OK so I am a total newbie in the world of photography. I've purchased some Leica, Canon and Sony equipment plus some Zeiss lenses.
Here's the thing - so I am talking to this really knowledgeable person that's been in the camera business for decades and he knows it inside and out. And I mean really knows it.
Here is the jest of what he said - "there's a reason Contax Yashica went out of business. They made crappy equipment, unreliable. The glass for the c/y lenses was made by Zeiss but the mechanisms were all made in Japan and they got worse as time went on. The mechanisms are the most expensive parts of the lens, not the glass. We get 100 c/y lenses in for repair and 50% of the time we have to send them back - unrepairable. Bad supply chain, no parts, no distribution - nothing we have to send them back. With the German stuff we can fix it 100% of the time."
So my thoughts are -
1. Are people "in the know" dumping their c/y lenses off to newbies like me ?
2. Is there a difference between c/y AEG and xxJ especially in the mechanisms ?
3. Is it only **J Varios that I should worry about and were AEG Varios and primes made with the same meticulous German engineering as one would might expect?
4. Would someone be better off buying new Zeiss glass - the kind that's warrantied by Zeiss today and all German built ?
The good news - the Zeiss stuff I am really fond of right now are all primes and all AEG: the 28,35, 85s, 180 and 300 so they should be 'reliable' given that I don't drop or abuse them. At least that's what I am hoping.
Any thoughts ?
Here's the thing - so I am talking to this really knowledgeable person that's been in the camera business for decades and he knows it inside and out. And I mean really knows it.
Here is the jest of what he said - "there's a reason Contax Yashica went out of business. They made crappy equipment, unreliable. The glass for the c/y lenses was made by Zeiss but the mechanisms were all made in Japan and they got worse as time went on. The mechanisms are the most expensive parts of the lens, not the glass. We get 100 c/y lenses in for repair and 50% of the time we have to send them back - unrepairable. Bad supply chain, no parts, no distribution - nothing we have to send them back. With the German stuff we can fix it 100% of the time."
So my thoughts are -
1. Are people "in the know" dumping their c/y lenses off to newbies like me ?
2. Is there a difference between c/y AEG and xxJ especially in the mechanisms ?
3. Is it only **J Varios that I should worry about and were AEG Varios and primes made with the same meticulous German engineering as one would might expect?
4. Would someone be better off buying new Zeiss glass - the kind that's warrantied by Zeiss today and all German built ?
The good news - the Zeiss stuff I am really fond of right now are all primes and all AEG: the 28,35, 85s, 180 and 300 so they should be 'reliable' given that I don't drop or abuse them. At least that's what I am hoping.
Any thoughts ?