Buying Lenses

Perform a trade-off study. I have an example for ultrawide 35mm lenses with a Nikon example.

In your trade study, make a listing of representative lenses and prices, along with pertinent information.

One often overlooked datum is filter thread sizes. Larger zooms often require larger filter threads of 67mm, 72mm, 77mm and even 82mm sizes and up! As Keppler noted in one of his SLR columns in Pop. Photography, filter costs can double the effective costs of your fast lens or zoom. In his case, even buying Hoya filters at street discount prices still required over $400 in new filters for an over-sized zoom!

The ultrawide lenses study is also useful in highlighting price anomalies. Anomalies are unusual values that fall out of the usual pattern. So for example, lenses below 24mm tend to cost hundreds of dollars - except for the $100 US Vivitar 19mm f/3.5 lens. Similarly, the Tokina 17mm f/3.5 is just over $200 US, surprisingly low for a new ultrawide lens. Finally, the 14mm f/3.5 and f/2.8 Sigma ultrawides are also remarkable buys at $400+, only about a third the cost of competing OEM lenses.

You can find new discount prices for lenses listed in the back pages of Pop. Photography and similar magazines. But you may be able to do better on professional class lenses by buying directly via grey market overseas sources.

A key advantage of newer lenses is they have the latest designs. Newer designs are often better, particularly in the area of zoom lenses, very wide angle lenses, and fast long telephoto lenses using special APO glasses.

Conversely, third party prime lenses of fixed focal lengths (e.g., 28mm, 135mm, 200mm) have only improved modestly. You can often get a very good performing lens at working apertures of f/8 to f/11 for very little money. Our page comparing primes versus zooms is intended to make the zoom uber alles folks reconsider some of what you may be missing if you ignore low cost prime lenses.

On the other hand, I would probably not go out of my way to buy a zoom lens from the 1970s unless it was one of the cult classis lenses such as the early Vivitar Series I lenses.

In buying used lenses, you want to get good quality and condition in a used lens which has been fully depreciated. Newer faster f/2.8 style pro zooms are hard to find, since most pros are still using them! The older zooms from the 1980s have only a few cult classic lenses which can compete with today's newer lenses. But if you can find some of these earlier Tamron SP, Sigma APO, Tokina ATX, or Vivitar Series I lenses, you may get quite a good buy on a fully depreciated lens.

Something Beats Nothing Every Time

Many photographers suggest that you should save your pennies until you can afford to buy the best quality of a desired lens.

But what about all those photographs you would have taken if only you had a 28mm wide angle lens in addition to your 50mm normal lens? How many portraits will you miss shooting, because you didn't have a decent 100mm lens?

You can often acquire surprisingly decent prime lenses for shockingly low prices used, if you accept the limits of some older third party lenses.

As an example, I picked Ritz Camera at random from the Jeff Albro IMPACT Used Photo Gear pages. For a Nikon AI camera, I found they had a 28mm f/2.8 Albinar (9++ condition) for $19 US, and a Sakar 135mm f/2.8 AI (9) for the same price ($19). Adding these two lenses to your 50mm normal lens would give you a chance to experiment with both wide angle and telephoto effects for under $40! Buying a fast, high quality f/2.8 zoom lens that covered the same range would cost at least ten or even twenty times more.

You can also buy a single 28-210mm zoom lens for under $100 US. I have several such lenses, including a Kiron close focusing model with relatively high optical quality. But such long-ratio, 7:1 zoom lenses are inherently less optical quality than two shorter range zooms of the same cost. Returning to our Ritz camera used lens store, you could buy a Tokina 80-200mm f/4.5 AI close focusing lens (in 9++ condition) for $69 and a Albinar 28-80mm f/3.5-4.5 AI zoom lens (in 9+ condition) for $29. For under $100 US, you would have two zooms covering the most popular range of focal lengths.

I doubt you would lose any significant amount of money with these lenses if you decided to sell them after a year or two or more of use. I would suggest that you consider keeping them as backups to your main lens kit in case of theft or loss.

With my approach, you can be learning about these focal lengths and improving your photography while still saving for those better lenses.

You may also discover that you don't really need a much heavier f/2.8 pro zoom lenses, because of weight or cost. Or maybe you will decide on a 24mm lens for your favorite wide angle lens, rather than the sometimes too long 28mm.

Conversely, you may discover that you really need a faster, APO glass long telephoto lens after experimenting with a 300mm f/5.6. Maybe you will go for the Sigma 300mm f/4 macro APO lens, or perhaps save up for the f/2.8 version? Surely this is a better approach than saving perhaps for months or years, only to discover that you rarely use that very expensive 300mm f/2.8 lens at all?

Lenses to Avoid

Maybe it is easier to agree on lenses to avoid?

Let us agree that you will avoid most non-cult classic lenses which are preset or manual lenses, especially preset zoom lenses.

Next, avoid any zooms from the 1970s unless they are either OEM lenses or cult classics such as our early Vivitar Series I lenses.

However, you may find some lower cost prime lenses from the 1970s and 1980s which still work in auto modes on your current camera mount (esp. Nikon and Pentax owners). These lenses can often be very good buys.

If you are looking for low cost telephoto lenses, some of the earlier preset multicoated 400mm f/6.3 and 500mm f/8 lenses from the 1970s can be good buys. Most of these long telephoto lenses were actually made by Tamron in a T-mount design, making them easy to adapt to nearly any manual or electronic camera.

