PHOTOGRAPHY TECHNICAL CHARTS / LENS TESTS
Description of photodo.com - a great place to find info. on your lenses.

At Profotos.com, we refer our visitors to only the best websites related to photography. If you are looking for unbiased information on lens performance, photodo.com is definitely the place for you. Our staff has used the information on photo.com's website many times for our own lenses and lens-purchasing decisions. Their tests are based on very strict testing environment, which is not biased towards any manufacturer.

The beauty of the tests at photodo.com is their ease of use. Photodo.com's staff has created an easy-to-use numbering system for the lenses, which is very easy to understand. The numbers range from 0-5 with 0 being the worst and 5 being the best.

Along with the easy numbering system, Photodo also shows an "MTF" chart for each lens, which gives all of the lens' characteristics for the entire aperture range. These charts are presented in a simple, graphical form. An explanation of the graphs, as excerpted from the Photodo.com website reads:

"The graphs show MTF in percent for the three line frequences of 10 lp/mm, 20 lp/mm and 40 lp/mm, from the center of the image (shown at left) all the way to the corner (shown at right). The top two lines represent 10 lp/mm, the middle two lines 20 lp/mm and the bottom two lines 40 lp/mm. The solid lines represent sagital MTF (lp/mm aligned like the spokes in a wheel). The broken lines represent tangential MTF (lp/mm arranged like the rim of a wheel, at right angles to sagital lines). On the scale at the bottom 0 represents the center of the image (on axis), 3 represents 3 mm from the center, and 21 represents 21 mm from the center, or the very corner of a 35 mm-film image. Separate graphs show results at f8 and full aperture. For zoom lenses, there are graphs for each measured focal length."

While this may sound a bit confusing, it will become readily apparent once you begin studying the lens charts on Photodo's site. These charts are an invaluable resource to our staff, as a way of determining which aperture we should be shooting at to obtain the maximum sharpness with a given lens. We believe these graphs will do the same for your needs.

If you are in the market for a new or used lens, or if your are wondering how good the lenses are in your current collection, be sure to check out the lens tests at photodo.com for all of the information you need!

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