Testing a new lens

CWSkopec

Recently I recieved an email from my dad saying "I've got a project for you." He won an auction on ebay for a Sigma AF 135-400/4.5-5.6 APO for his Canon and since he's currently living outside of the US he's having it shipped to me to test before I then ship it to him.

So I'm wondering what different methods everyone uses to really test out a new lens. I've heard of (but not tried) shooting a brick wall to test distortion at the edges with the consistent lines and I'm also thinking of trying to catch some surfers/action shots because reviews say it's a good lens for action. (Surfers, because that's the most consistent action to found here in SoCal! )

But I would love to hear some other methods that everyone is using!
Thanks!!

Mnemosyne

My dad got me the 70-300 Diffractive optics USM IS 3.5 - 5.6 last year, and after reading about it, there was discussion about how "horrible" of a lens it was because it created odd halos on relections that were very deep in the depth of field, like street lights (I think it's called bokeh?). It also caused odd halos at higher ISOs that run parallel, a sort of overlayed reflection of the image. Actually, the negatives are hard to explain.

Anyway, I tested it by focusing on something close to cause a background street lamp to be WAY out of focus, and saw nothing. I also saw no halos from refliction on straight lines after photographing my bike in direct sulight.

So you might photograph something and look at the highlghts, or the relflections in the background if the DOF is very shallow.

(In the defence of my lens, the person who took the "example" photos to explain what they were talking about, had a lot of other problems with their photos that came from technique. A professional tested it and loved it. I love the lens too.)

pathfinder

You can put your camera on a tripod and shoot brick walls, or high resolution charts, and gray scales. OR you can just go out and shoot some frames of subjects that you shoot frequently, and then compare them when you get back to your computer.

The only time I shot a brick wall recently, was to let other folks see the degree of barrel distortion in my Tamron 28-75 Di. Not too bad really, on a full frame 5D.


:hide


Myself, I just shoot with a lens, unless I get the feeling that images with it are not really up to snuff. If they are not, then I need to decide if the issue is one of technique ( and hence my fault ) or of lens quality.

I have some lenses that I know are not as sharp wide open as other lenses I own. It just means I need to know my tools and their advantages, and their limitations. It does not mean I never use the lesser lens.

CWSkopec

Thank you both for your recommendations!!!

The lens was just delivered to me today at work, so it's a good thing I came back to this thread... forgot I had posted it for a little bit, I appologize for the late "thank you"!!

I'll give your suggestions a go tonight and tomorrow night!!

Mnemosyne

CWSkopec wrote:

Thank you both for your recommendations!!!

The lens was just delivered to me today at work, so it's a good thing I came back to this thread... forgot I had posted it for a little bit, I appologize for the late "thank you"!!

I'll give your suggestions a go tonight and tomorrow night!!

One nice feature about Dgrin is that if you click on the "You!" button in the upper left, it will show you a list of all the threads you've written in that have replies (as long as you turn on the subscription feature in your settings).