Are de-kitted lenses more prone to sample variation?

I'm stating what has been published numerous times over the past 20 years. I'm referring to the number of lens produced, not only for digital still cameras, but also camcorders and cell phones. Panasonic's lens facility in Yamagata has produced more aspherical lens for just about every company than any other company. Most people are unaware of the OEM business that Panasonic has. Their expertise is what led to the business relation with Leica, where they had resident Leica engineers on site.

AiryDiscus wrote:

Wasabi Bob wrote:

I really fail to see the humor in your response. So much of the info shared in such discussion begins as someones "opinion". It magically becomes fact and people start forming conclusions on assumptions. I've been to where the lens are manufactured and have a close working relation with their service network, globally. I'm not pulling rabbits out of a hat when I made those statements.

There is no value to the ridiculous theory that a well known company, in this case the largest manufacturer of aspherical lens in the world, intentionally sells inferior copies of a lens. People who are new to digital photography look to these forums for guidance. Any info should be factual and accurate.

That's a bold statement. If you define "largest" manufacture by a financial metric, it is Samsung. If you define it by volume, it is also Samsung, who produce on the order of 1 billion aspheric lenses per year.