Lens "toughness"

okay, first, let's get something out of the way for all the trolls out there. yes, I am a klutz. I don't know the correct medical term for it, but I do occasionally loose my sense of balance for a split second, and as a result, over the years I have seen my fair share of cameras and camera equipment go flying down cliffs (followed by myself), into rivers, and so forth. One time I fell into a creek first followed by my 4x5 which landed on my head and gave me a cut on my scalp. Saved the camera form falling in the water and finished the shoot, the 20x24 print still sits on my wall today.

So I have grown to like Nikon because overall the gear takes a lot of punishment for guys like me who couldn't catch a football to save their life but still love to go into rough enviroments.

Here is one specific example of a problem I have with lens tests, but you can apply it to many others if you like.

Time and time and time and time again, i read about how the Nikkor 85mm 1.4 is better than the Zeiss 85mm 1.4. Okay, in lab tests, that is be true, but how about in the real world? Not trying to be a jerk, but do any of these lens "experts" or testing sites ever try these lenses in some real world conditions that may involve harsh or extreme conditions? for example, you drop a Zeiss lens on the ground - which I have done - it still works. You drop a pro quality Nikkor AF lens on the ground - again, which I have done - and it is going to need service. My first hand, personal experience is even top of the line pro quality AF nikkor lenses do not and will not take the same punishment that MF Zeiss or MF Nikkors will.

Is this not important to anyone, or am i the only idiot on this whole board who has ever dropped a cameras and/or lens?? Like I said, flame my ass and make all the fun out of me you want, but seriously, is there nobody else who has this kind of issue? I know this will not apply to everybody, maybe not even most of you, but nobody at all?

Let me give you an example. I used to be in the police reserve. I forget how the conversation started, but one day at the station it was about the personal radios police officers carried while on the street. In short, the point came up that the radios we used were, according to "all the experts and lab reports", not as good as "brand X" of police radio. But then one of the older sergeants pointed out to me:

"You get into a fight in the street, and your radio gets smacked with a baseball bat, or it gets torn off your belt and smashed against a wall, it will still work. That other so called better brand will not. We know, we've tested it and found out the hard way. So specs don't mean a damned thing if the radio isn't working to begin with. A broken radio has no specs. Now which brand would you rather depend on?"

So let me put this same argument to you for lenses. I know everyone's situation and needs are different, but what good is a lens that has "superior optics" if it cannot take the potential punishment where you are going, and you end up missing the shot?

So to close, here is my impossible wish list. I wish every single magazine, forum, blogger and web site that tests lenses would do this final test: You drop the lens from a height of a three feet (aka : one meter) onto a hard concrete surface, and then you see if it still works afterwards. Then rate the lens.

Any takers?

Please, I insist, you go first.

I dropped my 70-200f4 out of my open backpack recently. It fell about 4ft onto concrete. Put a huge dent onto the filter end of the lens edge, so much so that Nikon had to replace the front element but before I sent it in for repair I picked out the broken filter glass and tried it out on a friends D7100 and it worked perfectly except the broken filter ring could not be removed. $360 repair job.

I see your point but it's not economically feasible to ask them to do this unless you're willing to pay for the reviews. You're asking that they damage or destroy a lens worth up to $18,000 or more. If you are that concerned about iy you should stick with manual focus lenses as I don't expect many AF lenses would pass your test.

joneil said:

okay, first, let's get something out of the way for all the trolls out there. yes, I am a klutz. I don't know the correct medical term for it, but I do occasionally loose my sense of balance for a split second, and as a result, over the years I have seen my fair share of cameras and camera equipment go flying down cliffs (followed by myself), into rivers, and so forth. One time I fell into a creek first followed by my 4x5 which landed on my head and gave me a cut on my scalp. Saved the camera form falling in the water and finished the shoot, the 20x24 print still sits on my wall today.

So I have grown to like Nikon because overall the gear takes a lot of punishment for guys like me who couldn't catch a football to save their life but still love to go into rough enviroments.

Here is one specific example of a problem I have with lens tests, but you can apply it to many others if you like.

Time and time and time and time again, i read about how the Nikkor 85mm 1.4 is better than the Zeiss 85mm 1.4. Okay, in lab tests, that is be true, but how about in the real world? Not trying to be a jerk, but do any of these lens "experts" or testing sites ever try these lenses in some real world conditions that may involve harsh or extreme conditions? for example, you drop a Zeiss lens on the ground - which I have done - it still works. You drop a pro quality Nikkor AF lens on the ground - again, which I have done - and it is going to need service. My first hand, personal experience is even top of the line pro quality AF nikkor lenses do not and will not take the same punishment that MF Zeiss or MF Nikkors will.

