Which Manufacturer or Lens Brand is the Best?
by Robert Monaghan

One of the most common questions in rec.photo is:
Which Brand of Lens or Lens Manufacturer is the Best?

The Secret About Who's The Best Lens Manufacturer

The secret about who's the best lens manufacturer is that there just isn't any one best lens manufacturer.

First, you have to say best for what parameter for the question to make any sense. Because different lens manufacturers have different strengths, there simply can't be any one lens manufacturer who is the best at everything.

Some manufacturers claim they are the best because they make their own optical glass. Nikon goes even farther. They say they are better than the other manufacturers because they not only make their own glass, but they make the platinum crucibles their glass is made in.

But glass is glass. Some top quality lens makers such as Zeiss don't make their own glass, but buy from a specialty glass maker. They concentrate on their own high value added processes. They believe you can't be the best at everything, and focus on what they do best.

Vivitar Corp. is an example of a company that is increasingly focusing on creative lens designing as their value added approach. They farm out much of the lens grinding and building to other third party lens makers. But the lenses are Vivitar lenses because they are made using their designs and to their specifications. The name on these lenses is Vivitar too, rather than Samyang or whoever made the lenses.

When Vivitar Corp. decided to come out with their first Series I mirrors, they contracted out production to Perkin Elmer (of NASA space telescope fame). Their cult classic solid cat mirror lenses are now highly sought after by saavy photographers.

Now if Vivitar Corp. decided that the best source for a top-quality lens maker wasn't even in Japan or Germany, but the United States, who is the best lens maker now? Is it Perkin-Elmer, who made the lens? Or Vivitar, whose name is on the lens and gets the credit for it?

What happens when Angenieux of France, inventors of the retrofocus design in many 35mm SLR lens designs, comes up with a lens design for a Tokina zoom? Who is the best manufacturer now? Angenieux for the design, or Tokina for building it? And what about the glass maker?

So the next time you see a third party lens like those Vivitar mirrors or Tokina lenses, have some more respect. They could actually be made by some of the world's top designers and manufacturers.

Brands Don't Matter Much

One of the Ten Myths of Photography is that manufacturer and brand on your lenses matters a lot.

The good news is that brands don't matter very much. The quality difference between Nikon and Canon and the other manufacturers can only be argued on a lens by lens basis.

Who buys both Nikon and Canon cameras to get the best possible quality lenses from each line? Practically nobody! Most of us pick one brand or another. Since we are presumably happy with the brand we picked, we are also often psychologically inclined to defend our choices and our self-image when we feel our favored brand has been attacked.

Now you know some of the reasons behind all those flame-wars on rec.photo about which manufacturer is better.

The good news is that the results on film from the major manufacturers lenses are so close that you have to read the magazine captions to tell which brand (let alone which lens) made which photograph.

And you can mix lenses from older screwmount lenses with similar photos from lenses costing ten or even fifty times as much. Usually, you won't be able to tell which lens let alone which brand of camera took which photo.

Skeletons in Every Closet

Every major lens maker has one or more really bad, even terrible lenses as skeletons in their closets.

For example, I own some terrific Nikon zoom lenses along with some equally great third party zooms. But my worst zoom is a Nikon, one of the early 43-86mm lenses. By contrast, I also have the first zoom Nikon made (an 8.5cm-25cm or 85-250mm zoom), and one of the first zooms ever made. While this zoom isn't great by today's standards (unless you use heavy weight as your criterion ;-), it is much better than their later 43-86mm design. Yet the 43-86mm design was one of Nikon's best sellers, not because it was a great lens, but because it was a convenient lens!

For obvious reasons, no manufacturer's lens line is equally good at making every lens, let alone the best at making every lens.

Different third party lens makers have different strengths too. For example, Sigma alone offers high quality third party lenses at 8mm and 14mm for serious amateur and professional ultrawide lens users.

Price

Once you realize that there is no one best manufacturer, your quest for the best lens gets more challenging and interesting.

If you want an 8mm fisheye, your choices are the OEM offerings or the Sigma third party lens noted above. The OEM lens is probably better, but it should be at three times the price. Are you willing to pay three times more for perhaps 15-25% more image quality?

Prices are important to everyone, and especially hobbyist photographers. For most of us, price is a sensitive and often deciding issue as to which lens we end up buying.

Lower price is one of the key attractions of third party lens makers. In a few cases, the latest third party lens designs may be even better than equivalent OEM lenses of the same speed and features. But in order to compete, third party lenses will usually be somewhat or even a lot cheaper in price.

