Camera and Lens example shots

tijuana taxi

tijuana taxi

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What would you use as a test shot for a new camera or lens?

I see a lot of lit town/city streets at night with a few random people dotted about and the other favourite is a brick wall with dodgy pointing

Just leaves me puzzled because I can't remember ever having taken either in anger and not really sure what both of the above show
 
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Ii've heard the brick wall one mentioned a few times, i reckon it's so you have one to hand so you can bang your head against it whilst getting used to new camera/lens :D
 
tijuana taxi said:
What would you use as a test shot for a new camera or lens?

I see a lot of lit town/city streets at night with a few random people dotted about
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low light performace, some peeps enjoy counting grains of noise....:shrug:

tijuana taxi said:
and the other favourite is a brick wall with dodgy pointing
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checking levels of lens distortion, some peeps enjoy measuring lens distortion....:|
 
Brick walls are good, and quite testing for lenses, showing levels of distortion, particularly pincushion and barrel. Also good test of resolution. Zooming in tight gives a good indication of IQ and and sharpness. I test all of my lenses against a south facing wall. South facing always ensures good natural light, even if the weather is quite dull.
 
As I happen to take a lot of pictures of buildings, distortion (or rather the lack of it) is an issue close to my heart.

Brick walls (providing they have been constructed and maintained to reasonable standards) are quite a useful practical test and handy for calibrating any corrections that may be required. :)
 
The problems with using brick walls, same as with any flat two-dimensional target like a lens test chart, is two fold.

It's very hard to get the camera exactly dead square to the wall so when testing at lower f/numbers with shallow depth of field (which is where the best lenses shine) one or more corners or edges will show as soft when actually they're not. And secondly, some field curvature is very common with a lot of lenses, and though it almost always makes zero difference in real picture taking, that will also show the edges and corners as soft when in fact there's nothing wrong - even if you have managed to get the camera perfectly square.

Edit: pre-digital, aberrations like CA, distortion and vignetting were real issues. But today they're so easily eliminated in post-processing, often with a single mouse-click that applies custom correction profiles, they're hardly worth worrying about. Many lenses these days are actually designed with software correction in mind (it's often done in-camera) as this gives designers more scope to improve other aspects of performance.
 
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I tend to just get on and use the camera and lens to shoot whatever I bought them to shoot.

I might use a tripod and photograph the mm scale of a ruler if I feel some adjustment is required.
 
dougdarter said:
Brick walls are good, and quite testing for lenses, showing levels of distortion, particularly pincushion and barrel. Also good test of resolution. Zooming in tight gives a good indication of IQ and and sharpness. I test all of my lenses against a south facing wall. South facing always ensures good natural light, even if the weather is quite dull.
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I agree the parallel lines of the brickwork are well suited for a test

Les :agree:
 
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