Defective Oly 25mm lens

CrisPhoto wrote:

Paul De Bra wrote:

Sadly but there exists no quality control procedure for this category of lenses that includes a test for decentering or "uneven sharpness". A lens will be subjected to a basic control to see that it "functions" but other than that there is only an occasional random sample that is tested to see whether the assembly like is still working properly or is out of whack.

And a vendor cannot do any quality control either as they don't want to touch an item they are selling as new (unopened).

So the reality is you play in a lottery when buying a lens. Even going through 5 bad copies can happen with almost every lens type from every manufacturer.

What makes me nervous is the impression that while the cameras and sensors get better and better, the average quality of the lenses is getting worse (if you don't count the PRO lenses).

I did not have any issue with the older lenses I have or had. Other people seemed to be happy too. For example there are not many issues with the Panasonic 20/1.7 lens besides the pathetic AF. They really sold many but this forum did not fill with complaints.

But I see a lot of complaints with Olys new PZ kit lenses and the 25/1.8.

Well, my first "pro" 12-40 was a piece of garbage, so... :D.

Regarding average performances I'm not sure there's been any drop in performances. Some of today's lenses handily outperform a lot of comparable older lenses while having to manage things such as IS or autofocusing and still being quite cheap I think.

Even regarding tolerances, maybe what we're mostly seeing these days is a rapid increase in pixel density that hasn't been matched by a sufficiently rapid increase in lens tolerances, with a bit more pixel peeping to boot, and possibly, at least for example in the art market, an augmentation in print sizes ? Using Lensrentals' measurements, I doubt there is any lens in the history of consumer photo lenses that's as well toleranced as the modern Canon 11-24mm or 28mm IS USM for example (I mean, look at those tight curves !). Perhaps there is also a very strong asymmetry, currently, in the degree of care each lens manufacturer has about tolerances. Canon seems to have recognise earlier than most others the challenges higher density digital sensors could pose in the long term regarding lens design and manufacturing, maybe Olympus hasn't quite yet taken enough steps to make sufficiently significant progresses.