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Re: [OM] Difference Between the 50mm Zuiko Lenses

Subject: Re: [OM] Difference Between the 50mm Zuiko Lenses
From: Winsor Crosby <wincros@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2001 12:44:42 -0800
Okay, the other day I was discussing my perception of a lack of sharpness in
the 28mm /f3.5 and two people chimed in assuring me that their examples were
excellent.  (I think one lister used the word "superb".)

I've been catching up on digests tonight and noted that the widely respected
28mm /f2.0 was disappointing to one lister who favored a Zeiss replacement.

Today, I'm seeing that my sharp, single coated 50 / 1.4 is being called a
poor performer.  I think we're all smart enough to know that a rattling lens
may have decentered elements and that we're not complaining about "broken"
lenses.

What's going on?  At first I thought some of us had higher (uhhh....)
expectations than others but now I'm not so sure.  Interestingly, the
disagreement does not involve the variable individual abilities when
handholding of teles.

Has Pop Photo, Life, National Geo, or anyone else ever tested 30 examples of
anything to get a fix on potential variations?  To be clear, I'm not
criticising anyone, especially those who have tested lenses.  I'm grateful
for the knowledge passed down from others but I also took lots of statistics
and we seem to have very little hard data on variablity.  Ideas?


Lama



I have another SC with S/N 5xx,xxx and black nose, it performs very
well and seem to have the same design as my 1,100,000 as both have
same diameter front and rear element and same weight. I also had a
8xx,xxx MC which is poorer than all 50/1.4 I have except the silver
nose one. All the 50/1.4 I compared were in great shape and very
clean.

I think the idea that Olympus or any other fine camera manufacturer is unable to turn out multiple copies of the same lens design without huge variations in quality is simply ludicrous. It is even more far fetched, considering that the Japanese essentially created modern, consistently high quality industrial processes in cameras as well as other products which have revolutionized those processes elsewhere in the world.

The only significant differences you are going find will be in subjective, anecdotal opinion, flawed "objective" third party testing which attempts to justify its own questionable results, damage after manufacture, and unannounced design changes by the manufacturer.
--
Winsor Crosby
Long Beach, California

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