Quantaray - 28-200MM F3.8-5.6 Lens for Canon AF

[ljberry]

Hi, brand new to digital photography. I have a Digital Rebel and looking at purchasing a good general purpose lense to take mostly family photos.

I've seen this lense on www.wolfcamera.com (http://www.wolfcamera.com) and wanted to know if anyone can provide information on that lense or www.wolfcamera.com (http://www.wolfcamera.com) as a location to purhcase.

[CyberDyneSystems]

Wolf is part of Ritz camera.. perfectly reliable source.. but frowned upon by people seeking a vendor with a better understanding of the products they sell.

"Quantaray" is the Ritz "store brand" (like Sears and Craftsman) ... the cheapest stuff,. rebranded and marked up significatly... ie: for the price one pays for a "Quantaray" one can get something much better elsewhere.

The particular lens in question is in fact "poop" (technical term I am fond of using.. please ignore if the nomenclature is over your head.. you just can't stop us scientific types from using the big words though... ;) )

If you have your heart set on a 28-200mm.. go to a reliable and fair priced on line vendor like B&H and look at the Tamron and Sigma 28-200mm lenses. Better and probably the same price if not less.

Better yet,. take a look at out -=TOP 10=- recommended lens section.. pay colose attention to the "Starter lens" thread and see what we really recommend.

http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze2hdzu/pics/welcome.gif to the forum

[Dante King]

Welcome to the froums. CDS, Could you elaborate on the term "poop"? is that an abbrev. for something. Like NASA or CIA? Like "pretty overpriced optical purchase"?

Ever hear cheech and chong's big bamboo? There is a very funny bit about poop.

[ron chappel]

POOP =

Pre-Owned Optical Product

Plain Old 'Orible Photos

Pseudo Object Oriented Proctology

[Steve Parr]

I've currently got the 70-300mm "QCL" (Quantary Cheese Lens) with Macro.

It's a decent enough lens, and when I purchased it, I thought it was a pretty good deal. Since then, I've seen a number of used Canon USM's, around the same focal length range, that I could've gotten for the around the same price.

I doubt I'll buy another Quantary lens. Recently, I was looking for a short zoom. There were some Quantary lenses which could've fit the bill, but I bought a used, but damn near perfect, 20-35mm USM from online, for less money.

I'll probably keep the QCL, but I don't think I'll be buying any more of them...

Steve

[flam79]

I am new to digital as well and I just bought the Quantaray 70-300 mm for $159 at Ritz. Seems like this is an attractive lens for digial N00bs. I've been thinking about shelling out an extra couple bucks to trade it for the CANON EF 75-300 MM but not sure if I should. Reviews I've studied say the Q-Lens is not the greatest but decent and the tele macro capability is a plus. But Reviews for the C-Lens say the lense is horrible. Also, I'm not sure if it has the telemacro equivalent to the Q-Lens. Anybody know which lens is better? I think this question gets asked a lot :)

[robertwgross]

Have you ever heard the expression, "You get what you pay for" used on camera gear?

I find it to be fairly true. There are small exceptions. One lens might be thought to be overpriced, or another lens might be thought to be a real deal for the money. To a great extent, a $200 lens is going to be better than a $100 lens, and so forth.

The Ritz/Wolf stores are convenient to many customers, especially regular people who take family snapshots and don't need anything very sophisticated. Ritz/Wolf knows that those customers don't know that much about the technology, so their pricing strategies reflect that.

If you take the time to learn a little about some lens purchase, you can find a reasonable product at a reasonable price. Canon and a couple of other manufacturers make some top quality lenses. Then there are some second tier manufacturers that put out some fairly good lenses. Then there is Quantaray.

---Bob Gross---

[CyberDyneSystems]

Poop = Poor Optically, Over Priced.

Crap = Can't Really Acheive Photorealism

Stinc = Simply Too INferior Crap

And the ultimate.. (reserved fro "pheonix" lenses...)

S.T.IN.C.I.P.O.O.P = (you get the idea... ;) )




Simply Too INferior, Can't Really Acheive Photorealism Indeed Poor Optically, Over Priced

[flam79]

Have you ever heard the expression, "You get what you pay for" used on camera gear?

I find it to be fairly true. There are small exceptions. One lens might be thought to be overpriced, or another lens might be thought to be a real deal for the money. To a great extent, a $200 lens is going to be better than a $100 lens, and so forth.

The Ritz/Wolf stores are convenient to many customers, especially regular people who take family snapshots and don't need anything very sophisticated. Ritz/Wolf knows that those customers don't know that much about the technology, so their pricing strategies reflect that.

If you take the time to learn a little about some lens purchase, you can find a reasonable product at a reasonable price. Canon and a couple of other manufacturers make some top quality lenses. Then there are some second tier manufacturers that put out some fairly good lenses. Then there is Quantaray.

---Bob Gross---
Ok you convinced me. I'm going to return the Quantaray 70-300 and get the Canon EF 75-300. Unless someone can convince me otherwise. But a lot of reviews DO say that the Canon 75-300 is no good which is weird to me. I also want the IS but it's too much for me right now.

[Andy_T]

Flam,

you are right, many reviews say that the Canon 75-300 can not be compared to Canon's better (and more expensive) glass, e.g. the 70-200 L.

However ... the same people will definitely agree that the 'mediocre' Canon 75-300 beats the Quantaray lens any day.
The only thing that will be even worse than that will be a Quantaray 28-300 hyperzoom.

Best regards,
Andy

[ljberry]

Thanks everyone for the information,
Last question.... which is better Tamron and Sigma - if both are the same price?
Any suggestion on where on the web to find a good deal?

[lostdoggy]

The Q lens is made by Sigma but its the low end of the Sigma line. Mostly made for the third world countries. Tamron and Sigma are good lens but again there are different levels of quality. Just remember you get what you paid for and if the deal sounds too good to be true its most likely too good to be true!!!

[CyberDyneSystems]

Thanks everyone for the information,
Last question.... which is better Tamron and Sigma - if both are the same price?
Any suggestion on where on the web to find a good deal?


You'd ned to ask this on a lens to lens basis,. really.

In general though tamron makes good wide to normal zooms.

Sigma is the undisputed wolrd champion of 3rd party Telephoto lenses.
They also have the only focus motor that can compete with the Canon USM focus..