It's raining, raining, raining again in the northeast and I haven't been
out to do anymore testing with the Tokina and Zuikos in outdoor shade to
match the earlier tests. But I just couldn't wait any longer so set up
a little test inside with an 18" ruler slanted at a 45 degree angle away
from the camera. I did this so that I could see the effects of depth of
field at the center of the image and would be able to differentiate that
from a mis-focused image.
This was a very brief test using only the Zuiko 35/2.8 at 2.8 and the
Tokina 28-80/2.8 at 35mm and 2.8. I took both autofocus and manual
focus shots with the Tokina.
Well, there's no question this time. The Tokina autofocus wins over the
Tokina manual focus. This time I can see that, for whatever reason, I'm
front focusing slightly. The Zuiko 35/2.8 shot also shows the small
amount of front focus. However, it also shows that the Tokina is sharp
as a tack in comparison. When the lens is mis-focused the range of
what's sharp just shifts slightly toward the camera. You can see this
same shift in both of the Tokina and Zuiko manually focused shots. But
in the relevant range that's in focus the Tokina zoom is the very clear
winner. I guess 30 years of lens development has to be worth something.
To be perfectly fair, I'm looking at these image at 100% on my monitor
which is about 2X life size and would make a huge print at equivalent
magnification. If I were to make a 16x20 print (or 8x10 from a 1/4
crop) would you see the difference? I don't know. Haven't gotten that
far yet.
But it's clear that me and the camera focus a bit differently even after
carefully readjusting the diopter wheel. Not a lot but it's there.
It's also clear that the old silvernose 35/2.8 Zuiko can't steer light
beams quite as accurately as its more modern big brother. Sure is a lot
smaller and lighter though. :-)
Chuck Norcutt
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