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What is your 'Cold Dead Hands' lens

Fred Miranda
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p.5 #1 · What is your 'Cold Dead Hands' lens

This is from Grok. I'll update it if we receive more entries.

Rank,Lens,Mention Count,Members Who Mentioned It:

1,Sony 35mm f/1.4 GM,8,"aCuria, Surfnsun, MARKFER, Lifeinpictures, Massinissa, qqphot, KarmaKramer, jeffro"
2,Sony 300mm f/2.8 GM,7,"MIRANDA1, freaklikeme, larsjen, telyt, InFocus2014, arbitrage, Douglas L"
3,Sony 50mm f/1.2 GM,5,"MARKFER, gocolts, JohnJ, InFocus2014, Nifty Fifty"
4,Voigtlander 40mm f/1.2 Nokton,5,"sandycrane, grahamgibson, nbaronzzi, Kevner, blnmen57"
5,"50-150mm f/2 (brand unspecified, possibly Sony or third-party)",3,"shadow9d9, sandy27000, Summinex7"
6,Loxia 25mm f/2.4,3,"MARKFER, tsdevine, Jaree"
7,Sony 28-70mm f/2 GM,3,"Donzo98, InFocus2014, sandy27000"
8,Sony 70-200mm f/2.8 GM II,3,"Surfnsun, gocolts, InFocus2014"
9,Voigtlander 35mm f/2 APO-Lanthar,3,"Gunzorro, Knut., RoamingScott"
10,Voigtlander 65mm f/2 APO-Lanthar,3,"scrappydog, Al Trujillo, krug"
11,Batis 135mm f/2.8,2,"MARKFER, Jaree"
12,Loxia 85mm f/2.4,2,"MARKFER, Dave Sanders"
13,Sony 135mm f/1.8 GM,2,"johnahill, bmike-vt"
14,Sony 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 G,2,"davev, Jeffrey"
15,Tamron 35-150mm f/2-2.8,2,"timgangloff, j4nu"
16,Voigtlander 125mm f/2.5 APO-Lanthar,2,"grantgoodes, krug"
17,Voigtlander 180mm f/4 APO-Lanthar,2,"grantgoodes, krug"
18,Voigtlander Nokton 21mm f/1.4,2,"blnmen57, Douglas L"

Sep 05, 2025 at 03:00 PM

telyt
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p.5 #2 · What is your 'Cold Dead Hands' lens

Fred Miranda wrote:
This is from Grok. I'll update it if we receive more entries.

Rank,Lens,Mention Count,Members Who Mentioned It:

2,Sony 300mm f/2.8 GM,7,"MIRANDA1, freaklikeme, larsjen, telyt, InFocus2014, arbitrage, Douglas L

plus ohagym & A9Lon

Sep 05, 2025 at 03:50 PM

Sylvain_31
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p.5 #3 · What is your 'Cold Dead Hands' lens

Leica Q3 (28mm) for my favorite Lens.
For Sony e-mount, it is Tamron 35-150

Sep 05, 2025 at 03:51 PM

mudlake
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p.5 #4 · What is your 'Cold Dead Hands' lens

Well, looks like even Grok missed my post on page 2 post 1. So I�ll do it again:

Sony 70-200 GM II
Voigtlander 50/1.0

Sep 05, 2025 at 03:59 PM

benjimouse
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p.5 #5 · What is your 'Cold Dead Hands' lens

One vote for the 600GM.

I have 3 others on the list, but only the 600 creates shots I feel are "art" rather than "pics" (Meaning with my skill level the 600 makes photos I aspire to create, with other lenses, I just don't have the same ability).

Edited on Sep 06, 2025 at 10:51 PM · View previous versions

Sep 05, 2025 at 04:23 PM

Nifty Fifty
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p.5 #6 · What is your 'Cold Dead Hands' lens

mudlake wrote:
Well, looks like even Grok missed my post on page 2 post 1. So I�ll do it again:

Sony 70-200 GM II
Voigtlander 50/1.0

It seems that many people missed post #1 on page 1, because it asks for exactly ONE lens.
;-)

Sep 05, 2025 at 04:28 PM

telyt
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p.5 #7 · What is your 'Cold Dead Hands' lens

benjimouse wrote:
One vote for the 600GM.