Is this not important to anyone, or am i the only idiot on this whole board who has ever dropped a cameras and/or lens?? Like I said, flame my ass and make all the fun out of me you want, but seriously, is there nobody else who has this kind of issue? I know this will not apply to everybody, maybe not even most of you, but nobody at all?

Let me give you an example. I used to be in the police reserve. I forget how the conversation started, but one day at the station it was about the personal radios police officers carried while on the street. In short, the point came up that the radios we used were, according to "all the experts and lab reports", not as good as "brand X" of police radio. But then one of the older sergeants pointed out to me:

"You get into a fight in the street, and your radio gets smacked with a baseball bat, or it gets torn off your belt and smashed against a wall, it will still work. That other so called better brand will not. We know, we've tested it and found out the hard way. So specs don't mean a damned thing if the radio isn't working to begin with. A broken radio has no specs. Now which brand would you rather depend on?"

So let me put this same argument to you for lenses. I know everyone's situation and needs are different, but what good is a lens that has "superior optics" if it cannot take the potential punishment where you are going, and you end up missing the shot?

So to close, here is my impossible wish list. I wish every single magazine, forum, blogger and web site that tests lenses would do this final test: You drop the lens from a height of a three feet (aka : one meter) onto a hard concrete surface, and then you see if it still works afterwards. Then rate the lens.

Any takers?

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isn't kind of obvious that a complex AF lens is inherently less reliable than a purely mechanical & simple MF lens?

that's a fact, not an argument.
it's also apples and oranges.

photo equipment generally falls under the category of delicate precision instruments. that means special care and special handling required. I'd argue none of it is "tough". I mean, compare your zeiss 85 to a glock 21.

You want lenses that will survive some abuse, go with primes, and manual focus at that. The zooms are generally very complex and prone to issues over time even without getting knocked around.

For cameras, you can get various sorts of 'armor plating', but in general the Nikon's I've seen (mostly the prosumer ones) can take quite a bit of knocking around. The pro stuff (D2, D4, etc.) even more.

I've got an old push-pull 80-200 F2.8 bought new in 1995. It once fell out of my backpack about 4 feet right onto concrete, then rolled down a driveway until it bumped into something to stop it. No problems there at all, but I consider that extremely lucky. On the other hand I dropped a D300 with 18-200vr attached, and while the camera was ok, the lens would not manually focus when zoomed out, plus the filter ring got dented to the point filters wouldn't screw on.

If you are prone to droppage, get insurance.

You should shoot with an AK-47 not a camera :-D

You should stick with MF prime lenses. They can take a bit more abuse than AF-S VR lenses or even MF zooms (don't ask how I know :-( ).

Over the years photography in general has become more affordable and plastic more accepted. To cater the mainstream need the strong metal construction has been traded in for a more lightweight and cheaper construction that's strong enoug for most. That transition roughly falls together with the transition to autofocus. Early autofocus lenses are more metal than newer autofocus lenses.

You happen to be a user still requiring that good old build-like-a-tank quality of lenses. You'd have to specifically look for the build quality of lenses when shopping. Avoid any lens that changes size while zooming, those break really easily. And use an UV filter and the lens hood, they can absorb part of the fall before the lens takes the hit.

I'm with you for sure. And I agree that its just too bad no more reviews focuses on build quality. Instead we often get 10 reviews saying the same about image quality and such.

Not sure if a single drop would be representative. Oh the Zeiss broke on this test but the Nikkor survived, surprise. You need to eliminate statistical noise, it would take multiple drops and that makes it untenable from a cost perspective. Perhaps an examination of the construction would say something?

I believe the weight is of some importance too.... I´ve droped my 35/1.8G a couple times out of my backpack, and it just bounced on the floor a couple of times. Works fine.... I don´t thing my Sigma 17-50/2.8OS would take that kindly.

Dropping them aside, if you want a lenses that should last for decades, get good quality manual focus primes.

There is an awful lot more to go wrong in an autofocus zoom lens - including a lot of electronics - and the focusing and aperture mechanisms may be light to make it easier for those little motors to move them. VR is just one more thing that can go wrong.

Insurance should be your best friend.

joneil said:

My first hand, personal experience is even top of the line pro quality AF nikkor lenses do not and will not take the same punishment that MF Zeiss or MF Nikkors will.

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Jon --

I run an office that examines military equipment issues and the engineers that work for me have a saying: "Yah cannot cheat Gawd." There is no free lunch. You can't get something for nothing. Oh, and enlisted personnel can destroy anything. But i digress.

You are right, zoom, AF and VR mechanisms, weight control, and cost control generally -- all of which consumers have generally demanded -- have resulted in loss of robustness in lens design. if you want the most robust lenses you need to go for MF/AiS models. There is not a lens designer that nikon has ever employed that would disagree with that statement. Oh, and most brand X (C****n) users would happily tell you that -- in extreme environments -- nothing compares to AiS lenses either.

