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Comparing 70-210 zooms
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Posted: Tue Jun 04, 2013 10:35 am
Post subject: Comparing 70-210 zooms
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Posted: Tue Jun 04, 2013 10:35 am
Post subject: Comparing 70-210 zooms
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I have four tele zooms here which I'd like to compare:

Vivitar Series 1 70-210/3.5
Minolta MD Zoom 70-210/4.0
Tamron AD2 103A 80-210/3.8-4.0
Tamron AD2 03A 80-210/3.8-4.0

I'd like suggestions please on the best type of subjects and scenes to use - i.e. what should be in the shot (e.g. vertical and
horizontal lines) - and the shots I should make with various different camera and lens settings to test all various lens
capabilities. I shall be using the 24mp NEX-7.

When I have a standard set of shots worked out I will post the results here later.


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Posted: Tue Jun 04, 2013 10:42 am
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Posted: Tue Jun 04, 2013 10:42 am
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I can't answer your question regarding technical details for the testing process, but this is one test I am looking forward to very much.
The results will be interesting. I am particularly interested to see if you can separate the two Tamrons.
Good luck with the tests
OH


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Posted: Tue Jun 04, 2013 11:25 am
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Posted: Tue Jun 04, 2013 11:25 am
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hi Peter, you should test:

- distortion at short end, middle, and long end of the focal range;
- vignetting, also in the three positions, wide open and at f/8;
- flare resistance, both with and without lens hood, with sun just out of frame and with sun in frame;
- longitudinal CA, a.k.a. purple/green fringes (wide open) and lateral CA (wide open and at f/8 )
- spherical aberration wide open throughout the frame
- spherical aberration and coma in the corners, wide open and at f/8
- colour tint (photograph a neutral gray or white surface after having white balanced the camera manually and keeping the same WB value for all shots

Then there are other aspects that can not be measured, such as for instance verify if the zoom "creeps",
or the lens weight, the presence of a tripod screwhole


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Posted: Tue Jun 04, 2013 11:39 am
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Posted: Tue Jun 04, 2013 11:39 am
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Orio's list should do it! I;m always interested in the purple fringing...I test by shooting a close horse on a sunny day e.g.

http://forum.mflenses.com/viewtopic.php?t=37869


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Posted: Tue Jun 04, 2013 11:56 am
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Posted: Tue Jun 04, 2013 11:56 am
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Orio wrote:
hi Peter, you should test:

- distortion at short end, middle, and long end of the focal range;
- vignetting, also in the three positions, wide open and at f/8;
- flare resistance, both with and without lens hood, with sun just out of frame and with sun in frame;
- longitudinal CA, a.k.a. purple/green fringes (wide open) and lateral CA (wide open and at f/8 )
- spherical aberration wide open throughout the frame
- spherical aberration and coma in the corners, wide open and at f/8
- colour tint (photograph a neutral gray or white surface after having white balanced the camera manually and keeping the same WB value for all shots

Then there are other aspects that can not be measured, such as for instance verify if the zoom "creeps",
or the lens weight, the presence of a tripod screwhole

Thanks very much Orio. That's exactly what I needed. Couple of questions:

Distortion - I think I understand about barrel distortion. Is there any other form of distortion that should be tested?
Spherical aberration - what subjects are a good way of testing this, and should they be in-focus or de-focussed?
CA - is the test for this slightly out-of-focus, or are we looking for the minimum at perfect focus?


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Posted: Tue Jun 04, 2013 12:00 pm
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Posted: Tue Jun 04, 2013 12:00 pm
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ManualFocus-G wrote:
Orio's list should do it! I;m always interested in the purple fringing...I test by shooting a close horse on a sunny day e.g.

http://forum.mflenses.com/viewtopic.php?t=37869

Laughing
We don't have a clothes horse like that, but something with similar bright reflections could be found I guess. Even the roof rails on my car might do. I'll start looking! Smile


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Posted: Tue Jun 04, 2013 1:22 pm
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Posted: Tue Jun 04, 2013 1:22 pm
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I have the same four lenses Peter, but not the time atm to conduct the same test. It would be interesting though to run two independent tests and compare the results. I'm looking forward to your conclusions and I suspect the Minolta will come out top. That's my experience anyway from non-testing use.


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Posted: Tue Jun 04, 2013 4:50 pm
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Posted: Tue Jun 04, 2013 4:50 pm
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DigiChromeEd wrote:
I suspect the Minolta will come out top.

