Please all stop buying legacy lenses

Tom Caldwell wrote:

The market is imperfect even on eBay and therefore pricing is all over the place. Sometimes you can see the same lens listed at a variety of prices and the most expensive is not always the best.

It is worth a comment that frieght ex-USA for those that live elsewhere is usually $40-$50 when fully insured and with tracking. Most US vendors insist on this. On the other hand freight ex-UK and Germany will be readily sent the equivalent of $12-$20. This is just an extra hurdle for US vendors as a buyer will look at his total cost of purchase. However there seems no less reliability in shipping and time differences between regular air freight and priory seem negligible except perhaps in busy periods - the parcels go on the same aeroplane.

There is also a conservatism on brands and buyers rush "accepted names" resulting in the price of those brands being driven sky-high. Little things like the "huge" FD 85mm f1.2 can be so sought after because of its reputation more than it's useflness on the camera.

Of course the coming of the Metabones "Smart Adapter" and "Speed Booster" must suddenly make Canon EOS EF lenses look more attractive for NEX owners. But I doubt if they ever represented cheap bargains anyway. Maybe they just make NEX bodies more attractive to rusted-in Canon dslr owners?

While I am having a swipe at everything (grin). Do we have an opinion on the current price of oem lenses from the manufacturers of digital cameras in general? It seems that legacy lenses remain attractive as they are usually well made with "proper" materials and good glass in bodies that have external controls that are wide and well damped. Heavier and mostly with good "feel". The new lenses are of lighter construction, prefer motor drives and auto-everything controlled from the camera for simplicity and are therefore of cheaper build. Made in huge qualtities by mass production. They work well I don't question that, but price-wise it is fair comment that the manufacturers are up to their old tricks of cheap bodies and multiple expensive lenses - only that these lenses may not last quite as well this time around. Nor will they be able to be so easily swapped between camera mounts. This has always been a camera manufacturers aim - lock-in loyalty to a lens mount.

Legacy lenses to an extent remove the limitation of solely using a single manufacturers lens mount. I am happily using a variety of old lenses on four "breeds" of camera bodies. Adapter manufacturers of the world rejoice.

Collect your lenses - select your camera brand of choice, and change manufacturers at your choice without having to re-buy all your favourite lenses. And we worry that legacy lens prices are rising .... seems logical to me.

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Tom Caldwell