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| Image: MirageC / Moment via Getty Images |
Welcome back to our Question of the Week series! If you’re new here, this series aims to get our passionate community to share thoughts on all sorts of photography-related topics in our forum. We pose questions about gear, favorite camera stores, advice, problem-solving and more, and you share your thoughts and opinions.
This week, we’re leaning into the problem-solving side of things.
How do you deal with bad copies of lenses?
Unfortunately, defective lenses, often called “bad copies,” are a fact of life for photographers. One copy of a lens could be excellent, and another could have frustratingly noticeable defects. Bad copies can happen even with a model that has a good reputation for optical quality. The defects can be subtle or dramatic, and may take the form of uneven sharpness, obvious blurring or asymmetrical performance.
It’s important to note that, for this week’s question, we aren’t asking about lens defects found across all versions of the lens. Issues like aberrations and distortion are a subject for another day. This time, we want to know how you deal specifically with problems related to defective lenses.
Everyone has their own thought process or method for dealing with bad copies. It could be returning the lens, sending it off for repairs or simply living with it. Or maybe you have a more unique approach that we haven’t even thought of.
This week, we want to know what you do when you come across a defective lens. Share your experiences, or, if you haven’t dealt with one, share what you might do if it does happen to you. If you have a photo of a physical issue that resulted in a bad lens, we’d love to see it. Next Wednesday, we will select a handful of your stories and publish them in a new article.
For a future Question of the week, we’ll discuss chromatic aberrations separately and how you handle those.
Click here to answer the Question of the week
Our DPREVIEW Tribute:
After nearly 25 years of operation, DPReview closed on 10 April 2023. This difficult decision was part of the annual operating plan review that parent company, Amazon, shared earlier this year.
Over the course of 25 years, DP Review built up a reputation as being one of the most informative places to go for information about that new camera or lens you’re after. DP Review began as an independent reviews site based in the UK in 1998, the brainchild of Philip and Joanna Askey, but it was eventually purchased by Amazon in 2007 and relocated over to Seattle in the USA in 2010.
Cheers DPReview – thanks for the great work and content that guided photographers, videographers and techno junkies the world over!