[Digitalis]

lens designs are full of compromises, for zoom lenses this is compounded. However if you stick to a 1:3 zoom ratio there is a greater chance of the lens having decent performance. 50mm lenses are difficult to mess up, though having said that: there are some manufacturers that have made spectacular mistakes.

[BrianR]

OR: Is there a best chocolate. Easier to ask: Are their any bad chocolates?

Yes there are. The ones that hide bizarre cherry concoctions. Those are bad chocolates. I'd rather use the bottom of a pop bottle as a 'lens' for a week than eat a box of those booby trapped cherry chocolates.

[WPRESTO]

Yes there are. The ones that hide bizarre cherry concoctions. Those are bad chocolates. I'd rather use the bottom of a pop bottle as a 'lens' for a week than eat a box of those booby trapped cherry chocolates.

I'll agree that those cherry things are singularly unpalatable, but I don't think of them as chocolate. They're just sickly goo packaged in chocalate

[Digitalis]

If I'm ever given a box of assorted chocolates I have a habit of throwing out the piece of paper that tells you what each chocolate contains. Invariably, In the first two pieces I pick out I find the one chocolate with ginger in it! Ginger goes with chocolate just as well as Vegemite,cabbage or turnip*. Also chocolate coated Turkish delight is an abomination.


*this is by no means an endorsement, that Vegemite chocolate isn't for everyone. There is a place reverved in hell for the person responsible for Vegemite chocolate.

[LensBeginner]

If I'm ever given a box of assorted chocolates I have a habit of throwing out the piece of paper that tells you what each chocolate contains. Invariably, In the first two pieces I pick out I find the one chocolate with ginger in it! Ginger goes with chocolate just as well as Vegemite,cabbage or turnip*. Also chocolate coated Turkish delight is an abomination.


*this is by no means an endorsement, that Vegemite chocolate isn't for everyone. There is a place reverved in hell for the person responsible for Vegemite chocolate.

If you think about it, then Turkish Delights too are an abomination... it's just water, sugar and starch...

[wildman]

Addition: Part of the reason for suggesting the Tessar formula as one of the best: 1) it was revolutionary when introduced; 2) it's probably been copied by more manufacturers than any other optical formula; 3) some Tessar or modified Tessar formula lenses are still in production, 115 years after the design was introduced.

Being as we are going down memory lane we might as well throw in the Zeiss Planar especially the 80mm. The problem was how to project a flat image through spherical glass. Paul Rudolph solved it with the gauss couplet in 1896. But it required 6 elements so flare was a problem until Zeiss solved that in the late 30s with T coatings.

Beautiful glass. I had the 80mm 2.8 on my Rollie and used it for years whenever I wanted to shot 120.

[Na Horuk]

If you want a real cheap Tessar clone get the Industar 50-2 50mm f3.5, no automation, but if you get a good copy, free of damage and with good construction, it can be really fun. No distortion, no CA, really oddly lifelike rendering. But the Industar's sharpness and contrast are simply not on the level of modern 50mm lenses
Things like better materials, new lens coatings, improved manufacturing and overall construction play a role in the overall output. Not just the optical formula