Lens Reviews?

[BruceBanner]

Hi everyone.

I come from Pentax Forums where this is quite a database on lenses with members reviews and ratings and such, it can be quite a useful and helpful resource when starting your research into your next lens purchase.
I just wondered if I had missed any feature like this with this forum here? Or whether there is a place most of ya'll go or refer people too for lens impressions and reviews.

Cheers!

BB

[mdm]

Hi Bruce. There aren't such a db with reviews on this forum, just some personal opinions, but very often quite valuable, so you may try search through the topicks. Hoever there are some great sites of professional fuji gear reviewers, so here you are a couple for a start:

https://jonasraskphotography.com/

https://www.cameralabs.com/

 

[lleo]

Hello Bruce, I know the database in Pentax forum, it's quite good.

The only advice is take every lens review with a pinch of salt, since no two lenses of the same type are the same.

[BruceBanner]

13 hours ago, mdm said:

Hi Bruce. There aren't such a db with reviews on this forum, just some personal opinions, but very often quite valuable, so you may try search through the topicks. Hoever there are some great sites of professional fuji gear reviewers, so here you are a couple for a start:

https://jonasraskphotography.com/

https://www.cameralabs.com/

 

Thanks, will check those out.

I wonder if its a good idea to start some kind of official lens review here on this forum group, following a similar format to PF? Could be a great resource and strengthen the Fuji brand.

[BruceBanner]

11 hours ago, lleo said:

Hello Bruce, I know the database in Pentax forum, it's quite good.

The only advice is take every lens review with a pinch of salt, since no two lenses of the same type are the same.

Yep, which is why I think PF lens reviews are good because if you get 10ppl reviewing a lens and one really hates on it and the others love it, you kinda get the feeling he has a dud copy or whatever. An averaged rating from users contributing to the review section is really quite helpful to give you somewhat of an idea of the lens performance. What I find is not so helpful is for example a single in depth review, unless the review states that they had 3-5 copies of this lens and could weed out the dud copies or average the results across the 3-5 lenses... yer at mercy to one guys tests and that one lens, which may or may not be a good representation of that lens across the board. 

[mdm]

7 hours ago, BruceBanner said:

I wonder if its a good idea to start some kind of official lens review here on this forum group, following a similar format to PF? Could be a great resource and strengthen the Fuji brand.

There is a post started back in 2015 by "quincy" - https://www.fuji-x-forum.com/topic/998-complete-overview-over-the-available-and-upcoming-fuji-x-mount-lenses/

I didn't check updates of that post last years and just did it now. He added some links to reviews that is great and sort of what you are talking about I suppose.

[BruceBanner]

1 hour ago, mdm said:

There is a post started back in 2015 by "quincy" - https://www.fuji-x-forum.com/topic/998-complete-overview-over-the-available-and-upcoming-fuji-x-mount-lenses/

I didn't check updates of that post last years and just did it now. He added some links to reviews that is great and sort of what you are talking about I suppose.

Yeah, it would be better with its own section rather than a thread, and of course its not members reviews. Still a cool thread tho, thanks!

[Herco]

Although I really appreciate Jonas Rask, don't forget he's a Fuji X-Photographer. One of Fuji's requirements for that is that you exclusively shoot with Fuji. That's a bit limiting should you wish to test lenses.

I value the views of Gordon Laing (Cameralabs) and Dustin Abbott as well as the very scientific approach of fototest.de (in German) and Lens Rentals' break-down of lenses.

In my experience Fuji has indeed a bit more sample variation than some other brands (I compare with Nikon and Leica) but that is IME more in mechanical issues (loose aperture rings, noisy AF motors...) than in optical issues like element alignments or faults. Anyway, that should not withhold us from evaluating lenses as also 'bad copies' can get into a users hands and he/she might never know it by lack of being able to compare. That is why e.g. fototest.de tests multiple copies of a lens. 

[lleo]

On 2/18/2021 at 11:02 AM, Herco said:

That is why e.g. fototest.de tests multiple copies of a lens. 

That should be a commandment. Otherwise each test should be taken with huge reservations

[Herco]

On 3/24/2021 at 4:07 PM, lleo said:

That should be a commandment. Otherwise each test should be taken with huge reservations

I disagree that it should be a commandment. A car magazine usually tests one car out of the production line. Not three or four. We can assume that the car represents all copies and the performance and quality is more or less similar.

Fuji should take care of good QA and minimize the sample variation. I now have a history of 6 Fuji cameras bought of which 2 had to be swapped for a new one as well as 14 lenses over the past years of which 4 had to be replaced or repaired. All almost straight out of the box. That is considerably more than all other brands combined that I have owned over the past 40+ years.

Last year I had a GFX50s and a GFX100 over for a trail period. One of the lenses showed again signs of poor QA. For various reasons I decided to stick to my H6D. For other professional work I moved away from Fuji. For personal work I’m just too fond of my X-Pro2.

My point is that with Fuji I hear lots of people brushing poor performance off with “ahh, you had a bad copy”. That’s not normal. These are expensive cameras and lenses and they should work within a very narrow sample variation.

[BruceBanner]

58 minutes ago, Herco said:

I disagree that it should be a commandment. A car magazine usually tests one car out of the production line. Not three or four. We can assume that the car represents all copies and the performance and quality is more or less similar.

Fuji should take care of good QA and minimize the sample variation. I now have a history of 6 Fuji cameras bought of which 2 had to be swapped for a new one as well as 14 lenses over the past years of which 4 had to be replaced or repaired. All almost straight out of the box. That is considerably more than all other brands combined that I have owned over the past 40+ years.

Last year I had a GFX50s and a GFX100 over for a trail period. One of the lenses showed again signs of poor QA. For various reasons I decided to stick to my H6D. For other professional work I moved away from Fuji. For personal work I’m just too fond of my X-Pro2.

My point is that with Fuji I hear lots of people brushing poor performance off with “ahh, you had a bad copy”. That’s not normal. These are expensive cameras and lenses and they should work within a very narrow sample variation.

I feel Pentax can also fall under questionable Q&A. I've said before that multiple lens testing would be additionally informative and useful but of course unrealistically going to happen. If say 1/3 lenses was quite a bit off it could give the buyer some further knowledge to really be aware of the possibility of a bad copy and that expectations of the lens should be in line with what the reviewer was finding consistent with the other other 2 good lenses etc. Basically it's just useful information regardless.
What would be nice would be for companies like Fuji and Pentax to send out a good copy to trusted reviewers and that I think would really put the idea of the chance of a reviewer reviewing a bad copy to rest. If the lens he's testing has come from the company itself (test by them to ensure it is a good copy) then this is what we should all expect from the lens and if our own copies are not meeting that same benchmark then we would be in a good position to demand an exchange.

The thing is, I can't help feeling the Americans get such a good level of customer support for this kind of stuff (compared to the rest of us), they can play with a camera or lens for a month and then decide its not for them and just 'give it back'. For us down here in Australia that is a no deal approach, not even within 7 days can we change our minds. We have to build a very strong legal case for returns so to prove a lens is faulty and not performing up to scratch (via proof of a comparison with a good review) is helpful.

[lleo]

Well, try two or more samples of a lens is one thing, two or three samples of a car or even more a boat or a plane is something completely different.
In fact Optical Limits (aka Photozone.de) tests more samples of the same lens.
I agree with you on the fact that QC should be much, much better. Probably the stuff made in Japan have a higher QC then the ones made in China, although this shouldn't happen.
But this is the proper reason why testing one single piece means almost nothing, or really close to.

Edited April 6, 2021 by lleo