[wolfiegirl]

It's not "4k". It's 6k. 4 British k...

ah yup. either way... 38 bidders!! wtf!! too much money to burn that's what I say. Hand it over to us and we'll use it waaay more wisely.....

i'm madly scrambling through my ebay auctions atm to downsize all the bids. at the moment it looks like there's a high chance i'm going to win a chinon lot. and that was done through ebay and not the sniper program.. double which means my bid's already set and there's nothing i can do about it :ugh:

[RioRico]

Big lenses? Nobody notices my Lil'Bigma 170-500 on my K20D as long as I carry it under my duster (western overcoat) like a shotgun. That's pretty standard in Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada.

LBA? It's in abeyance when there's no money. Alas, I'll sell some (non-camera) stuff in the upcoming week and LBA will kick-in again. Let's see, that Ricoh aspheric 28/3.5 that weighs just 60g...

Sex addicts view sex porn. Do food addicts obsess ove visual edibles porn? Do LBA/CBA junkies pore over images of lenses, cameras, 'pods, other photo porn. Well, I did in my darkroom days.

Let's see some true confessions. Do you collect pictures of lenses and gear? If you searched your web browser's image cache, what percentage of pics would be photo gear? Be truthful now.

[wizofoz]

I flush my cache to get rid of all evidence. Lens porn and whatever else may be there....

[DanielT74]

I don't take pictures of my lenses unless I am putting them up for sale, usually.

I try to actually use them. That and testing/comparing. Hmmm... I wonder how that Ultron will perform against the mighty Leica Summilux-R E60? Don't think anyone's ever compared those.

Then of course there is the A*200/4 macro, the Voigtlander APO-Lanthar 125/2.5 macro and the Leica APO-Elmarit 100/2.8 macro comparison in the works. I only had to sell one lung and a kidney for this Holy Trinity of Macros.

Yes, it is sheer madness and I am putting a bunch of premium lenses on sale this Thursday. Decided!

[hoanpham]

I can see that LBA has different variants:
- buy lenses, play with them, compare, upload photos, write reviews, then actually able to sell them, so next man can hold it.
- buy lenses, play with them, doing all regular thing about a lens, then still not able to sell, even with several duplicates copies.

I cant understand, what's the point of buying lenses and so put them for sale?
Instead of watching photos of gears, it IS much better to hold the gear, watching, touching, turn them in different angle/reflection and experience truely satisfied of your senses...

Soft wide open? can i use that soft look to some thing?
CA or PF? may be it still useable in some cases?
Is a lens faulty? can i dis-assemble it and watch the inner working?
do i have 2 or 3 of the same? may be i can drill new holes for double up number of iris blades - put 2 lenses into one?

[wizofoz]

Daniel, if you are putting up the A*200/4 macro for sale, I'll have first dibs please.

[wolfiegirl]

i have a bad feeling i may fall in the second category with you hoanpham.

i now have duuuplicates. i'm hoping i can be strong and sell them, but phwoar...

[hoanpham]

i have a bad feeling i may fall in the second category with you

You can feel it, with all your senses, when you hold the K85/1.8, K50/1.2, A50/1.2, FA*85/1.4, A*300/4, M*300/4, K28/2, K24/2.8 or tiny M20/4...
I have the Takumar15/3.5 Asph for 30+ years still I feel the rush when I hold it ;-)

I still missing a few. in the meanwhile i get some cheap lot in hope to save for those missing, and end up with tomioka 55/1.2, OM55/1.2, OM35shift, mamiya55/1.4, nikkor180/2.8ED, nikkor400/5.6ED, nikkor28/3.5PC, and a whole line up with carl zeiss, several german glasses, in pentacon six mount...

[wolfiegirl]

gawd hoanpham... niiiiiiice

can i... um.... *fingers reach out through screen*

[ripit]

I can see that LBA has different variants:
- buy lenses, play with them, compare, upload photos, write reviews, then actually able to sell them, so next man can hold it.
- buy lenses, play with them, doing all regular thing about a lens, then still not able to sell, even with several duplicates copies.

I cant understand, what's the point of buying lenses and so put them for sale?
Instead of watching photos of gears, it IS much better to hold the gear, watching, touching, turn them in different angle/reflection and experience truely satisfied of your senses...

Soft wide open? can i use that soft look to some thing?
CA or PF? may be it still useable in some cases?
Is a lens faulty? can i dis-assemble it and watch the inner working?
do i have 2 or 3 of the same? may be i can drill new holes for double up number of iris blades - put 2 lenses into one?

I think there might be a few more reasons for lba. Some buy a lot of lenses, pick out the good ones and sell the rest. I have always though this was just due to variation in the quality of copies but an article recently posted about here sheds a little more light on it. Its from a rental company that sugests every conponent of every camera or lens falls with in a range of manufacturing tolerences plus or minus. If your camera is out on the minus side and your lens is out on the plus side (even though both are witin spec), its not going to perform well. If both are out of spec on the plus side, it will perform much better. Thats an over simplification to make it more understandable as there are many parts that each can individually be out in any dimention or direction. Its more about the final output of a complex system with many parts out of tolerence in diffrent directions. They could send a lens to one customer and it performed poorly, and send the same lens to another customer and it performed great. Even tempature can have an effect. A thicker piece of metal is going to expand more in hot conditions and contract less in cold, so variations can change in diffrent tempature conditions.
Basically some lenses are going to play better with your camera than others. I assume that lenses that are considered better have better quality control and are closer to spec but its still no guarentee it will work well with your camera.

