Cicala on Lens testing

[sdsr]

Yet another blog article by Roger Cicala that's worth reading:

http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2013/10/there-is-no-perfect-lens-test-either

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Roger seems to hit it right on the head as usual. Any kind of lab testing is subject to understanding the limitations of the test methods and what they actually mean.

 

[ahsanford]

I wish Roger would devote a staff member to full-time lens testing. He's the biggest show in town for inventory of lenses, so his resolution data is gold to me. When you test 10, 20 copies of a lenses, one can separate a consistently good lens from an inconsistently good lens from a consistently bad lens.

You just can't get these kind of stories..
http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2012/01/the-great-50mm-shootout
...from the other sites I've seen.

Further, Roger is transparent in his methodology and only reports & dissects hard numbers. As a result, he's built a rather trustworthy following of people from all camps of fanboys -- that's really hard to do. (DXO sensor testing gets some folks royally worked up in this forum, for instance.)

I love http://www.the-digital-picture.com/ for most qualitative photographer considerations, but for hard numbers, Roger is the guy.

- A

 

[TWI by Dustin Abbott]

Some good points already made here, but I agree completely with Roger's take about reading multiple reviews, although my understanding was far more incomplete that what was presented here. I also like to take in a mixture of lab type results along with some field testing. Finally, his ability to compare multiple copies of any given lens is gold to me, as it strongly suggests that a copy that might fall into my hands is definitely likely to be within the sample variation range that he has seen.

 

[Halfrack]

Interesting the bits on the high resolution cameras - backlit film for testing... They test all lenses on the way in and on the way out, so I think there are a few folks whom are doing testing as it is.

My bigger question is why doesn't Nikon and Canon have someone visiting them on a regular basis, collecting feedback from their staff and customers to drive business decisions. Imagine the info you could munge out of rental patterns and customers who turn around and purchase a lens.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

I wish Roger would devote a staff member to full-time lens testing.

If you mean testing lenses for a fee, its coming. Roger now provides test data for used lenses he sells, and soon will test your lens for you ($$$). However, he will likely not be able to do repairs, so you will have to send the test data to Canon and convince them. They are likely cringing at the thought of hundreds of buyers who get a lens test done and believe that they can make the lens perfect.
He already tests every rental lens as it comes back from a rental, so you are very unlikely to get a bad rental lens. He may not do a full blown evaluation of the lens like a lens test site does, but his testing is able to detect problems with the lens.