I greatly appreciate your website which I consider one of the greatest resources to use when purchasing photo equipment.
I was wondering if you are able and willing to test the lenses of what I call the Large Sensor Compacts: cameras with larger than Nikon One sensors and fixed lenses? With the releases of the Fuji X100 and the Canon G1X, they will probably expend their share of the market dramatically. It's hard to find measures of their lenses, beyond test pictures, and it would greatly help when making decisions between them and the CSCs.
For reference, there are also the Sigma DP1 and DP2, and the Leica X1.
I think this is off-limits.
The results are not-cross system comparable so testing a single lens is rather pointless.
[quote name='Klaus' timestamp='1328078681' post='15364']
I think this is off-limits.
The results are not-cross system comparable so testing a single lens is rather pointless.
[/quote]
Yes, you are of course constantly warning about this issue. However, at the end of the image pipeline there is the output of the sensor/lens combination, and this image has a certain amount of lines/picture height. This can be compared between different systems.
Would such tests be useful? I think some selected samples would be (not everything can be tested in this fast market). There is a increasing paradigm shift with these specialized "P&S" cameras going into dSLR/mirrorless territory, and I think people would be interested in being able to have objective comparisons.
Could Photozone do it? Testing a lens with an established pipeline is probably a lot easier than setting up new pipelines for every camera that comes along, so it sure cannot be comprehensive. Would it pay off? It really depends on where the market is going. Obviously Canon has gambled one way with the G1X, and Nikon another way with the V1/J1. Some sites like dpreview test sensors of P&S cameras, but never the lenses. What's the point of a good sensor if the lens is no good?
If interest in smaller good quality cameras is increasing, it could pay off for photozone.
Anyway, keep up the nice work. Photozone is my favorite lens-test site.
The problem is that you cannot establish a pipeline that is valid for any past, current or even future camera. The camera sensor itself is part of the pipeline and has influence on the results (especially the Anti-Alias-filter) and the same applies to the RAW converter used to process the results. Different cameras require different RAW converters (or even different versions of the same RAW converter) which leads to slightly different results.
So, just as Klaus said, such tests wouldn't make much sense, since our results are comparable only within the same test system (which wouldn't exist for a fixed lens camera). And there's another issue: we're quite busy covering the existing systems already.
-- Markus
Editor
opticallimits.com
[quote name='mst' timestamp='1328106048' post='15375']
The problem is that you cannot establish a pipeline that is valid for any past, current or even future camera. The camera sensor itself is part of the pipeline and has influence on the results (especially the Anti-Alias-filter) and the same applies to the RAW converter used to process the results. Different cameras require different RAW converters (or even different versions of the same RAW converter) which leads to slightly different results.
So, just as Klaus said, such tests wouldn't make much sense, since our results are comparable only within the same test system (which wouldn't exist for a fixed lens camera). And there's another issue: we're quite busy covering the existing systems already.
-- Markus
[/quote]
Yes, I figured you are busy... :-)
Anyway, re: first part, I think you misunderstood. Obviously, you can't take lens and sensor apart with a P&S, while you can with dSLR. But the system has a combined final output comprised of sensor and lens performance, and the RAW processing uses whatever version is available at that time (software changes over time, can't be avoided).
So, something like this should be possible: take a picture with P&S camera X at 18mm, with P&S camera Y at 18mm, and say a Canon 50D with 18-55 IS at 18mm. Then enlarge them all to same size, say 50cm, and measure "sharpness". Of course you want the last steps all done in software - I suspect the current types of testing software only work with one particular sensor at a time, and can't deal with the second part, i.e. equalize all images (adjust mps) and measure on that??
[quote name='photonius' timestamp='1328130287' post='15388']
Yes, I figured you are busy... :-)
Anyway, re: first part, I think you misunderstood. Obviously, you can't take lens and sensor apart with a P&S, while you can with dSLR. But the system has a combined final output comprised of sensor and lens performance, and the RAW processing uses whatever version is available at that time (software changes over time, can't be avoided).
So, something like this should be possible: take a picture with P&S camera X at 18mm, with P&S camera Y at 18mm, and say a Canon 50D with 18-55 IS at 18mm. Then enlarge them all to same size, say 50cm, and measure "sharpness". Of course you want the last steps all done in software - I suspect the current types of testing software only work with one particular sensor at a time, and can't deal with the second part, i.e. equalize all images (adjust mps) and measure on that??
[/quote]
Well, it wouldn't be totally comparable because there's always a camera profile involved in the RAW conversion (which could favor one camera over the other) but it may be "valid enough" to test the system performance this way.
However, we have basically no relationship with the manufacturers and we would certainly not buy a P&S camera just for testing the lens. A community supplier (in time) seems unlikely IMHO.
[quote name='Klaus' timestamp='1328340775' post='15459']
Well, it wouldn't be totally comparable because there's always a camera profile involved in the RAW conversion (which could favor one camera over the other) but it may be "valid enough" to test the system performance this way.
However, we have basically no relationship with the manufacturers and we would certainly not buy a P&S camera just for testing the lens. A community supplier (in time) seems unlikely IMHO.
[/quote]
Thanks for the reply. Processing is of course a variable. One could take the view that the processing software is part of the pipeline. If Brand X processes badly (with their software), while Brand Y does a better job (assuming camera/lens would have been similar), it's Brand's X own fault if they produce an inferior final product just because of software.
Obtaining the product, yup, I can see you don't want to open a second hand camera business....
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