Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/11/01
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]
Folks,
>I'd not give this testing nonsense an eye lash width of attention
>simply because these people are all bench testy touchy people who don't
>read the remarks of users on the streets like many here on the LEG or
>LUG, nor the many hundreds of others who take real time pictures with
>the lens used in both an amateur and professional capacity day to day.
You know. This is the exact same situation as with audio equipment. If you
buy a decent stereo you can typically find all sorts of test data on it.
Total harmonic distortion (THD), frequency response, signal-to-noise (SNR)
ratio etc. But scientific tests rarely mentions the sound that actually
comes out of the stereo speakers. Does it sound good or bad. Some people
swear by the tube amplifiers, claiming that their sound is totally unique
and the best in the world. Way better than the sound of any solid-state
amplifier. But it is a well established fact that tube amps have rather bad
THD -- especially 2nd harmonic distortion. There are also people who swear
by LPs claiming that they sound *way* better than any CD, even though SNR
and dynamic range is vastly better for the CD.
My point is: It is really, really easy to make people buy stuff because is
has "great numbers". Numbers are easy to (mis-)interpret. If the MTF(70%)
of lens A is higher than MTF(70%) of lens B, then lens A must be the best
one. But there are other parameters that can be measured from a lens. So in
order to make it easy for beginners (and pros who don't know better (no
offence intended!)), PhotoDoDo has made it real easy. They've combined all
the data into ONE magic number.
But does this mean that if lens A has a PhotoDoDo grade of 3.5 and lens B
got grade 3.7, then you'll most definitely like the pictures taken with
lens B better??
I'll let the answer blow in the wind...
Tom
- --
To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html