Ugly Lens Competition

[graham_thompson1]

<p>Of course we all buy lenses that perform as well as possible within our budget.<br>

Cosmetically it is interesting how lenses vary.<br>

Take the Nikon 'Pro' lineup.<br>

The 14-24 - Looks good.<br>

The 24-70 - Looks good.<br>

The 70-200 looks so ugly. I appreciate that (in the centre at least!) it could resolve individual hairs on<br>

the Mother-in-Laws moustache at 200 yards but it is just so 'industrial' looking. Sort of cosmetic 'design' you<br>

might have seen from some eastern European tractor factory in the 1930's.<br>

Does cosmetic lens design influence your choice of which you buy or is it just performance?</p>

[nhut-nguyen]

<p>Performance. Using a big black DSLR is ugly already, can't getting any worst than that. Gosh why can't Canon and Nikon make their DSLRs in different colors, imagine a Red D3 or a Blue 1Ds Mark III</p>

[colin carron]

<p><em>Does cosmetic lens design influence your choice of which you buy?</em><br>

<em></em><br>

<em>No.</em></p>

[john clark]

<blockquote>

<p>"why can't Canon and Nikon make their DSLRs in different colors, imagine a Red D3 or a Blue 1Ds Mark III"</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Careful what you wish for - before you know it, they'd probably go all like-a-Leica and offer you snakeskin-covered grips and chrome bling for punitatively expensive amounts... ;-)<br>

My vote for the ugliest lens? My wife brought home a Schneider perspective control lens for her work 1Ds mkII which was a heck of an ugly thing, though apparently very good at what it does...</p>

<p><img src="http://img.thefind.com/images/TAC7LP-mYBrDNAbPpQwMqTmpySVF-XmZycUMGSUlBVb6-uXl5XpJGQUZ-SX5ZZkpqfl6yfm5-pm5iempxfqZJam5xfomZsYmBnpZBekMDAA*?m=1&g=1" alt="" width="150" height="150" /><br>

...actually, seeing it there makes me realise it looks better on the screen than it did in person. Or maybe that's a different model, I dunno...</p>

[pjmeade]

<p>It's got to be performance over looks every time, so I'll go for black and white every time.<br>

My very first SLR was a Zenith B that came with the very ugly Industar 50/3.5 lens, which looked like the optical equivalent of a wart. I ditched that as soon as I could and replaced it with the optically superior 50/2, but I seem to remember that at the time I wanted the change because the f2 made it look like a "proper camera".</p>

[Hector Javkin]

<p>John,</p>

<p>Our aesthetic senses are totally different! Thank goodness I don't put up photos for review, you'd hate them. I like the appearance of that Schneider lens. It looks very purposeful, and it's far less boring than yet another barrel full of glass.</p>

<p>It doesn't matter though. How tools look doesn't make any difference. My Olympus OM-1 and Zuiko lenses were the prettiest photo equipment I ever had, but I traded them in for a scanner, so I could digitize the slides I made with them.</p>

[ianmaleny]

<p>I don't like spiffy smooth looking lenses and cameras, they look so commercial and poncey. Give me the built for a purpose ugly ones any time.</p>

[john clark]

<p>Hector, I must admit that it looks quite good in that picture, but on the front of a Canon SLR it looked... odd. Apparently a razor sharp optic, though. My wife does a lot of architectural photography which is why she uses it. </p>

[bernie moore]

<p>How good would I look with a bright red metalfalke 600mm lens and a blue metalflake body at a Patriots game? It just gets my tail atwitter!</p>

[mrraz]

<p>There are no ugly lenses, just as there are no beautiful lenses. They are nothing but a product of form following function. When conversations start about how equipment looks instead of what it does, the photographers need to refocus their energy in a more productive area, shovel snow or mow the lawn, depending on where you live. ;-)</p>

[sarah_fox]

<p>The only appearance-related considerations in a camera or lens that matter to me are inconspicuousness. I like for them to be black, with a minimum of chrome accents. I think it would be great if Canon would offer black versions of their big L glass. The official justification for the white is that these lenses often sit in the hot sun and stay cooler if they're white, but I bet the real reason is that one can easily recognize a Canon "big white" from 250 feet. Advertisement. I don't mind the red ring, though. It's a tasteful enough thing.</p>

<p>Oh, my nomination for the world's ugliest lenses would go to the "zebra" Meyer-Optik Domiplans. They are also as anti-ergonomic as ugly.</p>

[User_276104]

<p>Graham - I agree with you on the Nikon 70-200 VR. It's not a very "attractive" lens.</p>

<p>The Nikon 18-55 kit lens is not a real looker either. When I grab a D40 I'd prefer to use my Nikon 18-70, but then I have to take a flash unit since the 18-70 creates shadows with the built-in flash.</p>

[leicaglow]

<p>Well, not the lens so much as the body, but how about one of those green, yellow, red, or blue Hasselblad bodies. Don't care how good the pics are, I'm not gonna buy one. Lenses? Maybe a Spiratone or 50mm Nikon Series E lens.</p>

[astral]

<p>Generally I'm not too concerned about looks if the performance of a lens is what I need. But ... I consider some older Russian, East German and minor West German lenses to be really 'goofy' - if not totally ugly. The "zebra" CZJ, Isco and Steinheil lenses in particular can be real oddballs, both physically and cosmetically, and often look weird when mounted on a camera of more refined appearance. Tho' they're arguably a good match for some of the equally "goofy" contemporary cameras ... Fortunately, modern "ugly" lenses are rarely in this league.</p>

<p>Still, as they say, "one man's <em>fish </em> is another man's <em>poisson</em> " ...</p>

<p> </p>

[petemillis]

<p>I like ugly looking lenses, and seem to be collecting a few - oh, the perils of buying EOS to M42 and EOS to Pentacon 6 adapters!</p>

[matthew_newton]

<p>I wouldn't say it is an overriding factor in what I buy, but it influences me a bit. For example Sigma went through a number of cosmetic iterations of some lenses from the late 80's to the late 90's, but in some cases there were no mechanical/optical revisions to those lenses. I tend to like Sigma's final cosmetic design for their manual focus gear, so I tend to try to buy that stuff when I have the option. So it does influence my purchasing, but if I know x manufactuerer's 24mm lens is better then y manufacturer's 24mm lens, but y is uglier, I am still going to get y's.</p>