04-14-2011, 03:12 PM
Well, we've a couple of "formal" criterias which we weight into our ratings.
- weather sealing
- constant physical length
- extends based on a mono-cam (one inner tube)
- extends based on a duo-cam (two inner tubes)
- wobbles when extended (tightness)
- body material (metal, high/low quality plasitcs)
- control ring implementation
- button implementation
These are, of course, only "outer" criterias. We've no idea about the inner construction. It could well be that a full-metal lens has lots of cheap inner plastic parts or vice versa. It is also well-known that plastic absorbs shocks much better than hard metal. Same goes for light-weight vs heavy-weight lenses. The mechanism which centers the individual elements is also something beyond our evaluation scope, of course.
- weather sealing
- constant physical length
- extends based on a mono-cam (one inner tube)
- extends based on a duo-cam (two inner tubes)
- wobbles when extended (tightness)
- body material (metal, high/low quality plasitcs)
- control ring implementation
- button implementation
These are, of course, only "outer" criterias. We've no idea about the inner construction. It could well be that a full-metal lens has lots of cheap inner plastic parts or vice versa. It is also well-known that plastic absorbs shocks much better than hard metal. Same goes for light-weight vs heavy-weight lenses. The mechanism which centers the individual elements is also something beyond our evaluation scope, of course.