How to make a Field Map of ANY lens!

[@eightmilesupwind9030]

For the entire lecture, from the very beginning to the very end, I was staring at that F0.95 in your hand. It's so satisfying to learn about your final test result for that lens.

[@johnwesleybrewer]

I always appreciate when I walk away from one of Ted’s videos I have zero need for gear acquisition. My skills always need more refinement and practice not dropping money on nonsense.

[@frost8077]

Subscribed! These videos that go deeper into the engineering and physics of lenses fascinate me.

[@jonfletcher147]

Always the voice of reason Ted….. superb.

[@CraigBergonzoni]

Awesome video, Ted. I've never tried this before but will definitely try it now.

[@hobbytake2845]

Excellent video, you’ve taken a very complicated subject and simplified it to a very understandable level. And given us the simple way to do it on our own. Thank you! Love the film simulations, still trying to finesse them to my liking but I’ll get there.

[@willbaren]

I’d seen you do this before, I was going to look for it because I couldn’t remember the details, and then you repeated it with more details, for which I am grateful. Thank you so much :)

[@drmatthewhorkey]

I learn sooooooo much watching all your videos

[@ShutterSounds]

Thanks Ted! I have a lot of vintage lenses and I will be out on the street today shooting test images to use your technique.

[@RJ-nk9qz]

Excellent info as usual. Just popping in to say thanks for this and ALL your videos. Your work is highly appreciated.

[@Sincerelytk]

This is absolutely amazing. I buy different lenses, typically used/ 2nd market, and know nothing about the lens. Or sometimes, I buy a used camera and the owner throws in lens or 2 and I have to do research on the lens to find it's sharpest point. Although this is more time consuming, this might be my best bet at understanding my gear. I almost resorted to using that black and white focal chart haha Thank you again!

[@virginiainla8085]

My gosh, you've sent me down a huge rabbit hole since I watched this! I've been testing all my lenses, old and new, just for fun. I am now waiting on film from my lenses that I only use on film cameras. Thanks! I think... 🤪😅🙃

[@virginiainla8085]

Dang, I got some WILD results 🤪😬🙃

[@walontuoja4336]

As an avid retro lens shooter this is very useful as a metric to help me understand what to expect. Thanks!

[@chipfreundnc]

Ted, thank you for this video. I have been wanting to get in and analyze my lens, and haven't quite known the best / easiest approach. Your technique here makes perfect sense without having to get super technical.

[@TimberGeek]

This will be fun to play with but I'm perpetually at the "it is what it is" stage with my (99% used) gear.

[@RÅNÇIÐ]

Recently cut my finger on a shattered lens. So, very sharp.

[@australianboy]

😂

[@youarenotaghost3702]

😑

[@sclogse1]

Lemme guess, you're images are bleeding too.

[@armstrongskyview2810]

This was a really good video, bit boring to begin but once you finally showed what was going on, not only did it make sense but it got me excited to get testing all my lens's tomorrow lol Thanks, a new sub :)

[@supong_al_creation]

This is so interesting. Thank you for educating us

[@jean-claudemuller3199]

Well done Ted 👍

[@AristeidisSfakianos]

That's quite eye opening. Very often I find myself wondering whether my lenses are as sharp as when I got them. I shoot in rain and high humidity often and I am worried that this might have affected the sharpness if my lens. I'll give it a try!

[@Murdog36]

Great as always Ted!

[@andreabeneforti4981]

Very interesting video! tomorrow I will test all of my lenses!

[@thomaseriksson6256]

Thank you I just updated lenses to my new camera D850 so I will use this methods to check them

[@alexanderkarnazes9195]

Hi, Ted. Thank you for walking viewers through one of your go-to lens tests. Using a tripod, how far off the ground do you usually set your camera for this type of test?

[@Nybykiosken]

The first thought when I saw the results for the Canon lens was ’Field Camera’. Great video Ted!

[@jimpurcell]

Thanks for sharing! Very helpful!

