RE: [Leica] Sex and the lens-test chart

["Jonathan Borden" <jborden@mediaone.net>]

Yada yada yada... when all is said and done, I am curious to see what the
results of your test are. I suspect that many of the lenses will be so close
as to be largely indistinguishable without aid of a high powered loupe. But
perhaps there will be some significant differences.

I'm sure the technical details of lens testing boor you to tears but how
about this:

Suppose I sat you down in front of a monitor. You are able to type in the
name of any lens you wish. You can control the focus and aperature with a
mouse/joystick. You see the photograph on the monitor as it would be
rendered through the lens. Now type in a film, developer and paper
selection. It appears before your eyes exactly as it would appear once
printed. Sound impossible?

Does the technology exist? Yes. Might someone pay me enough to make it worth
my while? I doubt it.

Jon

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> [mailto:owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us]On Behalf Of Mike
> Johnston
> Sent: Monday, January 17, 2000 5:31 PM
> To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> Subject: [Leica] Sex and the lens-test chart
>
>
> Well, I guess we've had enough fun with this.
>
> I think the poster who said he didn't learn anything from Erwin's site
> went too far. I've certainly spent time at Erwin's site, enjoyed it, and
> learned from it. I do appreciate Erwin's work. I also think it goes too
> far to say that everyone must test his or her own lenses. Technical lens
> testing is very important; it's also interesting; it's informative; and
> it has its place.
>
> But it has its limits, too. It doesn't tell the whole story. It reminds
> me of the high-school sex-education classes that teach the mechanics of
> bodily reproduction with charts and diagrams of fallopian tubes and
> whatnot. All true and scientific; but it doesn't tell the whole story of
> sex, eh? Because there's another side to the same things, other way of
> experiencing the same things, other ways of looking at the same things.
>
> The sort of "test" or trial I'm proposing has its place, too. No, it's
> not everything. No, it doesn't mimic or replace technical optical
> testing. No, it won't "prove" anything--merely indicate something.
> Maybe. And if we _were_ to take it and gussy it up and torque it around
> and make it oh-so rigorous and scientific and well defined, all its
> messy variables nicely slotted away and accounted for as if it were
> scientific, then it would become useless--because then it would not tell
> us what we want to find out. Because then we'd have Erwin and the others
> getting out their magnifying glasses and their resolving charts or
> whatnot and measuring this and that quality and deducing logically and
> scientifically whether one lens is resolving this or reaching that level
> of contrast and concluding that lens A must be such-and-such and lens B
> must be that-and-so.
>
> And that's not what we want to find out.
>
> This is more like a field-trial, and it falls under the heading of
> empirics--it has to do with putting measurements aside and finding out
> whether what we're talking about has any obvious practical effect when
> it's experienced as intended. That is, whether one print looks really
> swell and another one looks kinda average, and whether *that*
> distinction can be chalked up to anything consistently. That's all.
>
> It's not a trivial question, and it's hardly an illegitimate mode of
> inquiring about it, as some of you seem so anxious to assert (I've never
> heard such a load of nervous excuses in my life! Pontifica-ca about
> religion and the like--puh-leeeeez!). Some of the most influential and
> innovative photographic experiments of the century just ending were
> conducted just this way--the work of Loyd Jones and C.E.K. Mees, the
> just-noticeable-difference method of tone discrimination and the
> determination of optimum print contrast upon which the contrast-control
> system we still use today (in b&w) is based (Ansel Adams based the Zone
> System on his simplifications of the work of Mees and Jones). Many of
> these tests were carried out by making up batches of prints and showing
> them to viewers and asking questions about them.
>
> A fine lens is a pleasure. Certainly, one of the best ways of assuring
> oneself of the pleasures of quality is to buy from the best and most
> reputable companies. But then, I'm not exactly threatening to take your
> fine lenses away from you here, am I? Am I really threatening your
> cherished beliefs so direly? I'm just asking you to have a look at some
> prints and answer a few questions. Are those of you who object to that
> so terribly insecure that you can't stand the thought of being wrong?
> Heck, you've demonstrated that you've got bristling phalanxes of excuses
> all ready to deploy if needed. And even once you see the prints, you're
> still not under any obligation I can think of to answer the questions or
> play the game. Sheesh! How can I make this any more painless?
>
> Lastly--aren't any of you in the skeptic's brigade the least bit
> _curious_?!?
>
> --Mike
>
>
>