FOAD
The third in this lexicon of photographers' paranoia is FOAD. This is not the FOAD of the urban slang dictionary but rather an acronym for a particular form of paranoia:
Fear Of A Dud
I have to admit that this may be more of a window into my own personal psyche than I'm comfortable with but I have also witnessed it in others. We'd better clarify dud. Not just broken (DOA), that would be far too simple and straightforward. This concept of a dud echoes that old idea of a Friday Afternoon Car. That is to say, one built on a Friday afternoon when workers' minds were already on the way home. It passes Quality Control somehow but is never quite right.
The story follows a repeated path. The hapless photographer agonises and pores over reviews before finally clicking 'Buy' on that new lens. The clock slows down as we wait for the dispatch email. We then begin pacing in between refreshing the tracking information and wondering why, in the middle of the night our lens is spending an evening in Crewe when that is further away than the original starting point. Finally, if we are lucky with courier, we'll be told that 'Graham' will be delivering our package between 10 and 11 today. More pacing….
Watching the tracker map we see again that yet again, Graham spends about half an hour at an address just this side of Lancaster. I have my suspicions about Graham and the lady on Acacia Avenue..
Eventually the delivery is made and our beautiful shiny lens is revealed in all its glory. Dopamine and Serotonin course through the body and for a few wonderful minutes all is perfect.
Then cometh the Doubty Man….
A few snaps follow of the living room window, the NAS on the desk and the cat ( For Facebook user groups of course) each one viewed at a gazillion percent in Photoshop. Then we spot it….some lack of sharpness when viewed at sub atomic magnification in the corner. Centre next...out of focus? Shake? Not sharp?
Impossible. Fully canonised YouTubers have attested to the resolving power. Rocky Kenwell says it's the best lens he's ever used (another one…). That bloke on Facebook put a tiny jpeg up and it looked really sharp.
So mine's faulty...I've got the dud. We've all paid our £2000, they've all got perfect copies and I have been singled out of all humanity for the Friday Afternoon Lens.
There are limited routes once this point has been reached. Therapy, clearly an option and probably beneficial. Getting a grip and just keeping the lens. Returning it and requesting a replacement. How many can you return before they put a mark against your name? What if they send another and it's worse?.....
There is a measure of flippancy above but there are some important points.
If you look hard enough, you can find fault with anything.
Occasionally, very occasionally, lenses are indeed faulty.
Quality control for lenses has a threshold. Yours can be far above or right on the line. Two examples can both be within tolerances yet differ markedly in performance.
Most of us need to be confident about the kit we use. We all draw our own Plimsoll lines and these vary from individual to individual. It is our eyes that matter in a judgement not those of some shouting YouTuber...
If your lens isn't delivering the results you expect, the lens is often the last place to start looking….