[@chbrownie18]

I have used a simpler method which focuses on the sensor resolution combined with the lens. I have two older 16MP bodies, a Canon 1Ds mark II and a Fuji X-Pro1. I use the kit 18-55mm zoom with the Fuji and with the Canon, the red 24-105mm zoom along with two Sigma Art lenses. If I take the shot, blow it up in Capture One and look at sharp vertical or horizontal lines in the subject images, it becomes really apparent in all of my cases that the lenses are as sharp as they need to be for these sensors. Single pixels line up along these edges on one side or the other and the result is binary. I had an older Canon 100mm Macro which didn't cut it but all of these lenses do. When I upgrade both of these bodies, I will then have a different set of criteria, but for now, any sharper lenses would be a waste.

[@Bob4golf1]

Excellent! I tried it with a bunch of my lenses and my Hasselblad (XCD series) proved to be better than most everything else - surprise. Great video - Thanks!

[@PacoM.]

I love the presets Ted. Tried them out on Canon and Sony and I noticed straight out the of the camera they look better on Canon. I have an older Sony so the colors aren't as nice. But yes, the presets/profiles are great! Thank you so much.

[@Levoiar]

Fancy seeing you here hahahaha

[@PacoM.]

@@Levoiar 😅 its crazy how the internet makes it a smaller world.

[@kentvun]

This a really good idea to test out sharpness and focal plane of any lens, thank you. I fingered simpler and albeit may be less accurate way of doing this, that is by using focus peaking of my em5 ii, I can visualise the focal plane of my lens when my aperture wide open and I try focus on a flat textured surface, i.e. my carpet floor, and I am able to visualise my focal plane. =)

[@MrCameraJunkie]

Amazing Breakdown, Great job 👏🏽😉

[@stephenblackwood3954]

Thanks! this is a great, quick way to analyze and compare the performance of multiple lenses of same focal length at same aperture. The part about using Find Edges in Photoshop is most helpful.

[@MeAMuse]

Shouldn’t this have been on Lensday :) Great job Ted… although I will say… I much prefer lenses with character. These days sharpness is overrated. I like lenses that forces / allows you to do creative things.

[@tonyhayes9827]

what an extraordinarily insightful video.

[@marcusoutdoors4999]

No questions, but super useful testing method

[@andrewleece7567]

So much to learn about photography 😂 could the find edges be used when doing lens calibration / micro adjustment ?

[@cmichaelhaugh8517]

I’ve seen you do this before. Going to have to try it. Thank you.

[@bruce-le-smith]

Great video, thank you!! I was just thinking, 'gee I have no idea how to test my lenses on my camera, I bet it's hard...' and here you've made it so easy! The bokah on that dream lens is so familiar from 60s album art, love it!

[@gregsimmons1709]

That was *very* informative!

[@AlGreenLightThroughGlass]

Brilliant - will happily borrow concept but credit you - calling it the 'Forbes' field mapping technique or test - for future old lens reviews

[@llchan]

I have some questions regarding the process. Does it matter if I take the photo in RAW or JPEG? If it’s RAW, do I need to do any processing in, say, Lightroom, before I open it in Photoshop and apply the filter? For RAW, Lightroom automatically applies some sharpening. Should I disable that before taking it to PS? Great video. Keep up with the good work. I know this is an equipment video but I watched this channel because it’s not just about equipment.

[@robph8421]

The 8mm movie lenses are actually very interesting for photos, and you can see why with this “pavement” method here. They were made for the micro movies way back when, so on conventional cams they will show a parabolic focus field. I hope more people will explore and talk about parabolic focused photos.

[@sclogse1]

Are you saying that because the area of the surface of the 8mm frame is so small that the relative distance to the rear lens in one of those little Switars is closer to the same from all points on the film frame? Or that the directrix of the parabola is closer to the same length on 8mm than it is on a 35mm frame?

[@robph8421]

@@sclogse1 From the viewpoint of the photographer, the directrix line (or plane, if you consider the focus field a 3-D paraboloid) is farther beyond the nose. The rest of the parabola/loid extends backward. Those micro lens designers only concerned themselves with a tiny area at the nose. But conventional sensors will catch the wide parts of the thing, and it looks very interesting. 8mm movie lenses are good for this, but some standard lenses can also do it with the nearest element flipped backward. I posted photos of this kind on Facebook but they got bare scant attentions. Don’t know if I can find them again. I hope people will try this out and see.

