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Optical Quality (Sharpness) of the Lenses

These test photographs are supposed to show the sharpness of the lenses.

The pictures were taken with 5D camera using parameters ISO 100 and 1/200s. A tripod and the "mirror lockup" function were used. The lenses were set to manual focus and no image stabilization, the hood was attached. There were two slave flashes, one on each side of the camera. There were slopes on each side of the target to assist manual focusing. The center and edge pictures were focused separately so a curved in-focus plane is not revealed. On the right is a picture of the setup.

The pictures were taken in RAW, they were read into Adobe Photoshop CS2 (except 35mm/1.4 into CS3 and 12-24mm into CS4) by Camera Raw in 16 bits and with the default sharpening of 25%. The exposure was not adjusted in Camera Raw. Then a 100% crop of size 250x250 pixels was extracted from the center or from the edge. The resulting picture is 5.7% of the width of the original photograph. The last step was to apply Photoshop "Auto Color" adjustment to standardize brightness and contrast. "Auto Color" adjustment also changed the appearance of the blurred and low-contrast pictures considerably. (Whether that was wise is a matter of taste; image badness is emphasized, but in a rather different way than it would show up in normal photographs).

The "Sweet spot aperture" value is not based on measurements but on information from the internet and on a common guess.

"At Edge" is by the vertical center of the right border of the image, i.e. it is not in the corner.


 

Widest Aperture "Sweet spot" Aperture Distance
Aperture At Center At Edge Aperture At Center At Edge
f/4L set 17-40mm 17 mm f/4 jpg jpg f/8 jpg jpg 0.34 m
28 mm f/4 jpg jpg f/8 jpg jpg 0.47 m
40 mm f/4 jpg jpg f/8 jpg jpg 0.61 m
24-105mm 24 mm f/4 jpg jpg f/8 jpg jpg 0.42 m
50 mm f/4 jpg jpg f/8 jpg jpg 0.71 m
105 mm f/4 jpg jpg f/8 jpg jpg 1.23 m
70-200mm 70 mm f/4 jpg jpg f/8 jpg jpg 1.20 m
135 mm f/4 jpg jpg f/8 jpg jpg 2.01 m
200 mm f/4 jpg jpg f/8 jpg jpg 2.78 m
70-200mm + 1.4x 98 mm f/5.6 jpg jpg f/8 jpg jpg 1.56 m
189 mm f/5.6 jpg jpg f/8 jpg jpg 2.62 m
280 mm f/5.6 jpg jpg f/8 jpg jpg 3.82 m
70-200mm + 2x 140 mm f/8 jpg jpg f/16 jpg jpg 2.08 m
270 mm f/8 jpg jpg f/16 jpg jpg 3.56 m
400 mm f/8 jpg jpg f/16 jpg jpg 5.15 m
300mm 300 mm f/4 jpg jpg f/8 jpg jpg 3.90 m
300mm + 1.4x 420 mm f/5.6 jpg jpg f/8 jpg jpg 5.45 m
300mm + 2x 600 mm f/8 jpg jpg f/16 jpg jpg 6.45 m
fast 35mm/1.4 35 mm f/1.4 jpg jpg f/5.6 jpg jpg 0.30 m
50mm/1.4 50 mm f/1.4 jpg jpg f/5.6 jpg jpg 0.72 m
135mm/2 135 mm f/2 jpg jpg f/5.6 jpg jpg 1.93 m
135mm/2 + 1.4x 189 mm f/2.8 jpg jpg f/5.6 jpg jpg 2.50 m
135mm/2 + 2x 270 mm f/4 jpg jpg f/8 jpg jpg 3.60 m
travel S17-85mm
Note: 300D
17 mm
(=27 mm)
f/4 jpg jpg f/8 jpg jpg 0.34 m
50 mm
(=80 mm)
f/5.6 jpg jpg f/8 jpg jpg 0.69 m
85 mm
(=136 mm)
f/5.6 jpg jpg f/8 jpg jpg 0.91 m
70-300DO 70 mm f/4.5 jpg jpg f/8 jpg jpg 1.27 m
189 mm f/5.6 jpg jpg f/8 jpg jpg 2.50 m
300 mm f/5.6 jpg jpg f/8 jpg jpg 3.58 m
28mm/1.8 28 mm f/1.8 jpg jpg f/5.6 jpg jpg 0.45 m
macro 100mm 100 mm f/2.8 jpg jpg f/8 jpg jpg 1.44 m
MP-E 1x
(65 mm)
(f/2.8) jpg jpg (f/8) jpg jpg 0.24 m
5x
(65 mm)
(f/2.8) jpg jpg (f/8) jpg jpg 0.31 m
wide 12-24mm 12 mm f/4.5 jpg jpg f/8 jpg jpg ?.?? m
24 mm f/5.6 jpg jpg f/8 jpg jpg ?.?? m
Fisheye (15 mm f.) f/2.8 jpg - f/8 jpg - 0.28 m

 

© Erkki Vanninen