Have I bought a dodgy camera?….answered!

Back in April, I did a test using my Nikon Z6ii and the used Laowa 12mm zero-distortion lens that I’d bought for a bargain price a month or 2 earlier. Here’s a link to that post.

Anyway, the issue of magenta and green coloured vignetting started showing up when I was shooting video as well, so I bit the bullet and purchased a brand new copy of the same lens for 3 times the used price. Problem sorted!

The camera - as suspected - was perfectly fine, and the issue was in fact that I’d copped for a bad copy of the lens. Perhaps it had been dropped or something even, as the front lens hood was a bit battered. The used equipment market is a bit like the used car trade in that anything the dealers buy is just stuck back on the market and sold to unsuspecting punters. The old adage about paying for what you get is spot on most of the time, and I’ve been stung by used car dealers enough times to realise I should know better by now. I just wish I’d spotted the fault within the short warranty period on used equipment.

Nevermind. The shiny new (but identical) lens still has a touch of plain vignetting which Lightroom’s lens profile system compensates for adequately, and the wide interior shots I’ve taken are absolutely spot-on.

I’ll sell the lens at a considerable loss to the same dealer, along with an old camera just to recoup some of the expenditure, but for now I’ve got the setup that I needed to start with.