[@enigmabletchley6936]

Very interesting, thanks for creating this video.

[@BilBrown]

The lens Eggleston was using and shot when I met him in 2018.

[@davidjones8070]

Thanks for reminding me that I need to do this to some of my Tamron lenses to see how they fair in the test.

[@ThePhotofit]

Hi Ted. I learnt a lot from your video (as I do with most of yours). Here’s a question that might be interesting to debate and that is: Have we reached a point where lenses and camera sensors are “too sharp”. Could this be why the original Canon 5D is so highly regarded and could it also be the secret ingredient to achieving a ‘film look’ and why film is experiencing a renaissance? I’ve even experimented with own pixel shift technique whereby I duplicate a layer on an image and shift the canvas by a fraction to achieve a tiny amount of blur. The results are interesting!

[@Nijensikkens]

Hi Ted I'm pretty interested how megapixel count impacts lens quality. For example I noticed that my Nikon 50mm 1.4G lens reders better on my 16MP Nikon Df then on my 45MP Nikon D850. Can you make an explanation how that works? Again great video 😊

[@Mike_M_Smith]

I don’t have that problem with a similar setup.

[@Nijensikkens]

@@Mike_M_Smith hmm strange maybe I just have a bad copy of the lens 🙄

[@estoylisto]

Try to resize the 45MP picture to 16MP and compare the 2 .. using higher MP sensor adds more challenges to the lens so even small issues might get magnified and become obvious... the 50 1.4G isn't a very Sharp lens specially wide open so 45MP sensor will expose its shortcomings

[@Nijensikkens]

@@estoylisto thanks for the tip I will try that 😊

[@mr.t.9019]

Wow this was very helpful. Many thanks.

[@greggorter]

I thoroughly enjoy your videos Ted ! excellent, thank you for sharing your valuable knowledge. A question for you is “what is your opinion on testing with consumer lens calibration software”

[@Chris-NZ]

Incredibly interesting Ted and real world :)

[@JimEmbury]

Excellent! Thank you.

[@asamcqueen3513]

Going to have to play with this with a lens like the Thambar, which is usually regarded for its impressionist painter look rather than sharpness. I find in practice though there's noticeable detail and contrast hanging out in the haze, which has me curious.

[@rickfarber4243]

Thanks very much for this. I don't have Photoshop, but would the Focus Mask in Capture One work as well?

[@stuartcarden1371]

What a great video! Thank you so much. Very informative.

[@johnlane2511]

OK Ted, this one is very helpful.

[@patriot9455]

I have a Kiev 88 with a couple of lenses, including a 300mm lens. I also have a Minolta Maxxum. I use Ilford and Kodak, amongh others as they become available. is Ilford close to Kodak in the way it handles light. I shoot color, grayscale and true B&W. Being low on income, I have a run what ya brung concept. My film is going to be developed out of house, and will be "played with" in the latest version of Photoshop, as well as Lightroom and a few others in the Adobe system. At 71, I do not see me becoming an international sensation, but I could do some regional work and have a blast making a small amount here and there.

[@SergioMusel]

Does that mean that you do need a perfectly flat surface with texture and perfectly leveled camera? Roads tend to be wavy, so the precise distance to sensor of each point is different, resulting in an uneven "sharpness line". I understand that you need extremely controlled studio scene where you need to be sure that if you have some variances throughout the frame it is because of the lens, not because of it being out of focus due to different distance of the different parts of the subject. When having a curved line, it can just be the curvy road exaggerated by shallow depth of field

[@JeffWernerIthacaNY]

awesome and intuitive way to easily visualize a lens focal plane! I'm a bit worried that my favorite LTM and S-mount lenses might not perform favorably!

[@j16m02]

Really enjoyable and educational. Thanks

[@pimpingkek4947]

I've got the f1.9/80 mm xcd for hasselblad. Pretty sharp, allegedly

[@chrisambler9917]

Ted. Great vid as ever. Could you tell me how I do this lens check on Capture One pls? Thanks Chris

[@OutOfTownPhotography]

Great video Ted👍

[@FranHoganPanama]

Very interesting. thank you!