I'm sure I'm not the only one that winds up with lenses that they didn't really want too (though its another lens to play with). The lens that I took the posted picture with was a freebie that I neither researched or cared about the quality of when I bid. I wanted the several filters (some hoya hmc) that it was bundeled with. I also have a vivitar 70-200mm on the way (no idea what aperture value or particular model it is) as well as a ricoh camera I could care less about. The 35-70mm 2.8 constant that came with it is what I really wanted. I also have 5 camera bodies on the way for adapter experiments that comes with 1 unknown lens in unknown condition (I have had unknow items like that turn out to be in exelent usable condition before).

I'll be holding on to all my lenses for quite a while but there is some reason behind that. My only body is an old ist-ds. I got it old stock new so it has only had about 3 years actual use. High iso perofrmance is not that great compared to newer bodys. It could be a while before I can afford it but a new body with better high iso performance (any newer pentax body compared to mine) would make a lot more sense than trying to obtain expensive, fast lenses. It also gives me shake reduction, back focus adjustment, higher resolution etc. After all the hours I have invested hunting down bargains on lenses, It wouldn't make much sense to find the ones that work with my ist-ds and get rid of the rest, when I know I am eventually going to get a new body.
That is my story and I'm sticking to it (what other possible reason could I have for keeping all those lenses, lol).

@Wolfiegirl, not to complicate things further for your new found lba, but you might want to take your time and try out those lenses on all your bodies before you sell them (and you know you want to keep them bwahahahaha). I gather that variations are less of an issue with good built old lenses as they were more precision built than the typical lens today which is often built sloppy and then calibrated, but they still have some variation and your camera bodies very too. I understand you can have your bodies (and pentax lenses at least) calibrated to match, but I also gather that the cost excludes all but the very wealthy from doing it.

[wolfiegirl]

@Wolfiegirl, not to complicate things further for your new found lba, but you might want to take your time and try out those lenses on all your bodies before you sell them (and you know you want to keep them bwahahahaha). I gather that variations are less of an issue with good built old lenses as they were more precision built than the typical lens today which is often built sloppy and then calibrated, but they still have some variation and your camera bodies very too. I understand you can have your bodies (and pentax lenses at least) calibrated to match, but I also gather that the cost excludes all but the very wealthy from doing it.

Yup, I definitely need to try out all the lenses for a while before I sell. The only thing I really need to shift is the second k100d body. My cash reserves are perilously low and there is a high chance I could get a few more lots in the next few weeks...

I'm having so much fun with the last batch at the moment. Took some sunrise shots with the Jup (wow! just wow!) and had a blast with the 35/3.5 last night although the puppies refused to play *sniffs*. Should probably give the 1.8 55 a whirl this morning before I head off to work as well.

As to calibration.... calibration, shmaliation. As long as the lenses work ok on my k100d and kx (which is still in its bubble wrap and box ) I'll be happy. If they don't, I'm sure there'll be plenty of others I could maybe get to try......

[ripit]

As to calibration.... calibration, shmaliation. As long as the lenses work ok on my k100d and kx (which is still in its bubble wrap and box ) I'll be happy. If they don't, I'm sure there'll be plenty of others I could maybe get to try......

From what I gather its mostly useless anyway. I'm making some assumtions here but from what I understand, older manual focus lenses were built precision to get quality and may not have much that could be calibrated (I'm guessing on that based on bits and pieces of information and my own experience tearing apart lenses). Newer lenses are built looser with the ability to calibrate things built it as that level of precision machining isn't cost effective anymore not to mention the wide use of plastic. It doesn't make much sense to spend 100$ plus to calibrate a 20$ lens either if you could even find some one to do it on these old lenses.
On a newer auto focus lens, if you send it in, and its within allowable specs, it gets sent right back and may not work well. The only way to guarentee it is to send in the lens and body to be calibrated to each other. If you then send in the body to be calibrated to another lens it will mess up the calibration to the first lens. The only way I can see would be to send all your bodies and lenses at once which would cost a fortune. I guess they could calibrate the lens to match the body? At 100$+ per lens and probably at least as much for the body, It doesn't seem cost effetive to me unless you have 1000$ lenses.
From what I gather the future is in software anyway. It is imposible to make a lens or body that is perfect. Cameras already can adjust for back focus issues. From what I understand in camera adjustment for lens cant is also in the works. I wouldn't know how to do it yet, but photo shop can do some of this if I understand right too.
I'm with you. If it works, great, if not, get a diffrent lens. Technology is starting to and will eventually minimise/eliminate the problems.

That just my guesses and predictions on it based on bits and pieces I have read and my own observations anyway. That logic alows us to buy, buy, buy without logic or discression too!!!!! I had to buy all those lenses to find the ones that work well with my camera (tell your husband that)!!!!

[wolfiegirl]

I had to buy all those lenses to find the ones that work well with my camera (tell your husband that)!!!!

Yeah I'm not sure that will go down well... *snarf*

I'm practically sending him a photo a day, so at least he knows I'm using my 'stuff'

[Lowell Goudge]

Yeah I'm not sure that will go down well... *snarf*

I'm practically sending him a photo a day, so at least he knows I'm using my 'stuff'

You can ease the pain. Y still sending a photo per day of the. We lens you get. Ha ha ha

[RioRico]

I know what I want next. I want an ultra-light and -small 25mm or 28mm lens to add to my small-stuff-in-a-small-bag kit. It's not LBA. It's pragmatism. Right? Being able to stuff a bagful of tiny old lenses into a pocket for just-in-case occasions is purely rational. Right? Yeah, having 25-50-75-100mm lenses that total 400g is just smart. Right? No addiction involved. I can quit at any time. Right?