We all have regrets. My main ones photographically speaking are connected to lenses I have parted with. Otherwise, only a tripod (Berlebach) and head (Manfrotto fluid ball) come to mind. No cameras and only a few out of dozens of bags (Domke F3x Ballistic, Lowe Pro Pro Messenger, the bog green Think Tank rip-off)
The Olympus 12-100 Pro. Only weeks before I got my current job, I sold this to a friend looking for a stabilised lens for his Black Magic video cam. It would quite literally now be my most used lens for work, especially with C1/N1 handling high ISO work. What a time saver, but who knew. I would love to have it for video now myself. It had slightly nervous Bokeh, like many of the super sharp Olympus Pro zooms, but not too bad.
Prime lens quality through a genuinely handy zoom range.
The Panasonic 14mm x2 and 20mm primes (first eds). My 20mm, had a special something. Something I have not seen again in the newer one. AF was it’s downfall especially at a time when MF was not well supported (pre-peaking), but of course, that has improved over the years and if I had paired it with a Pana camera it would not have been as much of an issue. The 14’s were just great little lenses, replaced by an expensive new video centric model, but for what I paid and sold them for, these were a bargain.
Canon EF 400 f5.6, 200f 2.8 and 135 F2. The last gasps of my 30 year long Canon story, sold far too cheaply in response to my dislike at the time of the bulk of Canon cameras and the reality of M43 size, weight and performance. If I had the courage to hang on to them, they would have made nice additions to an RF kit, but that would have taken 10 years to realise!
The 400 was sharp and easy to handle as well as matching very well with a 1.4x tc. The 135 was clinically “perfect”, I believe the most stable Canon tele for mere mortals and the 200 had bags of lush, rich character.
In Olympus, I consider the 75mm to be the equal of the 135 and the 45 f1.8 has very similar character to the 200 (and it’s 85mm equivalent), which is to say it looks less “perfect”, more character biased, but still the same calibre. My 300 is superior to the 400 in many ways, but not by as much as the 30+ years age difference should make.
The 400 f5.6 (non-stabilised) could be hand held, even with a 1.4x teleconverter on it, down to 1/60th, which is bettered as a crop frame 600mm only by my Oly 300 f4 IS, although my humble 75-300 comes close as a 400mm equivalent. The shot above was taken with a 1Ds mk2, a special camera in its day and no slouch now.
Canon EF 70-200 F4L non IS. This one, or two actually, were possibly the best value lenses Canon had to offer for many years. I picked one up from a friend who went with the first IS version and swore the older lens was better. The second, bought new for $699au after selling the first one, was as good, pushing all the above lenses for perceived sharpness, but with twitchier Bokeh. No IS, or weather sealing, it was still a real bargain.
Canon EF 17-40L as a 28-65 on a crop frame. This lens is far from perfect as a full frame wide angle, even though many use it successfully as designed, but on a crop frame camera, it really shines. Small, light, tightly made and weather sealed (with a filter on), it made the ideal standard lens on a Canon crop SLR body, but unfortunately I had little love for those towards the end. Matched with the 70-200 above and mounted on the little 100D made for a very harmonious little outfit, much the same size and weight as my recent work kit of the Oly 12-40 and 40-150 pro’s. Realistically I only regret selling them because they worked and I liked them. If they were all I had now, I could function perfectly well.
Canon EF 50mm Macro. This is simply the best and most stable 50mm Canon made for EOS. Sure it was ugly, noisy and mechanically old school, but it was sharp, sharp, sharp. I had the original and then the slightly Bokeh enhanced newer one and loved them both dearly. It also filled the portrait lens gap between the above two on crop frame cameras (the much loved 85mm f1.8 was a little long).
Zeiss 85 f2.8 for MF Contax. I once purchased a few Contax lenses from a friend intending to adapt them to my Canon SLR’s. It worked well enough, especially with a custom connection adapter that actually replaced the rear plate, but MF on Canon SLR’s had mixed results (focus screen issues). I did however have more luck when I adapted them to the EM5 mk1, although again without peaking it was still a little iffy. The 45mm pancake, was ok, the 50mm f1.4 had good micro contrast, with adequate sharpness wider open and the 28mm I picked up later was decent. Ideal for film, they showed their age in Digital. The 85mm however could match my 75mm Olympus and 135L Canon lens. This lens was tiny, super sharp and had that Zeiss something special. The mount was also a tight and reassuring fit. I sold the lot to a friend/customer shooting Fuji who added a 135 later, but the 85 still haunts me.