That said, our friends in Sendai still noticeably tend to make their designs more robust than contemporary, cost constrained, market conditions require. In general Nikons have -- even among their consumer models -- a fairly earned reputation for robustness.

And many of these lenses are still stunning on digital; allow me to cite four examples that work superbly well with my d600: 28mm f2, 55mm f2.8; 105mm f2.5 (or f2); and the 180mm f2.8. Any of them are capable of poster-sized images of stunning clarity at optimum apertures.

i cannot comment on Zeiss designs -- too rich for this civil servant -- but i can tell you that the lenses above resolve beyond the 24meg of the d600.

By all means shoot with your Nikons in extreme conditions; modern bodies are better able than film bodies to take the abuse, actually. And the appropriate lenses are still . . . sublime.

But leave zoom, AF and VR back in the bag when you go out.

-- gary ray
Semi-professional in early 1970s; just a putzer since then. interests: historical sites, virginia, motorcycle racing. A nikon user more by habit than choice; still, nikon seems to work well for me.

As was pointed out above, the more interior components you have, the more thing there are to ultimately go wrong but that aside, apart from real smashes against the floor, todays lenses and cameras are generally very good.

Some people pound their fists (metaphorically) and say they want metal lenses. Metal. Metal! Metal! Metal! Nikon lenses are all plastic. Give me metal. Well, a pause to review what's happening here may be helpful.

Firstly, Nikon hasn't made metal lenses for quite some time. The D series lenses were polycarbonate. Secondly, the G series lenses are a mix of silicon coated magnesium alloy and polycarbonate. If something is 'wrong' with the lenses, then there's something 'wrong' with the pro bodies. Funny how no-one is complaining about the bodies.

A side note here, the consumer bodies have plastic components but that's hardly the end of the world. This makes them scratch resistant and from a consumer product point of view, that's a sensible trade off.

Okay, polycarbonate. That's plastic! That means it's crap. Gimmie metal. Metal! Metal-metal-metal! Well, I have a metal lens hood that is no longer perfectly circular thanks to its colliding with a marble wall corner. Metal is good for some things but it has a tendency to deform when dinged. There's a reason why car manufacturers use metal beams for bumpers with vinyl covers: the vinyl springs back from minor bumps.

Moreover, polycarbonate is not the stuff that they make juice bottles from -- they make bullet proof vests out of the stuff. It's pretty tough stuff and is very stable. Sure, Zeiss makes all aluminum lens housings and bully for them. It has a particular feel and all that sort of thing but I suspect it's as much branding and anything else. The rest of the world has moved on to newer materials that are easier to manufacture, tougher, lighter and extend the product lifecycle.

No-one's talking about going back to Victorian methods where everything was made from iron, brass and wood.

--

Could you all move half an inch to the left? Okay, pretend you like each other and smile.

Two cents. I don't believe there is an SLR lens that could survive any and all drops onto conrete from three feet. Too many variables are involved in the force distribution of the impact to comprehensively test differences unless you could sacrifice many, many copies. And even then you would only get probabilities (no guarantees). Compounding the problem is the fact that many or most impacts will occur with irregular surfaces or objects - very hard to quantify survivability.

I agree with previous posters that the more mechanical (less electronic) the construction of a lens, the greater the chance it will survive an accident, but nobody is making these lenses to be crash proof (at least, not yet).

It seems unlikely to me that your cost savings per unit time from buying "tougher" lenses will be anything near to what you can save by simply being more careful. As others mentioned, insurance might be worth it for you, but it's not free.

Regards, Brian

oneANT said:

http://petapixel.com/2012/04/02/how-carl-zeiss-lenses-are-stress-tested/

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textbook overcompensation

my bet is someone at zeiss is still a bit irritated that their SLR lenses are made in japan in a non-zeiss facility, so they made this video.

"but we test them!"

I'm glad they do, considering the lenses come from the voitlander factory.

joneil said:

Is this not important to anyone, or am i the only idiot on this whole board who has ever dropped a cameras and/or lens??

Click to expand...

I can only answer for myself of course, but in my 25+ years of photographing (and owning a handful of camera bodies and probably 15+ different lenses) I have never dropped any of my gear in a way that might damage it seriously.

So for me a 'cheap plastic' (and thereby lighter and more cost-effective) lens will win any day over a heavier/bulkier lens that can take more abuse.

It is not a cost issue for me, it is simply based on that I don't have the need for something that is built like a tank as long as the optics are great.

You might want to multiply the purchasing prices of those Zeiss lenses by quite a few times if these lenses were to be made in Germany.