I thought such things had become extinct… a vague and horrible memory of the 1980’s. Alas, today I had a positive sighting of the beasties known as “lens test graphs”.
Urgh…
Lens test graphs. You’ve seen them. A curved line or six against a meaningless grid-like graph, pointing out how many dots-per-inch the lens can resolve before our solar system collapses in on itself. What the hell such things actually prove nowadays? A £500 lens can outperform a £70 lens? Does that really need to be proven? Whatever happened to common sense?
The lens test actually fascinated me. The magazine was pitching Canon lenses against Olympus lenses! Why? What will that test, other than the readers intelligence? For those that don’t know, Olympus lenses cannot fit onto Canon bodies, and vice-versa. Therefore the test was meaningless, as the different makers camera bodies produce different results anyway!
And having just written that, I’ve had to double-check the magazine again, as I thought my memory was playing up. Nope, the magazine pitched Canon lenses against Olympus lenses… and I’m baffled as to why! The test actually proved nothing. Canon build quality differs to Olympus build quality. Canon lens image quality differs to Olympus lens image quality. Well gee… I’m amazed at the results!
So, getting my train of thought back on track, what’s the point of lens test graphs? Surely it’s better to apply lens tests to real world situations..? Back when I was trying to get as much possible speed out of my PC, I kept updating the video card drivers with the latest and ‘greatest’ drivers. In those days, PC “speed freaks” relied on benchmarking software… which proved nothing. One bit of software in particular was known for “moving the goalposts”, yet speed freaks kept spouting test results. In the end, benchmarking only proved one thing… your hardware/software combination ran at such a speed in the benchmarking application. “Real world” testing was much more effective, I learned that not every “latest and greatest” drivers were that.
And so to apply that to photography. Get your lens, clamp it on to your camera body, go out taking photos, enjoy the results you get, enjoy the hobby! These meaningless lens charts really should be banished! That is, unless you get your jollies from taking photos of lens test charts in the first place!
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