Voigtlander 40mm f2 MF. This was a Canon mount and I loved it so much I almost got rid of everything in its same range , but the reality was, manual focus with a DSLR was problematic, especially without the option of changing focus screens. I remember a wonderful day with a 5D and the 40mm zone focussed at the Salamanca Market in Hobart. The combo got so many great shots at hip height and was so very easy to use that way.
It, from memory, had similar properties to my 17mm Oly. Ideal for street, it sucked taking close in portraits at F2 where you were really guessing focus, even with a better focussing screen. When the 5D3 came along with its fixed screen, I had to part with the lens. In hindsight (which is a bitch), it would have worked beautifully on an OMD as a portrait lens and likely even better for video.
Fuji 60mm macro and 27mm pancake bought as a cheap set. These made it as the last remnants of my Fuji experiment. The 27 was good all rounder and many believe better than the lens on the X100, the 60mm was sublimely sharp, but focus was an issue. I used them both with some success on an XE-1 and held on to that little kit as an alternative to M43 (along with a small Canon kit with the above lenses), but someone made me an offer and out it went. Like Canon, a little long sightedness and patience and I could have used it as the base of a decent little backup kit with the lenses below.
The superb little 27mm.
Fuji 14mm f2.8. This wide angle came at a time when I was not at all interested in wides and to its credit, it turned me. One of those unique wides that does not telegraph its wideness, I started to use it for more regular stuff, then sold it???. As part of a full Fuji kit, it was ideal, but Fuji was not my gig anymore so no need for it.
Fuji 18-55 f2.8-4. Early in the mirrorless emergence (Fuji XE-1, OMD EM5 mk1 and Sony NEX period), there were some real bargains. I picked up the 60mm and 27 in a set from the U.S. for about $300 au, several 14mm Panasonic and 45mm Olympus lenses which were being basically given away with kits, and the excellent 18-55 Fuji was super cheap in most kits. I think my first one was cheaper with a camera than the camera alone! This thing was very, very good and made AF capable even on the older Fuji cameras. If offered one in a kit over the 16-50 f2.8 Fuji at the right price, I would be perfectly happy with it and almost was recently. If I had kept my first one, a transition back to Fuji would have been far more likely.
Olympus 90 f2macro, 180 f2.8 and 28 f2. Film camera lenses from my first Olympus experiment. In hindsight all of these could have transitioned from Oly to Canon and then M43 really well, but who knew where the industry would have gone. When travelling in Melbourne, a shop assistant pushed my bag off the counter dropping my kit a few feet. The 90mm developed a slight tightness in focussing after that, so, being a pedantic pain in the A%#, I sold it to a macro nut who is still using it! The rest of the kit went soon after. Any of these lenses have the potential to work on a modern camera, so their value has tended to go up not down.
Canon FD 100mm Macro x3 and 20mm. These were my creative go-to lenses during my landscape phase (80-90’s). I had several macro’s starting with the old ring grip to the later model and all were ideal multi purpose portrait/macro’s. I think these spoiled me for macro lenses, as I have never been able to settle on one again since (Canon EF 100 and 2x50, Fuji 60, Oly 35 and a pair of Olympus 60’s have all come and gone) and I do not even own one now. The 20 was my favourite wide angle for years (even decades after it was sold) until the Fuji 14 came along.
Nikon 28 f2.8 on the 28Ti. Beautiful lens on a beautiful camera. If I had any desire to shoot film, this would have been my ride, but not for me and wasted if not used. This one is a little odd, but bare with me. The Nikon 28 f2.8 on the front of the little 28ti camera (and the camera as well). I have the distinction of selling this twice and regretting it both times. The reality is that film cameras, no matter how precious, have no real value to me*. The lens and camera were sublime. Nuff said.
Canon FD 24 f2.8 (old red “SSC” coated one-basically “L” series before they existed). This one was not sold, but broken. It had just taken one of the best slide era images I had ever taken, so its loss was cruel. Lesson to be learned……don’t over pack your bag ‘cos stuff jumps out.
*
It seems to me, my worst decisions were made because of cameras not supporting lenses. If I had the foresight, patience and money to sit on some of these many roads to image making happiness would have remained open, especially now with video in the mix.
*I traded a clutch of hoarded manual film cameras for a new printer, have bought and sold several sets, but have known through this whole process, that none would stick. I love film as much as I love photography, but in all practical ways it holds no real attraction for me now. Digital freed me to shoot (and for free), which allowed me to grow and be far more productive. It also opened up much better roads to sharing my images. The limitations (where I live) to being a film shooter are many and I have far too many strong memories of how it used to be. Going from bulk rolled Tri-X processed in a home made dual-bath Rodinal variant or Tech pan in Pyro to packaged HP5 and bog standard soup is too much of a wrench for this old shooter and I have no darkroom anyway.