Lens testing

[RichC]

Lens tests are pointless...

Lens tests are pointless...

As an amateur, I don't test anything until one of my images shows something strange...I just go out and photograph.

As a professional, I don't test anything until one of my images shows something strange...I just go out and photograph.

Every lens made since the 1970s - and many before - by a reputable camera or lens company is good enough. I choose lenses based on a function I need (e.g. macro or a focal length). A lens is a lens is a lens... Viewers don't care - I don't care - about trivial differences between lenses, most of which aren't visible even in large prints...

From a recent exhibition of mine (commissioned and paid for by the gallery), taken with a couple of 30-year-old Olympus and Mamiya lenses stuck on a modern cutting-edge 42MP Sony camera:

 

[Rob-F]

A good lens "test" for me is whether I like shooting with it. And, of course, whether I like the results I get with it. There can be something about how it feels to use a certain lens that doesn't show up in the MTF charts! If I like it enough, I might not care!

 

[tbhv55]

Viewers don't care - I don't care - about trivial differences between lenses, most of which aren't visible even in large prints...

Precisely, Rich. 🙂 Never - not even once - has a non-photographer viewed my photographs and then commented on their sharpness, or distortion, or any other type of lens characteristic. Such comments as might be made are about composition, or lighting, or subject matter, or whatever it might be in the image that appeals to them........ no reference to lens quality - ever.

 

[tbhv55]

A good lens "test" for me is whether I like shooting with it. And, of course, whether I like the results I get with it. There can be something about how it feels to use a certain lens that doesn't show up in the MTF charts! If I like it enough, I might not care!

Agreed, Rob. If a lens is enjoyable to use, and the results are to your liking........ that's all that matters! 😀

 

[Kevcaster]

I have used lenses from 1934 to the present day and found them all to be willing and effective. I have never shown a picture to anyone where they criticised the optical rendering, or the sharpness at the corners. All my photography is good or bad because of my own brilliance or failings, never the capability of the tools or processes which were all sorted by the turn of the 20th century.
I know this now but have also spent hours and days agonising about which lens to buy, or which film is best. All of it was in retrospect, a good waste of my time. A good picture will survive poor reproduction and average presentation but a dull picture will never be saved by the excellence of the tools that produced it. There is pleasure in ownership and some satisfaction in the process and this mitigates some of the above while a great picture well produced and presented is a complete joy. In 50 years of trying, I have a few.