EXCERPT page containing first few paragraphs. 2023-03-29 18:08:40
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Canon MTF Examples
Examples on this page are from Canon lenses. Canon supplies only one low resolution MTF chart per lens, showing wide-open and f/8— not great, but better than nothing and better than Nikon’s efforts.
Note that Canon MTF charts are for 10 and 30 line pairs per millimeter. It’s unclear if they are measured, or computed theoretical best. Note also that 30 lp/mm is notably less demanding than the 40 lp/mm of the Zeiss or Leica graphs, and so should not be compared directly.
Reading Canon MTF charts
Canon’s charts are difficult to read because there are four pairs of lines which can overlap — 8 lines total! It’s a ridiculous messy presentation, and not really adequate because 30 line pairs/mm doesn’t address performance issues well for digital SLRs.
- Each pair of lines consists of sagittal (solid) and tangential (dashed) lines.
- The bold lines represent performance at 10 line pairs /mm. There are two such pairs, one for f/8 (higher, blue) and one for wide open (lower, black).
- The finer lines represent performance at 30 line pairs/mm. There are two such pairs, one for f/8 (higher, light blue), and one for wide open (lower, gray).
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Intrigued? See Focusing Zeiss DSLR Lenses For Peak Performance, PART ONE: The Challenges, or (one topic of many) field curvature.