From the early 1980s, you begin to pick up buys in Vivitar Series I and Kiron varifocal zooms and macro lenses, as well as prime lenses. But most of the lower cost zoom generic lenses from this period will be marginal. Our Albinar 28-80mm f/3.5-4.5 AI lens falls into this class, which helps explain why a lens in such good condition only commands a $29 price tag today!

For a lens from the 1980s, you need to have a reason to buy. Is it unusually fast? Does it have good close-focusing abilities? Is it a Sigma XQ or APO? a Tamron SP? a Tokina ATX? a Vivitar Series I? Is the price really low because this lens is an undistinguished consumer grade lens, or a fully depreciated higher end serious amateur or professional lens?

Recall our trade study? Many modern lenses cost less than earlier used lenses, yet come with a new lens warranty. Especially in ultrawide and telephoto lenses, recent improvements make new lenses much better optically than most older lenses of similar price and quality.

New versus Old Zoom Lenses

Surprise! The chart below shows that at comparable f/stops and focal lengths, the 25 year old Vivitar zoom is generally as good or slightly better than the newer Sigma zoom (in the center). The Vivitar also outscores the Sigma 2 out of 3 times at comparable f/stops in edge resolution too. The Vivitar focused closer, to 1:2.2 versus 1:4.6 for the Sigma, and had generally excellent center sharpness. The Sigma had better corner sharpness than the Vivitar in its closeup shots.

How about distortion? Surely the Sigma zoom with its newer computerized design and latest glass formulas will beat the older Vivitar zoom in distortion, where most older zooms fall down? Ooops! The above table shows that the faster constant aperture Vivitar zoom handily equals and beats the newer Sigma zoom in distortion, especially at the telephoto end. Flare and light falloff is comparable in the two zooms too.

I think Mr. Herbert Keppler, Vice President of Popular Photography, should be congratulated on his interesting Pop Photo article in March, 2001 performing the new Sigma versus old Vivitar comparison from which I've abstracted the above highlights. You would hardly expect a popular magazine dependent on today's advertising dollars to find out that today's consumer zoom is at best comparable to the performance of a 25+ year old serious amateur zoom.

Personally, I find it pretty amazing that a 25+ year old Vivitar zoom can outperform a new zoom design using computer optimized design and specialty glasses. The 25 year old Vivitar 70-210mm f/3.5 Series I zoom did better in areas like distortion, resolution, and close focusing while providing up to 1 1/3rd stops more speed than the new Sigma 70-210mm f/4-f/5.6 zoom. The new Sigma zoom is a marvel of small size, low weight, and low cost (circa $130 new in manual mounts), making it ideal for travel. However, a used Vivitar zoom lens from their twenty-five year old cult classic series I lens line might be the better choice if you need a faster lens (esp. at telephoto end), low distortion, and rugged mechanics from an all metal construction.

Sadly, many OEM and third party lens lines have abandoned these middle of the road lens options. Your choice is either a low end consumer zoom emphasizing convenience and low cost, or a very high dollar pro quality lens emphasizing fast speed and optical performance. In the past, we had more "serious amateur" lenses with slightly slower apertures (e.g., 2/3rds of a stop for f/3.5 versus f/2.8 pro zoom speeds) but very good optical performance. If you want such serious amateur lenses today, you often have to look to the used lens market. Fortunately, there are some cult classic lenses including some older zooms which still perform better than today's consumer lenses, despite decades of ads touting the latest improvements and computerized designs.

Need for Speed?

Do you have the need for speed? If so, you had better consider prime lenses, as speed costs substantially less than in a fast and heavy f/2.8 zoom lens. You can often buy alternative fast prime lenses that are at least a stop faster than the typical f/2.8 professional zoom, and better quality optically, but for as little as half the price. Used fast prime lenses may be even less.

Do you really need the speed? Relatively few photographs are taken at maximum aperture. Yet an extra stop will cost you at least double and often three times as much money. Can you afford that? Do you really need it?

Some folks suggest that you look at push-processing, faster films, a monopod or tripod, or other tricks to get by with one stop slower lenses. If you can do so, you can keep a lot of money in your pocket!

Here are two dream autofocus kits compared by Herbert Keppler in his July 1994 SLR column in Pop. Photography:

Dream Kit

• 20mm f/2.8
• 24mm f/2.8
• 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5
• 100-300mm f/4.5-5.6
• 500mm f/8 AF
• $1,700

Poor Man's Kit

• 20-35mm f/3.5-4.5 AF Tokina ($225)
• 35-90mm f/4-5.6 AF Tamron ($100)
• 100-300mm f/5.6-6.7 AF Vivitar ($149)
• 500mm f/8 manual focus Vivitar mirror (T-mount) ($100)
• $580

The poor man's kit is easier to carry, lighter, optically very good, and only a third the price of the dream lens kit.

rec.photo.equipment.35mm
From: "khanh" [email protected]
[1] Re: Why do "slow" lenses suck?
Date: Mon Aug 16 1999

Hello all

In all the replies and no one mentions the second obvious reason to get the "fast" lens?

All lenses do not perform very well wide open (shooting at their max aperture). You need to stop it down to get best result out of the lens. A fast f2.8 lens stopped down to 4 or 5.6 will give great results, where the slow 5.6 lens have to be wide openned thus give not so great picture.

I almost never shoot wide open but still use the fast lens because of the above reason.

Bye
Khanh