Are de-kitted lenses more prone to sample variation?

ibiza123 wrote:

I bought mine set (gx7 & 14-140) as one of the cheapest offers of new kits I found. I only checked the seller's references. 14-140 turned out to be more sharp than I expected. Maybe I was just lucky. If you won't be able to test the lens during return period the purchase of box and de-kitted will be risky. You have only olympus bodies so why not oly 14-150 instead?

BTW how did you recognize de-centered lens, what were the symptoms?

Thanks for the inputs. My wife has a new GX80 and the lens is for her.

Regarding recognizing a de-centered lens - there are several ways to do that, and what's common to all of them is that you want to compare how a certain object looks when it is is captured at different areas of the frame. For example, in one image you put it in the top right corner, and in the other in the bottom left corner. A common way to do this is by taking two pictures of the same scene, the first with the camera held normally and the second when it is upside down. Then you can crop certain areas of the two images and compare them. If you see that a certain corner or side is substantially softer than the others then you have a de-centered lens. Of course the shutter speed has to be fast enough to rule out hand shake, shutter shock, etc. And focus, and depth-of-field should also be taken care of. As far as I know it is recommended to test at the widest focal length of the lens and at its widest aperture.

This is what I got from my previous (returned) copy of the 14-140, look at 100% view to see the differences more clearly.

When captured at one corner

When captured at a different corner