Me too, Edgar. Let's see just how far it can reach above the others! Wink


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Posted: Tue Jun 04, 2013 8:10 pm
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Posted: Tue Jun 04, 2013 8:10 pm
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peterqd wrote:
DigiChromeEd wrote:
I suspect the Minolta will come out top.

Me too, Edgar. Let's see just how far it can reach above the others! Wink


+1

I have to agree after seeing what my Minolta 35-105mm macro zoom can do.


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Posted: Tue Jun 04, 2013 9:02 pm
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Posted: Tue Jun 04, 2013 9:02 pm
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peterqd wrote:

Thanks very much Orio. That's exactly what I needed.


You're welcome Smile

peterqd wrote:

Couple of questions:
Distortion - I think I understand about barrel distortion. Is there any other form of distortion that should be tested?


Yes, pincushion. It's the opposite of barrel distortion. Barrel is typical of wide angle lenses, and pincushion is typical of tele lenses.
Sometimes, in cheap zooms that go from wide to tele (e.g. a 28-180), you even see both happen in the same lens!

peterqd wrote:
Spherical aberration - what subjects are a good way of testing this, and should they be in-focus or de-focussed?


All subjects are good. Spherical aberration appears as loss of contrast or slight haze, in the mildest cases, or as glow, in the most evident cases.
Being related to the spherical shape of the lenses, it is strongest in the very fast lenses wide open (typical case: a f/1.2 double gaussian lens) and it decreases stopping down,
because the outer edges of the glasses are not used.
Note that lenses with spherical aberration are not necessarily "soft" i.e. lacking detail. See and compare "photo 09" and "photo 10"
in this thread of mine: http://forum.mflenses.com/nikkor-s-auto-11-2-f55mm-relive-the-middle-ages-t42833,highlight,%2Bmiddle+%2Bages.html
You can see that resolvance is fully there even wide with a lens that has spherical aberration. It only appears soft because of loss of microcontrast and glowy appearance.
Another caveat: do not confuse this glow, or slight haze, caused by spherical aberration, with the haze caused by flare. It is easy to distinguish, because flare only happens
in photos taken under particular lighting conditions, while spherical aberration happens in all photos, regardless of the lighting.

peterqd wrote:
CA - is the test for this slightly out-of-focus, or are we looking for the minimum at perfect focus?


The purple fringing (longitudinal CA) is also called axial because it happens along the optical axis. Basically, different wavelenghts focus
on different points along the axis. This makes it similar in nature to the focus shift problem, with the only difference that it's not general, but regards only certain frequences.
For this reason, longitudinal CA is unavoidable. When it's there, it is always there. BUT, by stopping down, longitudinal CA becomes visually irrelevant, for the same reason why
the apparent depth of field increases: the reduction of the circle of confusion.
Lateral CA, instead, happens on the focus plane. For this reason, it is always absent in the absolute centre of the image, and always increases while you proceed towards the edges.
Also, for the same reason (that it happens on the focus plane), the lateral CA does not decrease by stopping down (instead of the longitudinal CA that decreases because it happens on the optical axis).
So, to answer your question:
- for longitudinal CA, you look for both the effect at perfect focus and in the out of focus areas. And you check it wide open, because that's where it's mostly visible.
But if you want to make a super detailed test, you may check it at every f/stop, to see at what f/stop it becomes visually undetectable.
- for lateral CA, focus is irrelevant, because the problem happens on the focal plane, in other words, it will appear more visible in the corners of an image, regardless if the objects in the corners
are in focus or blurred (obviously, if they are in focus, you will notice the problem better, but that is not relevant to the problem per se).

I don't know if I explained well, I am not a physician after all Smile


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Posted: Tue Jun 04, 2013 9:46 pm
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Posted: Tue Jun 04, 2013 9:46 pm
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Wonderful explanation Orio.
Thank you for making it so clear.
OH


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Posted: Wed Jun 05, 2013 3:42 am
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Posted: Wed Jun 05, 2013 3:42 am
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Which vivitar are you testing?

22-Kino Precision, 28-Komine, 37-Tokina, etc

Some where/are better than others, so it's only fair to list which company made it. If it was Kiron then I stand behind the Vivitar not to do so badly.


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Posted: Wed Jun 05, 2013 3:48 am
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Posted: Wed Jun 05, 2013 3:48 am
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Nikonshooter wrote:
Which vivitar are you testing?

22-Kino Precision, 28-Komine, 37-Tokina, etc

Some where/are better than others, so it's only fair to list which company made it. If it was Kiron then I stand behind the Vivitar not to do so badly.

