06-13-2010, 01:25 PM
This is a frequent question ... and the answer is still the same. :-)
Basically it depends on a combination of design complexity, build quality, speed and retail price.
Design complexity - well, the more lens elements and/or VR the higher the risk of a misalignment - that's really common sense I think.
Build quality - if you've got a plastic lens with one or two moving inner lens tubes it should also be fairly obvious that it's not a lens for eternity.
Speed - the faster a lens the higher are the QC requirements. Centering defects are often hidden by a sufficient depth-of-field.
Retail price (also relative to other lenses in its class) - the retail price is also correlated to the amount of QC put into a lens.
So the "worst" lenses are something like those extreme zoom range lenses with duo-cam system and image stabilizer (e.g. 18-270/3.5-6.3 VC).
The best ones are moderately fast primes like a Carl-Zeiss Tessar T* 45mm f/2.8.
Basically it depends on a combination of design complexity, build quality, speed and retail price.
Design complexity - well, the more lens elements and/or VR the higher the risk of a misalignment - that's really common sense I think.
Build quality - if you've got a plastic lens with one or two moving inner lens tubes it should also be fairly obvious that it's not a lens for eternity.
Speed - the faster a lens the higher are the QC requirements. Centering defects are often hidden by a sufficient depth-of-field.
Retail price (also relative to other lenses in its class) - the retail price is also correlated to the amount of QC put into a lens.
So the "worst" lenses are something like those extreme zoom range lenses with duo-cam system and image stabilizer (e.g. 18-270/3.5-6.3 VC).
The best ones are moderately fast primes like a Carl-Zeiss Tessar T* 45mm f/2.8.