I have 3 others on the list, but only the 600 creates shots I feel are "art" rather than "pics" (at least with my skill level).

If I were to choose more than one lens this would be the other lens on my list.

Sep 05, 2025 at 05:01 PM

mudlake
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p.5 #8 · What is your 'Cold Dead Hands' lens

Nifty Fifty wrote:
It seems that many people missed post #1 on page 1, because it asks for exactly ONE lens.
;-)

So true. 🙂. But if we always did what people asked us to do, where would we be! 😂

Sep 05, 2025 at 06:26 PM

Goodrich
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p.5 #9 · What is your 'Cold Dead Hands' lens

I can�t do one lens. I think that the 28-70 f2 works well for much land / cityscape. I miss the 24mm of the 24-70mm much less than I thought I might and benefit from f2 more than I expected.

However, I usually carry a long lens with me, such as a 70-200mm. I have tried the 50-150mm f2 and it is great for isolating living subjects. But the 100-400mm is probably a more useful complement to the 28-70mm for land/ cityscapes, at least while there is light. If you can�t make up your mind, then the 70-200mm is a suitable compromise, and preferable to the 100-400mm for living subjects.

Sep 06, 2025 at 02:36 PM

Steve Spencer
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p.5 #10 · What is your 'Cold Dead Hands' lens

I am not sure that I could say any lens is a cold dead hands lens as somebody might make something I like better that I would replace it with. No lens is perfect. I plan to retire in 10 years, however, and I probably won't change lenses much at that point and of all my lenses there are only three that I am pretty sure I will still be in my cabinet then:

Voigtlander 21 f/1.4 E mount
Sony 85 f/1.4 GM (original version)
Sony/Zeiss 135 f/1.8 ZA (with an LAE-A5 adapter)

None of these are close to perfect, but I like the look that they each produce and I don't think it is at all likely the any of them will be superseded by a lens I would like more.

Sep 06, 2025 at 02:48 PM

grantgoodes
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p.5 #11 · What is your 'Cold Dead Hands' lens

Goodrich wrote:
I can�t do one lens.
The OP didn�t ask what would be your hypothetical One Lens Kit (a very challenging proposition indeed, and would probably result in a list of wide-to-telephoto zooms) but rather, out of all your lenses, which one would you never-ever sell. My own choice of the Noct-Nikkor 58/1.2 is not even remotely my most used lens, but is just such a special lens that I would never-ever sell it. I _could_ consider limiting myself to a single lens, which would probably be my Nikkor 28/1.4D, but that�s because my shooting style is all about wide-angles.

Sep 06, 2025 at 02:49 PM

Fred Miranda
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p.5 #12 · What is your 'Cold Dead Hands' lens

My personal favorite is the Zeiss Batis 135mm f/2.8 APO with Optical IS, a worthy successor to the chunky Zeiss 135mm f/2 Apo Sonnar I've loved for years. The runner-up is the original 55mm f/1.8 ZA, for its excellent IQ in a tiny package. I have a soft spot for the oldies...

Sep 06, 2025 at 05:31 PM

Jeff Kott
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p.5 #13 · What is your 'Cold Dead Hands' lens

I also love my 55/1.8 Zony which I�ve had for over 10 years. Before I had full frame, I used it as a portrait lens (82.5 FF equivalent) with my A6000 APS-C cam. Many of my all time favorite photos have been taken with this lens.

But for a while now, I�ve thought of it as the Rodney Dangerfield of lenses because it don�t get no respect.

Sep 06, 2025 at 06:08 PM

ftllens
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p.5 #14 · What is your 'Cold Dead Hands' lens

This is GPT-5 but it's definitely like over counting or something

Sep 06, 2025 at 08:37 PM

shadow9d9
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p.5 #15 · What is your 'Cold Dead Hands' lens

After using the 50-150 all summer and spending the last few days processing the last month's photos, I'd like the reiterate its magnificence.

