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New or S/H lenses?
#11
Oh, I agree!  I haven't had a lot of super quality AF lenses in the past.  The combination of AF, fast apertures and great performance across zoom ranges are new to me.  For all out performance modern lenses offer ever thing one needs.

 

But lets say you want a really fun, cheap, portable system...

 

My four lens Zeiss Contax RF system is just one camera, and a leather box that is 5 x 7 x 3 inches (13 x 18 x 8 cm).  I could do the same thing with a MFT camera with an adapter and the same tiny box of lenses!  There are four lenses and six filters in the kit.  The filters and hood are interchangeable.  I think that would be fun!

#12
To make the comparison easier, some old lenses are just like DOS or windows 3.1, they are nice dirt cheap or even free vintage items, they still do  many things just like modern software, require less hardware to work, but it's much easier with newer products

#13
Quote:To make the comparison easier, some old lenses are just like DOS or windows 3.1, they are nice dirt cheap or even free vintage items, they still do  many things just like modern software, require less hardware to work, but it's much easier with newer products
 

This may be true.  But it also seems true that DOS and Windows...95, anyway, were actually a lot funner to use.  In fact, I am planning to set up Windows 95 and Windows XP on a couple old computers.  I won't connect them to the internet, but will just use the programs that have been obsoleted by the new versions.  Of the five programs I have running now, only Firefox is from the post Windows XP era.  Oh, I was using Firefox then to, it was just a much older version!  If I didn't need to control my cameras with my smart phone, I'd go back to a trouble free dumb cellphone in a second!

 

....Just saying.  I mean I like new cameras and lenses to.  But I like the old ones too because I like the feeling that I am more in control of the process.

#14
Well, most old cameras, lenses and systems as general were designed with a different mentality compared to what we have these days. Almost all of them were much more specialized in what they were meant for. Your Contax system is meant for one thing and it pretty much excels in it. Surely it doesn't have long telephotos or ultra wide zooms but doing what it's supposed to do, you wouldn't ask for those lenses anyway.

 

Now compare that to Sony mirrorless system for example, where everyone wants to have everything. It should please studio shooters, street photographers, hobbyists, test chart shooters, wedding shooters, videographers and many more. Good luck with designing, providing and enjoying that.

#15
Quote:Well, most old cameras, lenses and systems as general were designed with a different mentality compared to what we have these days. Almost all of them were much more specialized in what they were meant for. Your Contax system is meant for one thing and it pretty much excels in it. Surely it doesn't have long telephotos or ultra wide zooms but doing what it's supposed to do, you wouldn't ask for those lenses anyway.


Now compare that to Sony mirrorless system for example, where everyone wants to have everything. It should please studio shooters, street photographers, hobbyists, test chart shooters, wedding shooters, videographers and many more. Good luck with designing, providing and enjoying that.
Not very aware of this.

I know most people used to get a camera with usually one lens: 50mm f1.4 they used it for everything, am I wrong?

However yes the 85 and 135mm were only portraits lenses, 28 mm a popular landscape lens. But the 50 was the do everything lens.

Things have changed 28 mm was considered a wide angle today it is the tele end of some zooms... 16 mm was considered extreme wide angle
#16
35mm used to be considered wide angle Smile.

 

Contax G does not even have those focal lengths btw. It has 28/35/45/90mm primes and a 35-70mm zoom that you can use with the built in viewfinder and a 16mm and a 21mm that you can use with an external finder. No duplicate lenses with different apertures, no cheap alternatives, nothing. All lenses are Zeiss, everything is made in Japan except for the 16mm, which is really made by Zeiss in Germany. Now marketing and customer base demands each system to have four 50mm prime lenses in each system and at least seven zooms covering that focal length. That's without even going third party.

 

Btw, if you get every one of those prime lenses, they weigh less than 1.2kg in total and they have AF. Pretty hard to beat by any system in production today.

#17
I usually buy used to save cash. Got most of my lenses that way, including one (Sigma 14mm) from the USA (KEH.com). The only abject failure that I had experienced was on a new lens (AND new camera) that I purchased back in 2007: both broke within a month of each other (and within 4 months of purchase). The important exclusion is the Canon 24/1.4 L lens that I bought new two years ago - and it's not seeing a lot of use. My current 16-35 workhorse (the f/4 IS) is a cross between the two: I bought it from a guy found on the Internet but the lens was brand new in box with complete package. All the others - including my second workhorse unit, the 70-200/2.8 L IS - are/were second hand.

 

Actually, scratch that - the horrible Konica Minolta 18-70mm kit zoom was also new when I bought it with a KM camera way back in 2006. I sold it for peanuts shortly after getting a couple of proper lenses to cover that range - and it was bought by someone only because he needed to cannibalize the mount and electronics for a tinkering project of some sort. I can sympathize with that because the junk like that lens has no real right to exist anyway.

  


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