How we work

Specs and history

We checked everything on each lens page (years, optical formula, blade count, filter size, mount version, coatings and the stories behind them) against sources we could cite. Those include maker archives such as the Canon Camera Museum and Nikon’s own lens history, lens databases, collector references and long-running reviews. When we couldn’t confirm a detail, we left it out or wrote it loosely. Lenses changed quietly during their runs, so use every page as a starting point and check the lens in front of you.

Adapters and the physics

Each mount’s flange distance (how far the mount sits from the film or sensor) comes from published tables. The adapter depth on our adapter pages is the lens mount’s flange distance minus the camera’s, and the crop-sensor figures are the focal length and f-number multiplied by the crop factor. Camera settings for adapted lenses come from each maker’s own manual. We don’t recommend adapter brands; the adapter links are plain eBay searches.

Looks and thoriated glass

A lens is tagged with a look, like swirly bokeh, only when a source describes that rendering for that lens. A lens is marked as having thoriated glass only when a source names that lens, and the page says which versions. We don’t give radiation figures we can’t source.

No guessed prices

We don’t publish price ranges from memory. A price shows on a lens page only when it comes from a dated snapshot of that lens’s eBay listings (more below), and it always carries the date we checked. Asking prices aren’t selling prices. Before you make an offer, look at eBay’s sold listings (filter to “Sold items”) for the same lens and base your offer on those.

Finding listings

Lenses without a snapshot link to a plain eBay search for the lens, kept to eBay’s Camera Lenses category so adapters, caps and camera bodies sold on their own stay out of the results.

Clear glass first

A lens can look clean from the front and still have haze, fungus or oil inside. The checklist on each lens page starts with its known weak spots and the photos to ask for, and our guide to checking a used lens goes deeper. We’d rather you pay a fair price for clear glass than a low one for a cleaning you didn’t plan on.

Lens photos

The big photo on a lens page and its cards is a representative image, not a photo of any lens for sale. We make it with an AI image model from several real seller photos of that exact lens, then compare it with those photos before we publish. Every lens gets the same plain studio backdrop so they look consistent side by side.

So the photo shows what the model looks like, not the condition of any one copy. Coatings, engravings and wear vary from lens to lens, and some small details may be simplified. Judge condition from the seller’s own photos, and ask for a photo through the glass before you buy. Wherever a representative photo appears large, it carries the caption “Representative photo, made by AI from real seller photos. Every listing differs.” Lenses without one show no photo.

Market snapshots and picks

For each lens with a buying guide, we go through the matching eBay listings on one date. We record how many there are, the price range, where most asking prices sit, and a set of listings with their price, shipping, format, seller feedback and condition. The date sits next to the listings, and by the time you read it some will have sold or ended. The “See every listing on eBay” link always opens the live search. When a snapshot has listings, the lens’s typical price on the page comes from it.

Then we tag the listings worth a look. Cheapest is the lowest delivered price for a complete lens with usable glass. Best value is a lens with clear photos of clean glass at a below-typical price. Best for beginners and Easiest to get working go to lenses shown clean, with caps, from sellers who describe the glass. Collector’s pick is a sought-after version at a sane price, and Project piece is a cheap lens worth cleaning. Two warning tags flag listings to approach with care. Check the seller means little or no feedback, and Priced high means well above the typical range with no clear reason. These are judgment calls from the listing text and photos. We haven’t handled the lenses, and nobody pays for placement.

Words you’ll see in listings

Haze: A milky fog on the glass inside a lens, where you can't wipe it off. Shine a flashlight through the lens from one end and look through the other. Clean glass is clear, and haze shows as a cloudy veil across it.
Fungus: Mold that grows inside lenses kept warm and damp, at about 70% humidity or more. It starts as spots and spreads into threads like a spider web, and its acids can etch the glass and coatings for good, so even a cleaned lens can keep the marks.
Balsam separation: Some lens elements are glued together in pairs. Older lenses used Canada balsam for the glue, chosen because it's clear and bends light almost like glass, and synthetic adhesives replaced it after the Second World War. When the glue lets go, you see a patch or a ring between the two glued elements under a flashlight. Fixing it means splitting the pair and gluing it again.
Cleaning marks: Fine hairline scratches in the coating of the front or rear element, left by years of wiping. Ask for a photo of the glass at an angle under a light, and ask the seller whether any mark is a single deeper scratch.
Oily aperture blades: Grease from the focusing helicoid can thin with heat or age and creep onto the aperture blades, where it can make them stick. Dry blades look matte, and oil shows as shine or spots.
Helicoid: The threaded tube inside the barrel that moves the glass in and out when you turn the focus ring. Its grease stiffens with age, and a focus ring that's stiff, gritty or loose points to the helicoid.
Preset aperture: An older aperture system with two rings. You set the f-stop you want on one ring, focus with the lens wide open, then turn the second ring to close down to that preset value before you shoot. The M42 Helios-44-2 works this way.
Auto-aperture pin: The pin on the back of an automatic M42 lens. The camera pushes it in at the moment of exposure to close the aperture to the f-stop you set. Off the camera, a lens in Auto mode stays wide open, so on an adapter you switch it to M or use an adapter that holds the pin in.
Thoriated glass: Glass containing thorium dioxide, used in some lenses made before the 1970s for its high refractive index. It's radioactive, and over time it develops a brown tint that cuts light and warms colors. Lanthanum glass replaced it.
Single-coated vs multi-coated: Coatings are thin layers on the glass that cut reflections. Bare glass reflects about 4% of the light at each surface, and a single layer of coating cuts that to about 1%. Multi-coating stacks layers to go lower still, so a multi-coated lens flares less against the light and keeps more contrast. Labels like SMC, MC and T* mark multi-coated lenses.
Flange focal distance: The distance from the lens mount to the film or sensor. A plain adapter works when the lens was made for a longer flange distance than the camera has, because the adapter just fills the gap. The SLR mounts in our catalog run from 40.5 to 47mm and the mirrorless ones from 16 to 20mm, so every pairing works without glass.
Crop factor: How much smaller a sensor is than a 35mm film frame, measured across the diagonal. Multiply a lens's focal length by it to get the framing you'd see on full frame, so a 50mm lens on a 1.5 crop body frames like a 75mm.
Focal reducer: An adapter with glass inside that shrinks the lens's image to fit a smaller sensor, which shortens the effective focal length and makes the lens faster. Speed Booster started as one maker's trademark and is now used for all of them.
Japanese dealer grades: Many sellers shipping from Japan grade lenses with their own scales, using words like Mint-, Near Mint and Exc+5. There's no shared standard, so a grade is the seller's opinion. Read the seller's own scale in the listing and ask for photos through the lens against a light.
CLA: Short for clean, lubricate, adjust, a full service by a repairer. A dated receipt or the shop's name in the listing is the evidence that counts.

Independence

No affiliate links. We earn nothing (see the disclosure). We’re not paid by sellers and we’re not affiliated with any of the makers we cover or anyone who owns those names today.