I Need An Old Lens

Can anyone recommend an old 60s ish 35 or 50mm F-Mount prime with poor

sharpness, poor colour rendition, and etc. This may seem like an odd

request but I'd like to use it on a personal project.

 

Any help would be great, Thanks,

 

--Dominic

Try

 

 

www.keh.com

 

 

 

for dealer's lots or "as is" stuff. Sometimes they have a lens in really poor condition for a few bucks.

Would a Lensbaby work?

Just spin a filthy, dusty, fingerprinted UV filter onto a lens you already own.

 

Or simulate the above more hygenically, with a little hairspray on a UV filter.

 

Getting mediocre quality from a lens is EASY. I do it all the time, even with very good lenses. All it takes is tnelat (inverse of talent) and voila!

 

Be well,

Jim, LOL!

Dominic, you won't find a crummy lens in Nikon mount. Maybe try over in the Canon forum.

Dominic, are you out of your mind? The lenses Nikon made for the F were all pretty good. The least sharp of the 35s, according to Geoffrey Crawley, was the slowest. f/3.5, iirc. And there were no bad 50s, even though I never loved my old 50/1.4.

 

If you want fuzziness, use a fuzzy filter. Or defocus the lens a lot before shooting. Or shake the camera during exposure. You're not going to find a Nikkor in good order that will give poor image quality.

 

Poor color rendition? Huh? Photographic objectives have had fairly even transmission across the visible spectrum since photography was invented.

 

If you want false colors, use colored filters.

I bought and sold a used Soligor 28mm F2.8 Preset wideangle in Nikon T-mount in the 1970's. This 1960's lens was visible as a poor lens; in even a 4x6 print!

Pity it has to be a prime. I have a Marexar 28-70 that is so lousy at 28 you can see the soft edges even in the viewfinder. I could give you a good deal on that. I won't even charge extra for the fungus.

If you can manage to remove the rear element of a 50mm f/1.8 and re-install it backwards you will be rewarded with a TON of astigmatism and over-corrected spherical aberration and field curvature. Even stopping down to f/16 won't produce a sharp image, except in the center of the field. Color correction will remain fairly good, however

 

You should be able to find a fungus-ridden sample for about $10 to try out this experiment.

Tried your local pawnshops? Or a camera show? Especially watch for off-brand lenses.

 

I think you can get some current Russian screw-mount lenses real cheap...they might be too good for your purposes, tho.

 

You should be able to adapt a Holga lens to mount on or in front of a Nikon lens cap, with duct tape or machined adaptor, depending on your level of expertise. Might also try projector lenses.

can always make a Pinhole-Nikkor - punch a little hole in a lens cap

I think I know the look you want. You should try to get hold of an old Russian Jupiter

85mm lens in Pentax screw mount. Not that it was a bad lens, but was designed as a

portrait lens to give really soft images at f2.0. Point one of those at a bright light source

and watch the flare!

The original 43-86 3.5 is infamous for its image quality. To quote David Ruether ( http://www.ferrario.com/ruether/slemn.html) "very poor (Yuck! Pah! Bleah!)".

 

HD

thanks all for your help

I have to chime on the original 43-86 zoom. Surely the worst Nikon lens I ever used in 40 years of experience!

A friend would try out the original 43-86 zoom by testing them; cherry picking the ones that were best; well centeredr. These NEW lenses went into a major 35mm Motion picture camera at one time. Custom mounts were made; only the optical black and helixes were used. These lenses are leased; not owned. Other "better" original 43-86 zooms were also used with C-mounts on 16mm; or video in the 1960's; before "better" zooms were developed. The movie industry uses a long hood; and bellows to keep the contrast way higher than an amateurs usage of this lens. This lens was used in several major motion pictures; and more 16mm short documentarys

"Dominic, you won't find a crummy lens in Nikon mount. Maybe try over in the Canon forum."

 

LOL, Red!

 

Now don't you talk like this after I buy my 20D. ;-)

Worst SLR lens I've had was a Canon FD mount Soligor medium range zoom, something in the 35-70mm territory. Absolutely awful, unsharp at any aperture, not even the kind of unsharpness that might be considered flattering for portraiture. Just pure crap.

 

Many of the no-names are about as bad: Ritzcam, etc.

 

Still, with a little work you can rig up a pretty good approximation of what you need using a cheap plastic loupe duct taped around the lens mount.