Announcing the S.A.L.T. (Southland Alternative Lens Test)

[Neil W. Smith]

Glad to hear the test results will be up soon ... the actual image tests were very interesting ... would any one be interested in seeing them next Saturday - July 11th?

Evin and David, if we organize an open house SALT viewing day next Saturday, could either of you make it to talk about the results? .... we'd have to present some cut down version of the tests ... two hours would be too long.

The SALT open house would be on the old Warner Hollywood Lot in West Hollywood next to the Formosa Cafe ... say from 10 to 2pm .... small admission fee at the door.

Let me know if any one's interested in attending on the 11th.

Neil

[David Mullen ASC]

I'm not available on the weekend of the 11-12th.

[Jacek Zakowicz]

Wow this thread went off on a tangent.. I make a living trying to optimize lenses to gain the absolute best image quality throughout the frame, including the edges. Maybe Im reading all of these posts wrong, but in my line of work, sharpness is everything. Sharpness is a blank canvas. If everyone is looking for crappy image quality in the edge of their frame so that it's more "natural" I may very well be out of a job.

I don't think that anyone, including myself is saying that lenses should be soft in corners but rather that they should be as sharp as possible in center with corner resolution being (OK-close)secondary issue.
Matt have you ever discussed this with optical designer? I have many times and this is what I found and am trying to share here(with little appreciation I must say)

Also resolution numbers won't tell you everything because if the contrast at high resolution is low the dynamic range of the sensor will not be utylized.
Do you guys know what lenses will give high enough contrast and which ones won't? There are ways to measure this- it's what I do. The lens design data should certainly tell the story here.
It's just sad that some users here are not willing (able maybe ) to understand the difficulties that manufacturers are facing and become defensive and arrogant when what they read stuff they don't agree with....
Jacek Zakowicz, optitek-dot-org

[Brook Willard]

Results [part 1] posted here. :)