Took out some of my lenses yesterday to do some lens testing with since we finally had a good clear and (somewhat warm.. 4oC) day in Calgary! I bought 10 lenses (but forgot my screw mount adapter for the 1000mm lens!) with me at over 20lbs, carring them up a steap hill to get shots of the Calgary Skyline. Had to test the 17mm last because of sun flare (its REALLY wide). Over 2.5 hours of work. Here are the 9 lenses I tested:

Vivitar 135mm f2.8 3 Tests at: f5.6, f8, f16 Konica Hexanon 135mm f3.2 3 Tests at: f5.6, f8, f16 Konica Hexanon 57mm f1.4 3 Tests at: f4, f8, f16 Konica Hexanon 50mm f.18 3 Tests at: f4, f8, f16 Vivitar 35mm f1.9 3 Tests at: f4, f8, f16 Sigma 28mm f2.8 3 Tests at: f5.6, f8, f16 Konica Hexanon 28mm f3.5 3 Tests at: f4, f8, f16 Soligor 17mm f3.5 3 Tests at: f5.6, f8, f16

Konica Hexanon 135mm f3.2 2 Tests at: f8 with x2 Teleconverter 2X-7

I will post the results on my web page: http://photobluebook.virtualave.net/ when I get all 24 photos back from the lab. For this test I used Konica 200ISO print film.

Next set of tests I will be testing my 1000mm f10 lens, a few 50mm f1.7 lenses and several screw mount lenses as well.

Mike. http://photobluebook.virtualave.net/

-- Anonymous, January 07, 2001

Answers

Forgot to mention.

These lens tests are not very accurate compaired to MTF or other more formal types of testing. I am just doing it for myself and just getting 4x6 prints that I will enlarge on my scanner using Photoshop to see edge, center, sharpness and contrast quality of each lens.

As mentioned, it is not very scientific, but it will give me an idea of how each lens "generally" preforms.

All lenses were testing at infinity setting so everything should be easily in focus.

Mike.

-- Anonymous, January 07, 2001

Lens tests

Sounds interesting, Mike. Let us know what you think of the lenses.

Sometimes I think people worry too much about the scientific comparison on lenses. Lines per millimeter are interesting but, what's important is that you like the images you get with the lens.

If you were to scientifically test 25 lenses, all the same model from the same company built over the course of a month, a year, or a decade, you would probably find a surprising amount of variation.

Alan Myers San Jose, Calif.

-- Anonymous, January 08, 2001