GAS GAS: Please Share your Latest Acquisitions Big and Small

Patrick, I mean even enough petrol to get you to the nearest petrol station.

As in "Now that you have bought the car, Sir, would you like to buy the optional wheels and tyres for it?".

I get very tired of the constant moral short changing that has become a seemingly accepted part of everyday life.

Having paid (say) $40,000 for a new vehicle, is it really too much to expect it to have a full petrol tank?
I had a dealer try to not fill up,the tank on a new purchase of a car.
Told the salesperson - straight up, I walk out and go somewhere else if that car doesn’t have a full tank. During test drive it was on E.

He talked to the manager and they told him that is not their policy and they won’t fill it up.

He then said “ let’s go on another test drive so I can show you some things about the car you may not know “. He had me drive right to a gas station and fill up the tank with his own money. At the time, a tank of gas was $20.

He saved the sale and his commission. Funny how that dealership almost lost a $25,000 sale over $20.
 
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I had a dealer try to not fill up,the tank on a new purchase of a car.
Told the salesperson - straight up, I walk out and go somewhere else if that car doesn’t have a full tank. During test drive it was on E.

He talked to the manager and they told him that is not their policy and they won’t fill it up.

He then said “ let’s go on another test drive so I can show you some things about the car you may not know “. He had me drive right to a gas station an like up the tank with his own money. At the time, a tank of gas was $20.

He saved the sale and his commission. Funny how that dealership almost lost a $25,000 sale over $20.
My wife is the car buyer in the family. She will extract every drop of blood from the turnip.

With the last demand as she puts pen to paper being: "Oh, I want a full tank of gas"

The looks she gets are priceless.
 
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Decisions, decisions, decisions...

My .02 = Have you considered keeping them both?
Would have been nice, but no.

I ended up choosing the xpro2. Then with the difference in money I saved, I got the new 33mm 1.4 lens.

Overall I am happy. Just waiting on my preorder of the XT5….

… the GAS is strong in me!


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Patrick, I mean even enough petrol to get you to the nearest petrol station.

As in "Now that you have bought the car, Sir, would you like to buy the optional wheels and tyres for it?".

I get very tired of the constant moral short changing that has become a seemingly accepted part of everyday life.

Having paid (say) $40,000 for a new vehicle, is it really too much to expect it to have a full petrol tank?
Over here, they stopped filling up the tank about 30 years or so ago.
You normally get about enough in the tank to make it to a gas station. Most dealers no longer sell gas: too much hassle with environmental rules (rightfully so) and too low a margin.
When you have a fuel card, you'd better do your homework and know precisely where the closed gas station that will accept your card is located.
Luckily (?) I live in a densely populated area.
 
I know this isn't on the level of Brian's bargain basement purchases but still quite pleased to have scored a Leitz Summar 50mm F2 for $100. My GAS is better controlled than most and I certainly have (too many?) 50mm lenses but you can't pass up this kind of opportunity. Plus I foolishly bought a Sooky close focusing adapter earlier this year for a lens which didn't utilise it; now it can be put to use.
 
Nice. How's the front element?
Won't know until it arrives but from my understanding, not terrible 😅. My luck has been fortunate, the old lenses I've chanced on ranging from 1938 to 1979 have come up trumps so far, so I am overdue a bad one. But then I'm not seeking high contrast here and can deal with haze if that's what the lens comes with, so I'm optimistic. Will let you know.
 
I sometimes scroll through different listings of items on Ebay, even if I don't intend to buy anything in particular. While doing that, I spotted this 12/2 Olympus lens.

It caught my initial attention because the price was not that high, and it had the option to send an offer to the seller, those 2 reasons alone made me open the listing for a closer inspection.

While looking at the pictures, I noted something that was not described in the title or the item description, it was the "Limited Black" edition! Usually people ask for these "limited" lenses 5 or 6 hundred USD, which is quite more than what I'm willing to pay, but this little fellow was listed for much less than that.

...

Some of you might remember, that my experience with this lens was not what I was expecting. To this day, the Olympus 12mm F2.0 has been the only Olympus lens that truly disappointed me. The first copy that I bought has VERY weird issues with field curvature resulting in horrible results at wider apertures. Very "unOlympus" if I can describe it that way.

I though to myself, but what if I buy this lens and I found the Limited Black edition dissapointing too? For what I paid for my first copy, plus what I'm probably going to pay for this one, I could get a used copy of the PL 12/1.4 on the first place.

At the end I pulled the trigger, willing to take my chances since I enjoy the focal length much more than a classic 28 or 35 lens.

I'm extremely happy to report that this copy is completely a different story than my other copy of the lens. Man, it is completely a different lens! From F2 the center is very contrasty and very sharp. The extreme corners are somewhat soft, but not like my other lens, I wouldn't hesitate to use this lens at F2. On the other hand, my other copy has to be stopped down all the way to 5.6 to get barely "acceptable" results across the frame.

It is a stunner on my EM-5 III, I can't wait to mount it on my Pen-F and take some pictures using the Monochrome Mode 2.

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Join to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
 
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I sometimes scroll through different listings of items on Ebay, even if I don't intend to buy anything in particular. While doing that, I spotted this 12/2 Olympus lens.