Sep 06, 2025 at 11:49 PM

Steve Spencer
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p.5 #16 · What is your 'Cold Dead Hands' lens

ftllens wrote:
This is GPT-5 but it's definitely like over counting or something

OK the various versions of AI demonstrated that they suck at counting, I am sure they will get better, but these GPT-5 numbers are way off. I counted by hand and may not be perfect, but I believe I am close. I did let people list more than one lens (I did that so I figure I had to let others to be fair) and I am only going to list lenses that were mentioned at least twice (there are tons that are mentioned once).

Mentioned 8 times:
Sony 50 f/1.2 GM
Sony 300 f/2.8 GM

Mentioned 7 times:
Sony 35 f/1.4 GM

Mentioned 5 times
Voigtlander 40 f/1.2
Sony 70-200 f/2.8 GM II
Sony 50-150 f/2 GM

Mentioned 3 times
Sony 28-70 f/2 GM
Voigtlander 65 f/2 APO
Voigtlander 21 f/1.4
Tamron 35-150 f/2-2.8
Voigtlander 35 f/2 APO

Mentioned 2 times
Nikon Noct-Nikor 58 f/1.2
Sony 135 f/1.8 GM
Voigtlander 50 f/1.0
Sony 70-200 f/4 G II
Zeiss Batis 135 f/2.8
Leica Q3 28 f/1.7
Sony 600 f/4 GM
Sony/Zeiss 55 f/1.8

To me one thing is obvious and two things are slightly surprising in the list. The obvious is that people really like Sony GM lenses. The first surprising thing is how often 35mm and 40mm come up. The second surprising thing, but it fits my own experience is the number of Voigtlander lenses that come up. There are 5 Voigtlander lenses that are mentioned at least twice which is second to only Sony. In contrast Tamron only had one lens listed more than once and Zeiss only had one (two if you count the Sony/Zeiss 55 f/1.8).

Sep 07, 2025 at 08:50 AM

Lethimcook
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p.5 #17 · What is your 'Cold Dead Hands' lens

First vote for the Sony 85 GM ii (I think GPT counted wrong). I guess the existence of other very competent and cheaper third-party 85s make it less popular.

Sep 07, 2025 at 09:56 AM

photonc
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p.5 #18 · What is your 'Cold Dead Hands' lens

Sony 35mm f/1.4 GM for me if I can only pick one (-:

Sep 07, 2025 at 10:47 AM

Steve Spencer
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p.5 #19 · What is your 'Cold Dead Hands' lens

Lethimcook wrote:
First vote for the Sony 85 GM ii (I think GPT counted wrong). I guess the existence of other very competent and cheaper third-party 85s make it less popular.

It is interesting what Sony GM lenses didn't get any mentions. I was the only one who mentioned the 85 GM original version and you were the only one who mentioned the 85 GM II. No one mentioned the 24 GM, which is a lens I really liked when I had it. No one mentioned the 50 f/1.4 GM either. That no one mentioned the 14 GM perhaps isn't so surprising given that it is so wide--perhaps there just aren't that many owners of that lens.

On the zoom front it is interesting that no one mentioned the 24-70 f/2.8 II GM that is widely regarded as an excellent lens and no one mentioned the 16-35 f/2.8 II or the 12-24 f/2.8 either even though both are seen as top notch lenses. I think all the other GM lenses were mentioned at least once.

And with all the Voigtlander mentioned it is interesting that no one mentioned the 50 f/2 APO, which I might have guessed would have the most mentions.

Sep 07, 2025 at 11:51 AM

adventure_photo
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p.5 #20 · What is your 'Cold Dead Hands' lens

Man, this is a tough choice! But if I could only pick one it would be the Voigtlander Nokton 35mm f/1.2 SE. I feel that lens can do low light, dreamy portraits, sharp landscapes, has great bokeh, great color, great contrast, small and lightweight, perfect for travel, architecture and street photography and 35mm for me is a perfect one focal length to do it all or at least most things well.

Sep 07, 2025 at 12:44 PM

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What is your 'Cold Dead Hands' lens

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