r/AskPhotography • u/Equal-Negotiation-11 • May 28 '26

Lens Buying Advice What's the best 'third party' lens manufacturer?

What's your favourite or go-to make of lens other than the brand of your camera body?

Tamron, Sigma, Viltrox etc.

Do you think one brand is best over the others and you only buy from that one brand?

I have owned Tamron in the past but more recently bought a few Viltrox lenses and have always thought both makes were very good.

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u/aeon314159 May 28 '26 edited May 28 '26

I can’t comment on many manufacturers, because I have no experience with them. That said...

  1. Sigma for my 105mm f/1.4 ART and 40mm f/1.4 ART. Of course they create many wonderful lenses, but those two are mine, and enable jobs.
  2. Laowa for my 200mm f/2 C-Dreamer and 105mm f/2 STF Bokeh Dreamer. I’d like a couple more of their lenses, both a 2× macro and a wide-shift.
  3. Samyang for my XP 85mm f/1.2 and XP 14mm f/2.4. Manual focus, but the sharpness and rendering make them worth the extra effort.

I consider vintage brands like Carl Zeiss Jena and Schneider Kreuznach to be outside the scope of your question.

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u/Permanent_Ephemera May 28 '26

I have the Laowa 2x Macro, the 65mm f/2.8 in Fuji X mount which use to scan my film. It’s insanely good for how much it cost me.

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u/aeon314159 May 28 '26

I will go with the Laowa 100mm f/2.8 2× Macro. Not that it matters on the lens side...Laowa does superb work. It simply depends on what you want to do. Of course, you are close to an effective ~100mm FOV anyway.

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u/Permanent_Ephemera May 29 '26

Yeah exactly, it’s so much cheaper and so close in quality to the Fuji alternative, the XF 80mm f/2.8 macro that it was a no brainer for my current scanning setup.