It caught my initial attention because the price was not that high, and it had the option to send an offer to the seller, those 2 reasons alone made me open the listing for a closer inspection.

While looking at the pictures, I noted something that was not described in the title or the item description, it was the "Limited Black" edition! Usually people ask for these "limited" lenses 5 or 6 hundred USD, which is quite more than what I'm willing to pay, but this little fellow was listed for much less than that.

...

Some of you might remember, that my experience with this lens was not what I was expecting. To this day, the Olympus 12mm F2.0 has been the only Olympus lens that truly disappointed me. That copy has VERY weird issues with field curvature resulting in horrible results at wider apertures. Very "unOlympus" if I can describe it that way.

I though to myself, but what if I buy this lens and I found the Limited Black edition dissapointing too? For what I paid for my first copy, plus what I'm probably going to pay for this one, I could get a used copy of the PL 12/1.4 on the first place.

At the end I pulled the trigger, willing to take my chances since I enjoy the focal length much more than a classic 28 or 35 lens.

I'm extremely happy to report that this copy is completely a different story than my other copy of the lens. Man, it is completely a different lens! From F2 the center is very contrasty and very sharp. The extreme corners are somewhat soft, but not like my other lens, I wouldn't hesitate to use this lens at F2. On the other hand, my other copy has to be stopped down all the way to 5.6 to get barely "acceptable" results across the frame.

It is a stunner on my EM-5 III, I can't wait to mount it on my Pen-F and take some pictures using the Monochrome Mode 2.

View attachment 347730
It’s funny how the Oly 12 and Pany 14, both fine lenses, are similar yet annoyingly different to warrant having to own both.
 
Now I will probably get an offer on the camera within the next few days or so.
I got a shipping notification from local post that my adapters can be fetched from the post office.

A couple of hours later, a buyer messaged me about the cam. Too incredible. 😅

Because of said adapters having just arrived to me, I didn't give in to his little haggling. Who knows, maybe the second time's the charm with the camera, somehow.
 
My f mount prime collection is now complete. I made a lowball offer that was accepted on a 20mm f3.5 ai-s (only made for 3 years). This will be added to the 28mm f2, the micro 55mm f2.8, and the 105mm f2.5. Me and my Df will have fun. Still think I’ll pick up an old zoom for fun at some point.
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I have two suggestions for the zoom idea (especially since it's for the Df): I think the frugal little 28-50mm f/3.5 is quite an interesting lens - very compact (but dense!), with better than expected optics, and it's truely old school, too - no IF (front element turns when focusing), no AF, of course, but interestingly short MFD; quirky (especially if you can get it with its dedicated hood), but well worth owning.

However, the real bargain basement deal still is the 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 AF-D - pleasantly compact, surprisingly good optics, mechanically better than it has any right to be. And the Df comes with a screwdriver motor, so ... Of course, there are quite a few alternatives if you take the route, not least the still current 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 AF-S, but for me, the 28-105mm simply ended my quest for a walkaround zoom for my D750 ...

M.
 
I have two suggestions for the zoom idea (especially since it's for the Df): I think the frugal little 28-50mm f/3.5 is quite an interesting lens - very compact (but dense!), with better than expected optics, and it's truely old school, too - no IF (front element turns when focusing), no AF, of course, but interestingly short MFD; quirky (especially if you can get it with its dedicated hood), but well worth owning.

However, the real bargain basement deal still is the 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 AF-D - pleasantly compact, surprisingly good optics, mechanically better than it has any right to be. And the Df comes with a screwdriver motor, so ... Of course, there are quite a few alternatives if you take the route, not least the still current 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 AF-S, but for me, the 28-105mm simply ended my quest for a walkaround zoom for my D750 ...

M.
Ah, I already have the 24-85 and it’s lovely.

I should have specified - I’m looking for a completely manual AI or AI-S zoom. So I will take a look at the 28-50 you mentioned. My eyes are currently set on the 25-50 f4 at the moment.
 
Ah, I already have the 24-85 and it’s lovely.

I should have specified - I’m looking for a completely manual AI or AI-S zoom. So I will take a look at the 28-50 you mentioned. My eyes are currently set on the 25-50 f4 at the moment.
The 25-50mm is a cut above the 28-50mm! But it's bigger and slower ... That said, very good choice!

M.
 
The 25-50mm is a cut above the 28-50mm! But it's bigger and slower ... That said, very good choice!

M.
I agree with @MoonMind as indicated. I've had the Nikkor 4/25-50 in my F3 days and I liked it quite a lot, but in the end I couldn't live with the geometric distortion (granted, I'm extremely sensitive to that, so no wide-angle or standard zoom would suffice unless the distortion is corrected like nowadays possible).
 
GAS got me again. After buying a Fujifilm XT 2 at a ridiculously low price, I then got new batteries and charger, a battery grip from Fujifilm, and an adapter to mate Nikon lenses to the camera for Manual focus. Well, I found an 85mm Viltrox 1.8 Mark II for sale at another bargain price and it is now paid for and the waiting for arrival begins. My wife is so damned understanding and all it took was for her to order a remote for her light bar to make it right. :)
 
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