Lens creep seems to REALLY annoy some people

sabbath999

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I have read countless posts on the forum for bashing this lens or that lens because it has "lens creep".

I personally own the "Mother Of All Lens Creep" lenses, the Sigma 50-500 "Bigma"... to be fair, it doesn't just creep, it RUNS out to the end if you don't lock it down.

I also own a 18-200 VR that is famous for lens creep, although the one we own doesn't do this at all. I have heard that most of them do, and have no trouble believing it.

I had several film camera lenses "back in the day" that did the same thing.

I find that lens creep doesn't bother me much, because it generally only happens (in my experience) on long telephoto zooms when shooting down at very sharp angles... and one doesn't generally shoot down with one of those...

Obviously, if a lens were being used for serious macro work and it creeped, that would be a real problem... but I can't imagine why anybody doing serious macro work would be using anything other than a prime to start with (especially since there are some VERY inexpensive excellent prime macros out there).

If a lens "creeps" when it is hanging on my strap, I just twist the little ring and it uncreeps. No big deal.

On the Bigma, I just click the lock, and it doesn't creep. One has to expect a LOT of design trade-offs in a 50-500 10X zoom (something with that range is not going to be as good at anything as shorter-ranged zooms), so potential Bigma owners should just learn to deal with the creep.

I am curious to see how much lens creep actually bugs the rest of you, and why it bugs you. Would a bit of lens creep stop you from buying a lens that is otherwise something you would want to have in your bags?
 
If the manufacturers designed the lens creep out of the lenses, then everyone would complain that the lens was stiff and difficult to zoom. I have never understood the whole lens creep thing. It's like complaining about gravity. It's just one of those things that is a given and you deal with it.
 
Put this feature to good use!!!! If you can race beltsanders, race lenses!

Whose lens can 'creep' fastest?

Never bothered me. Stuff happens - this is pretty inconsequential in the realm of life.
 
It wouldn't bug me much more than the fact I would be paying more than $900AU for a lens which is poorly constructed (18-200mm). Nothing more than that.

Lenses shouldn't creep, the ends shouldn't wobble, their mounts shouldn't be made of plastic, and I shouldn't feel like I am taking a risk every time I take the camera out of my bag, all signs of bad construction which I would probably just break rather than get any real use of it.

With the 18-55mm I would accept it if it creeped, but the 18-200 is double the price. That's all. Price I am paying vs Quality of what I get.

In the classic 18-200 example's defence the price you are paying goes well into the ludicrous zoom capability, but to me this does not add to the utility since I haven't been in a situation where I would have needed a superzoom over either a single wide angle or a single telephoto, or been stuck where I couldn't change lenses.

Other people may differ completely in opinion though.
 

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