OEM manufacturers have more costs than most third party lens makers, since lens designs are only one part of their manufacturing operations. Historically, OEM lens makers have come out with the leading edge designs for fisheyes and special fluorite (Canon) and APO special glass lenses. These higher research and development costs are reflected in the OEM manufacturer's cost structure.

Third party lens makers don't have to make the full range of lens focal lengths. Most don't. Usually, you will see that third party lens lines are aimed at the mass marketplace. This marketing reality means that professional photographers are often stuck with only the OEM lenses as their sole choice for given exotic lenses. This observation also partly explains the professional photographers preference for OEM lenses too.

Many Names, One Lens

One of the more amusing arguments to see on rec.photo concerns which ultrawide 17mm-28mm f/4 ultrawide zoom is the best? Is it the Cambron model, the Vivitar model, the Samyang model, the Phoenix model, or the Cosina model?

The only correct answer is YES!

You see, these five lenses are all the same lens made by the same company (Samyang in Korea) with different names slapped on it.

So which one is the better designed and built is a silly question. They are all the same lens, by the same manufacturer. Now your warranty might differ from Cambridge Camera Exchange versus Cosina (now defunct?). But a lens by any other name would work as sweetly, to paraphrase the Bard.

In fact, a large number of third party lenses are actually the same lens, imported under different names. Sometimes, you can trick onto this reality by looking at the lens specifications and price ranges. At other times, you may find this out from reading the fine print in Popular Photography lens reviews.

In a way, this information can be useful. The same lens may vary by 10% to even 15% when bought from mailorder discount stores. So why not buy the best deal, with the best warranty or price?

Best Deal?

And finally, what's the best deal? Obviously, the answer to this question is going to vary tremendously with what parameters you personally use to define best!

If you are price sensitive, the best price may determine the best lens for your needs (or the only one!). If you are quality driven, you may want to spend whatever it takes to get the best quality (often OEM) lens, regardless of the costs.

Most of us define best based on our pocketbook, plus our view of various manufacturers and brand name quality and reputation, plus word of mouth and magazine reviews, plus warranties and other factors.

A few of us even test the individual lenses to account for the variations between different models and quality variations between different individual lenses.

Whatever your definition of the parameters that define best for you, recognize that your reasons are personal and idiosyncratic and not shared by the rest of us.

So the next time you see an outrageous statement that may just be trolling for a flame-war, restrain yourself. And send the offender the URL of this page instead, in the hopes of giving them something to think about!

Summary

Let's see if you agree with our major points:


Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998
From: Bob Shell [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [Rollei] Rollei Manufacturing

>List,
>    I was sitting here this evening, looking at this precision camera
>and a thought came about.  In the manufacturing of their cameras, did
>they do their own machine work for the parts of the camera.  If not, who
>
>supplied the sprockets and gears.
>
>Thanks
>John

Most camera makers buy stuff like gears from specialty gear makers. No point in tooling up for something like a gear when other companies can spit them out quickly and cheaply.

I don't know names of companies, but Rollei would be totally unique if they made everything.

Bob


From Leica Mailing List:
Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2001
From: "Joe Codispoti" [email protected]
Subject: Re: [Leica] OT MF RF

Sharpness, quality, look, etc, boils down to such minute differences between the top 4-5 manufacturers that it would take an optical-bench test to establish clear superiority.

Ultimately the choice of one over the other should be based on use, need, and budget, not brand. Zeiss and Schneider may have the edge on contrast which gives the appearance of extra sharpness. Mamiya has the advantage of eliminating the mirror box which allows for a simpler lens design.

I use the Mamiya 7 and am very pleased with the results. For the money it cannot be topped. I have also a Fuji 6x9 and will state categorically that it is the sharpest lens I have ever owned (among Mamiya, Hasselblad, Zeiss). In the past I have compared Hasselblad to Mamiya RB and can attest to the fact that given the "ideal" format of the RB, the results were at least equal since no negative is lost with the 6x7 format where the square format must be cropped thus losing a good portion of the neg.

To circumvent brand loyalty without guilt is to own them all.

Joe Codispoti



From: "Karlos" [email protected] Newsgroups: aus.photo Subject: Re: Help on lenses Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2002 "Jimmy Chong" [email protected] wrote > I'm a newbie to SLR photography and I have a few questions to ask > > Lastly, which lense is better, Canon or Nikon? the one that fits your camera and does the job ;-) karl PS: did you know that all lenses certified by the Japanese government, thus qualifying for the little gold 'passed' sticker are QA checked using Konica lenses?


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