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The oldest lenses I have that I still sometimes use are from the late 1940s, though they are both large-format lenses in shutters (that have been serviced). The

• sudosysgen 6y ago
  Eh, I would. I recently repaired an old Tamron 28-75 2.8 for Canon EF, as well as a more modern Sony SEL2870, and both were pretty simple. In one, the autofocus and aperture were done by bog standard 4 wire 8 ohm stepper motors, with standard four wires rotational encoders, and in the other it was another standard three phase brushless motor, four wires for the IS electromagnets, and optical encoders for the rest. That is to say, the electronics are fairly standard. You could easily make a single board that can drive the electronics of pretty much every lens. Projects exist going in that direction. As for the construction, it's pretty damn solid. It's not fully metal, by very high glass fiber percentage nylon and polycarbonate. Very, very durable materials, in some cases even more than metal. And because of advances in manufacturing tech and the fact these are made of multiple simple plastic parts, you can fabricate replacement parts fairly easily. Given the fact that the Tamron lens lasted 15 years with the only issue being the aperture cable getting damaged and two pins getting bent out of shape, and that even the cheapest modern lens was fabricated similarly, I think it's not unreasonable to think they could last 40+ years given sufficient effort. Certainly for the most worthwhile lenses. Of course, when parts need to be made out of metal for mechanical reasons, they often still are. For example, mounts, threaded rings, and so on.