I don’t exactly remember when, but I recently saw a conversation about third-party lenses¹ float through on Bluesky. The conversation’s general direction was that third-party lenses are more often than not just fine and are unfairly maligned.

It got me thinking about my own collection and that I don’t have many third-party lenses. There are a few! I just don’t use them often. …and this particular Nikon F-Mount Vivitar push/pull zoom reminded me why.

Well, that might not be fair. When new and not hazy et avec 🍄 champignons 🍄, it’s possible that it was somewhat capable. In certain situations.

In this case… well, the results in the gallery above confirmed that it being on my “maybe someday I’ll get it serviced” shelf since 2020 is the right place for it.

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1. Lenses manufactured by companies other than the one that manufactured the camera/camera system. They were (and are) most often manufactured and sold at a lower price, allowing access to a wider range of lenses than might otherwise be affordable. ↩︎