No lenses are bad, there are only users that have no idea of what they want out of it. Such a teleological view of photo equipment seems to converge with my moods and experience: and these lenses are here to prove it all the way through. Found this old tube of glass on an online photo bazar for the hilarious sum of 20 USD; adapted to a M42 thread mount by one of the guys famous for doing this in Bulgaria. Obviously it has been a lenses used for a projector of film or slides, one of those old Soviet machines with lamps inside that predated the fancy overhead projectors of today. Brand is not known, neither lenses number or design. The focus length is very good for me, although a strange one. The focus ring throw is also not bad, seemingly newly oiled. With the fixed aperture of f2.8 (no way to control it, close it, anything) allowing for a plenty of light for such a length. Imagine if it was a mainstream lens how much it would have cost for this length and aperture. Focus distance varies from 0.5 m to infinity, bokeh is terrific.
But then the quality, o mine. Flare, aberrations, lack of contrast, shockingly low sharpness, there is not a defect in lenses this does not suffer from, in gross amounts. One feels like back at the dawn of photography, one of those early 19th century pics of Paris, for example.
You know why you should not complain? Because lenses are as good as the photographer is. If you need equipment to deliver milky low contrast smooth portraits, pictorialism type of frames, strange objects: that is your piece.
All photos taken on a Pentax K-5, ISO 100 and 400, f2.8.