[@PS-lh1ml]

Hey Ted, do you do any editing before applying the filter? Would that make any difference in the sense of ruining the test? I ask this because I accidentally got some deep shadow on a few of my test shots that are breaking the "lines" resulting from the "find edges".

[@jorgegildealmeida1985]

Hello Ted! I saw your video and tried your method to test one of my lenses but it was without a tripod so it's not conclusive, at least not for me, so I'll have to repeat it. You recommend that the test photo should be taken with the diaphragm all open and I think it's very good that way, so we can see the behaviour of the lens in its supposed worst aperture. But can't we take several photos at different apertures to see how the optical behaviour of the lens evolves as we close the diaphragm? Is there something I am missing? Best regards from Portugal. Jorge

[@jeffselles645]

Hello, I did this exactly as stated in the video with Photoshop 2022 on a fractured street comparable or even better than the sample in the video. Over and Over testing, all I ever got was a very nice edge image but no focus above and below line - none, just beautiful, high contrast patterns of the street. What gives ? Is another step needed with the new Photoshop release ?

[@artistwithcameras]

Good stuff

[@qnetx]

Very cool way to test. However, I’m not so much interested in the sharpness as much as the visual character and rendering. That is more subjective and personal. Your test does bring up an interesting point though. I shoot many wildlife images of birds and often compose them into one of the rule of thirds sweet spots. I also like to crop the frame to a 16:9 aspect ratio. I think I will run this test at the settings and distances that I typically shoot at and see how much I’m sacrificing. Thank you very much for sharing.

[@njihia]

Correct me if I am wrong, a key feature of cinema lenses is minimising fall off across the image that ends up in the sensor?

[@AjaySingh-228]

Good Sir🙂✌️

[@root9065]

I would agree with you and also argue that the more you know about a lens's performance, the more you can pull out of it. That said, sharpness is not everything, in fact, the sharpest lenses out there, paired with the highest res camera (Sony a1 for example), produce images that are too sterile, too clinical. The gods of photography, the all time greats, took legendary shots with gear not a quarter as high end as what your average photographer takes for granted today. There is a certain romance about film grain, on a normal sized photo, shot through a regular lens. That feeling, it cannot be quantified or measured in MTF charts.

[@thebowlerusa1]

Thank you, very educational!

[@vincencohan3626]

Can you please do this to all your fuji lenses? Thank you

[@AnandaGarden]

Wonderful - but I did have to laugh. My ex took a glorious photo of me at sunset while I stood on a shallow reef taking photos of pelicans flying in a lovely symmetrical arc out at sea. I mounted an 11x14 print on my office wall. Oh, and it was taken with an $8 Fujifilm disposable cardboard camera. Meanwhile, all I got with $5,000 worth of Nikon gear was lousy, meaningless pics of some ugly birds. The difference: my ex's focused heart.

[@Zealor365]

Did I miss something? I don't recall hearing about resolving power for the lens. How high can that lens you are using resolve? Is "High" defined as the separation of two distinct points in the focal path of light reflection from the subject?

[@flipflopsleica]

Have you tried a road test on an Aero Ektar 178mm f2.5?

[@sclogse1]

Everything changes when you start shooting in a square format. Corner lack of sharpness, edge falloff, vignetting, distortion, all head to Miami for the winter. By the way, I just watched a curator show all the lenses Kubrick used and had developed for his films. Another world. Then I typed in deep field (think Barry Lyndon) and the first thing that came up was a B&H page with a Fuji lens costing $19,000.

[@ddsdss256]

Thanks, but are there alternative methodologies for those of us who refuse to rent Adobe's products (as there are better programs out there that you can actually own)? Also, wouldn't you want to test at different apertures to find "sweet" (and not so sweet) spots or would one expect to find no variation?

[@fotograf736]

I use GIMP, does most of what PS does, albeit more painfully. There's a find edges function in its filters.

[@robph8421]

I test apertures with the focus peaking feature that all digital cams offer. Using any textured cardboard surface, you can see which aperture setting lights up the spikes best. The results are rather disappointedly uninteresting though: the “best” apertures are always the middling ones, f4, f5.6, f8.

