Shel,
My comments were not drivel and not tongue-in-cheek. Without a controlled environment and criteria for making a judgement, any conclusions drawn can be/probably are highly subjective.
Have you ever looked at two photos you took with the SAME body and SAME lens, of the SAME subject and had trouble deciding which you preferred? I have with my photos. Why? Because the differences are so small that they can be difficult to detect. Now try to make a qualitative assessment regarding two lenses when the subject is different, the lighting is different, the aperture used was different, tripod was used vs. handheld, shutter speed is different (inducing more/less shake), etc.
Sure, one can feel that they prefer one lens over another, and that's perfectly valid. That's a subjective qualitative analysis. We all do that. I do it frequently. It's why I have stopped using certain lenses and more frequently use others. But it's not an objective quantitatve analysis with data backing it up. Personally I don't have the time to do anything other than glean a highlight or two from lens tests that others do, and to judge my own results. I'm with you on that.
I was saying that to KNOW how a lens performs is different than HAVING A FEELING about how a lens performs. And to paraphrase my main point... Random samples of random subjects in random conditions is not a scientific test.
That's all I'm saying. Nothing more, nothing less, and I stand by it.
Ya might try getting out of the other side of the bed next time.
Tom C.
From: "Shel Belinkoff" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Manual Focus Pentax Glass on istD Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2005 07:40:19 -0800
What drivel ...
Surely as a photographer you can determine what lenses work best for you after using them for thousands of exposures. If you can't, grab a box of crayons and a coloring book and make your images that way. I certainly hope your comments were tongue-in-cheek.
Shel
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tom C" > Subject: RE: Manual Focus Pentax Glass on istD
> Re: scientific... My original words were meant to mean that 'taking a > 1000 frames with a number of lenses' on a film body and then > comparing them to ' a 1000 frames taken with the same lenses on a > digital body' is not a conclusive test. Hardly anything could be > determined unless they were taken of the very same subjects, from the > very same vantage point, under very controlled conditions. And then > studied very carefully. And then that doesn't mean that a given lens > still doesn't perform admirably in it's sweet spot. Obviously a lens > that performs admirably over a large range of apertures and lighting > conditions may be more desirable than one of more 'limited' usability.