Agreed, it would be nice to know which, but this will likely be mentioned in the review.
Conventional wisdom also rates the Tamron 103A slightly over the 03A. I am interested to see how the two compare.
Cheers
OH


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Posted: Wed Jun 05, 2013 7:32 am
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Posted: Wed Jun 05, 2013 7:32 am
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I have the same vivitar and Tamron 103A too,
and few other lenses in the same range.

Would love to see some results. Maybe I should use them more often.


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Posted: Wed Jun 05, 2013 8:23 am
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Posted: Wed Jun 05, 2013 8:23 am
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hoanpham wrote:
I have the same vivitar and Tamron 103A too,
and few other lenses in the same range.

Would love to see some results. Maybe I should use them more often.


Definitely recommended.
Cheers
OH


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Posted: Wed Jun 05, 2013 8:26 am
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Posted: Wed Jun 05, 2013 8:26 am
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Thank you Orio. That's very clear - you may not be a physician but you'd make a very good teacher.

I will hopefully be taking the pictures with the lenses tomorrow (Thursday). My wife is in hospital at present so I will have a
little time for it in between visits. However, I'm very busy today so it will have to wait until then. I need to find a distant
subject to test the resolution at long distance, which has highlights to test the CA and spherical aberration, and horizontal and
vertical lines to test distortion. A modern building would be OK I think. I could take thousands of shots at different zoom
and aperture settings but this test won't be like that. I don't have the time, nor the interest to be honest. I just want to see
which lenses I don't need.

I don't know a lot about Vivitar Serial 1 lenses. I believe there are various versions of the 70-210, even within single
manufacturers, but I don't have time to investigate right now. This one has Olympus OM mount, serial number 22711129, so
it's by Kino. Is that Kiron? I'll take a pic of it for proper identification later. As for the Tamrons, I paid just 99p for the 03A
and £5.35 for the 103A back in 2008, so I've had my money's worth from both of them. The 103A has gone everywhere with
me.

More later....


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Posted: Wed Jun 05, 2013 1:16 pm
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Posted: Wed Jun 05, 2013 1:16 pm
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peterqd wrote:
I don't know a lot about Vivitar Serial 1 lenses. I believe there are various versions of the 70-210, even within single manufacturers

The lens I'll be testing is variant 1 - the leftmost lens on this page:
http://www.robertstech.com/vivitar.htm


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Posted: Wed Jun 05, 2013 11:30 pm
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Posted: Wed Jun 05, 2013 11:30 pm
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I use the Tamron 103A as my "rugby" lens. Good luck with your testing.


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Posted: Fri Jun 07, 2013 9:11 am
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Posted: Fri Jun 07, 2013 9:11 am
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Big snag No 1 encountered already. The lenses are heavy and unbalanced without tripod collars, and my tripod isn't sturdy
enough. I'm also worried about straining the tripod mount on the camera. I'll need to find somewhere where I can rest the
lens on a cushion of some sort. Sad


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Posted: Fri Jun 07, 2013 9:33 am
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Posted: Fri Jun 07, 2013 9:33 am
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Orio wrote:

peterqd wrote:

Couple of questions:
Distortion - I think I understand about barrel distortion. Is there any other form of distortion that should be tested?


Yes, pincushion. It's the opposite of barrel distortion. Barrel is typical of wide angle lenses, and pincushion is typical of tele lenses.
Sometimes, in cheap zooms that go from wide to tele (e.g. a 28-180), you even see both happen in the same lens!


Also there is the moustache distortion but I don't expect you get that from these lenses?


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Posted: Fri Jun 07, 2013 9:37 am
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Posted: Fri Jun 07, 2013 9:37 am
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peterqd wrote:
Big snag No 1 encountered already. The lenses are heavy and unbalanced without tripod collars, and my tripod isn't sturdy
enough. I'm also worried about straining the tripod mount on the camera. I'll need to find somewhere where I can rest the
lens on a cushion of some sort. Sad


A beanbag is a g00d supp0rt - 0r 0ne 0f th0se wheat bags used as heat s0urces f0r injury.
G00d luck with the tests.
0h


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Posted: Fri Jun 07, 2013 5:36 pm
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Posted: Fri Jun 07, 2013 5:36 pm
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DigiChromeEd wrote:
I have the same four lenses Peter, but not the time atm to conduct the same test. It would be interesting though to run two independent tests and compare the results. I'm looking forward to your conclusions and I suspect the Minolta will come out top. That's my experience anyway from non-testing use.


Me too..looking forward to outcome.
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