How to Test Your Lens

So, you just bought a shiny, new, and maybe expensive, lens for your camera, and being the savvy consumer, you did your homework. You pored over customer reviews on the B&H Photo website, read online reviews splattered all over the Internet, grabbed a copy of every photo magazine that reviewed the lens, bookmarked dozens of websites, and now have the lens’s MTF curve charts burned into your retinas.

Now, your lens is here and it is time to go out shooting. Honestly, not a problem. Your lens should be as good as it can be and, as photographers, we want to take photos. So, stop reading and go out and make some photographs!

Still here? OK, let me tell you why you might want to test that lens yourself. The main reason is that even with today's precision computer-controlled manufacturing techniques, there are variations in every lens that rolls off an assembly line. This means that some examples will be better than others. Some lenses will be outstanding and others will make you wonder if all of those glowing reviews you read online were completely bogus.

I once purchased a new 40mm lens that was advertised and reviewed to be, based on all reviews, incredibly sharp. The Internet is full of tests that show this is a superb lens. I spent some good money on this lens and hurried home to try it out. However, me being me, I took the new lens out for a shoot with my tried-and-true 50mm f/1.8 lens in the bag. I took the same photos with the two lenses, albeit at the slightly different focal lengths, and hurried home. After analyzing the images, I was left to speculate that, either the reviews are full of lies about this 40mm lens, that I got a bad example of this lens, that my 50mm f/1.8 is the most awesome lens ever made, or a combination of those possibilities.

"I like to test my lenses to determine where in their aperture range and focal range (if a zoom) they are performing at their best."

Had I not had a lens to which I could compare it, I might have been happy with the performance of the 40mm and not known the difference. But, because I did a quick test of my new lens, comparing it to a lens that I was familiar with, I was able to determine that it should be returned to the store and my money saved for something else.

... Via B&H explora - All posts https://ift.tt/2eTTt8P