Date (YYYY, YYYYmm, YYYYmmDD), #hashtag, fragment, word, or phrase:     

Other images in the #xmas series:




This is an image from a gallery of photos and art. Sorry.
Friday, November 30th, 2007
Use the following link to share or bookmark this specific image ⇨  ⚓Permlink

Poenix 500mm Catadioptric Lens Sharpness Test

The Phoenix 500 mm lens is a catadioptric lens in the $100 price class. Catadioptric lenses use a combination of mirrored and standard refractive elements to provide a lot of magnification in a (relatively) short form factor. Because they have a circular blockage at the front of the lens, they produce weird, donut-like bokeh and tend to be of general use only when your whole subject is in focus, or very close to it. The Phoenix is about 3 inches long, which isn't too bad at all for a 500mm lens.

The lens is a prime, fixed ƒ/8 lens that doesn't talk to the camera via the Canon mount, the Canon-style adapter has no electrical connections. So the camera defaults to reporting it as ƒ/0, and you have to manually determine the best ISO/shutter combination for the circumstances at hand.

There is a rule of thumb that says you should be shooting hand-held at (at least) the shutter rate that meets the mm of the lens, so 1/500th is the minimum. The test images were shot at 1/2000th and various ISO settings, this particular one at ISO 1600. I don't presently own a decent working tripod (lost some parts), so my tests are limited to hand-held for the moment.

This image is about the sharpest one of my test set; I find it very difficult to achieve those last few fractions of fine focus with any camera over five megapixels — the details the camera can see are finer than those I can see.

The focus point here was the wire where it attaches to the widget hanging down from the crossbar (see note.) The distance from me to the subject was about 75 feet.

The image has been uploaded at high resolution, though not the highest JPEG quality; I reduced the JPEG setting until the image file came in under five megabytes. I don't think this has a significant effect upon luma sharpness, just the chrominance detail.

EXIF:

Width: 3888
Height: 2592
Company:  Canon
Camera:  Canon EOS 40D
Shot On:  2007:11:30 15:02:21
Aperture:  ƒ/0.0
Exposure Time:  1/2000th second
Exposure Program:  Shutter Priority
ISO:  1600

Image Collections:

1:1250 Ships - Amiga - Animations - Aquarium - Arcade - Art - Astro - Audio - Aurora - B&W - Ben - Cars - Cathouses - Cats - Clouds - Comics - Comets - Crepuscular - Dollhouses - Deb - Deer - Designs - DTank - Eclipses - Family - Fireworks - Florida - Fog - Food - Friends - Gear - Ham Radio - Horses - Humor - Infrared - IROC - iToolBox - James Blish - Judy - Library - Meezers - Milford - Minerals - Models - Montana - Moon - Morphing - Motorcycles - Music - OSX - Pareidolia - Pickles - Pinups - Pizza - Portraits - Radios - Rainbows - Recipes - ReFlex - Restorations - Science Fiction - SdrDx - Shortwave - Spaghetti - Stained Glass - Storms - Sunbeams - Sunrises - Sunsets - Superstition - 跆拳道 - Tee Shirts - Trains - Uc&F - Virginia Kidd - Watches - Windows - WinImages

Image and commentary Copyright ©2007 fyngyrz
Gallery software Copyright ©2023...2024 fyngyrz