[@ddsdss256]

@@fotograf736 Thanks! I may try that. I do have PaintShop Pro 2022 Ultimate which may have a similar function (I see that it does have an "Edge Seeker") plus I primarily use the DxO suite (PhotoLab/Film Pack/Nik), but I don't think they have such a function. First, I need to find the time to make some suitable test images!

[@loosegums]

T = Heart of Photography

[@soholingo]

What lens are you holding when the video starts?

[@maze400]

Will this technique work for lens calibration?

[@rodbotic]

shouldn't we expect a "C" shape Depth of field since that is what the distance to the lens. Also the distortions would be because it is projecting onto a flat plane.(sensor).

[@robph8421]

Designers went through hoops to “flatten” out the focus. Some projection lens will show a nice curved field, and that’s because they were designed to catch the celluloid films that were alway curled.

[@EduardoVelezIII]

I think Pixelmator Pro users can use the "comics" effect (which is really just supposed to be a fun goofy filter), since it seems to use edge detection. With this effect, I seem to be able to tell that one of my lenses has a mustache-shaped focus plane when it's wide open and another lens has a slight curve. I suspect this is good enough for me to get an idea of how my lenses perform, but someone more knowledgeable about this kind of software might be able to tell us why this might not be as accurate as the "find edges" filter in PS.

[@BrianAndrewParker]

very interesting - can't wait to try this with my mf nikkor lenses from the 60's to better understand why I like them so much!

[@gerardferry3958]

I never appreciated the difference until I saw it, a Zeiss lens on a sensor without a pass filter really does not need pixel peeping

[@guvenayaz]

Is there a 'find edges' filter in capture one ?

[@dougd2723]

Is it Focus Mask in C1?

[@christopherherrick703]

Is it possible to do this same test in Lightroom?

[@aes53]

In wine, we call it "bottle variation."

[@sundarAKintelart]

MTF chart displayed/explained by way of a test shot of a paved road.

[@sundarAKintelart]

The plane of focus of the paved road could be taken diagonal to the film/sensor plane too. Also a back lit road, or a bright contrsty thin line say a rope (say a thin black rope against a pale background) would be better.

[@andyjones5192]

Interesting vid however how relevant is sharpness anyway? I mean its not rocket science to build a reasonable sharp lens in the 21st century but does it really matter? The dream lens is magnificent exactly for that reason. Not being prefect.

[@Reason-fg4ik]

Ansel Adams wrote and talked about the concept of, "acceptably sharp. " That's good enough for me.

[@SoCalTrojan]

i used a file and sharpened the outer edges of my lenses and they have never been sharper!

[@bcleste]

Isn’t that the lens Zak Snyder used on army of the dead?

[@filmmaker610]

I believe it is.

[@pasapucha]

👍️

[@carlosgastelum8251]

Am I having a DejaVu moment or is this a re-upload ? I remember watching this a year or more so ago....

[@kapilbhallafoto]

Very useful Ted, first time getting this info, what does MTF stand for?

[@markjarrett9400]

Do you not think that some people have an obsession of lens sharpness over other other properties?

[@BarryMaskell]

I want a lense so sharp that it will cut through all the FF vs APSC vs MFT Toneh (bokeh) field of view arguments

[@thewildgoose7467]

Forget about MTF charts, forget about lens sharpness or megapixels or autofocus points or matrix metering because none of these things will make you a better photographer. Photographers have become obsessed with pixel peeping because the manufacturers want you to be. They don't want you to be happy with your 20mp, they want you to think that you need a 50mp or a 100mp in order to improve your photography. You don't. Photography is about 'being there', seeing 'it' and capturing it, and equipment only makes up a tiny fraction of whether a photograph is good or not. If you want to test a lens go out and take some photos with it. If you like the pictures then the lens is good enough. If you don't like the pictures then ask yourself "is it because of the lens or because of me?" If the answer is "me" then there's no need to upgrade the lens and the only way to improve is to upgrade "me" by learning more about composition, focal point, lighting, subject matter etc. The downside is that takes a bit of work but the upside is you save yourself a lot of cash.

[@mbenjamin292]

Fantastic I hope people stop by and check out knights and weekends channel he loves cameras also.

[@matthewriley3778]

Notification gang