cam. If I wasn't on FF now, I would never have parted with it.

[jjphoto]

Worst, I had an Olympus 65-200 (or thereabouts, it was a couple of decades ago) that was just terrible. It was pretty much always soft. It might have been a dud but I didn't know any better at the time.

Best, where do I start?

Rodenstock APO-Rodagon N 80/4 enlarging lens (for Macro and product with Sinar view camera)
Leica APO-Summicron-R 180/2.0 (perfect for portrait, useless for travel)
Leica APO-Telyt-R 180/3.4 (perfect for travel, useless for portrait)
Leica Elmarit-R 28/2.8 E55 (perfect, except for price)
Kiron 28/2 (in it's own very funky way)
Contax 135/2.0 (bokeh, bokeh, bokeh, bokeh, did I mention the bokeh, and razor sharp wide open)
Leica Summilux-R 80/1.4 and 35/1.4 (2 peas in a pod in terms of performance)

They are all different and excellent in their own way. There's no such thing as a best lens, just the best lens for a particular application.

I think the Canon 24-70 L deserves a special mention as it's often overlooked, being such a common lens. It does have some shortcomings, especially corner performance at wider focal lengths but overall this is a stunning bit of lens and it is really the only lens I ever 'need' when I go on a job because it can do almost everything.

JJ

[wolffman]

Worst lens is a dead heat between
- a 500mm mirror lens from a brand I can't recall. I think I shot with it a couple of times and gave it away, I didn't even want to try and get money for it. Soft as butter and dreadfully stiff to focus
- a nikkor 35mm f2 ais I got for an fm I picked up cheap. The lens was even cheaper. I think it cost me something like 15£ which I figured I would get more satisfaction from the lens than 3 pints of beer. I should have gone to the pub. Scratched and knackered focusing I don't think I took a single good picture with it.

Best lens
- 50 f1.4 afd, so very sharp and the widest lens I have used
- 28-105 afd and 24mm f2.8 afd have been with me all round the world and has taken some great photos and memories
- 10-24mm nikkor is my first wide zoom and is letting me take photos I haven't taken before.
-105 f2.5 ais doesn't get used much but is mechanically and optically beautiful

[etherial]

Best: 70-200/2.8L IS only narrowly beating the 24-105/4L IS - I love them both for different reasons.

Worst: It is a bit unfair because it was great value for money, but it would be the 55-250/4-5.6 kit lens.

[para]

worst was a kit lens 18-55
favorite was 400 2.8 (had a loan of one last weekend) favorite owned would be the 300 2.8

[landteacher]

Worst would have to be, by far, Nikon 55-200 kit.

Best, now that is a hard one.
Nikon 50/1.8 totally reliable.
Nikon 35-70/2.8D. This is one of the best kept secrets out there. Can,t fault it, attached to the camera about 90% 0f the time.
Tokina 12-24/F4 Mk11. Beautifully rendered super sharp shots.

Mick.G.

[ameerat42]

Well, Kiwi, I'll just dig into the past here for this, as all the lenses I have now are rather somewhere in between.
Worst: Soligor f=500mm, f/8 mirror lens. It suffered from dispersion and circular aberration AFAI could tell. When it got drowned in a flood, and the coating came off the mirrors (good weathersealing, eh?) I recycled the aluminuim housing and threw the glass away. (In contrast, the Tamron equivalent is tops!)

Best: Minolta f=50mm, f/1.7 MC Rokkor. Couldn't find anything wrong with it, whereas the f/1.2 had very bad coma at wide apertures of all places. (I only borrowed that one.)
Am.

[James Axford]

I haven't had too many bad lenses....
worst: canon 50mm f/1.8 slow focus, poor build, ugly bokeh. but what do you expect for $150
best: canon 17mm tse f/4 I just love using this lens. it really pushes your creative side.

[Ray Heath]

Hmm,
The best - the $2 magnifying glass I purchased at the cheap and nasty shop.

The worst - hang on a sec, probably the same lens on a different day or when I meant to create a different type of image.

Now that I think about it this whole thread is a shallow attempt at defining a complex issue.

Or maybe I should just keep my actual opinion to myself and throw in a cheap shot about how bad "kit" lenses are cause "everyone" knows thier suspect and that will show that I'm in the know, wink, wink.

[ronaldhw]

worst: Nikkor 18-55mm kit lens non VR version on D40
best: Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 on D700