Proposal for Tests / Procedures to know better you gear features

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Dear Stive and all,

Can you please suggest some typical tests and relevant procedure that anyone can adopt to know better its camera and relevant sensor or lens features?
For example how can we understand:
  • which is the aperture (f/9, f/11, etc..) where a peculiar lens perform better ?
  • which is the best or the higher overexposure compatible with a certain camera (sensor) to be used in case of ETTR technic?
  • does you camera ( sensor) works at ISO invariance and in which ISO range?
  • any other feature / characteristics of a certain camera / lens which is important to know to improve our shots
I think it would be very useful for photographers who are not very experienced but with the “nerd” desire to learn more technical aspects, to have workshops or a forum section dedicated to these type of topics. What do you think ? Any fist tests suggestion?
Thank you
Andrea
 
I would start with the videos and articles at DPReview - one can always argue about some of their biases but their technical assessment is quite solid.
Then I'd watch Gordon Laing's videos - nobody is more thorough than he is on the technical assessments and he is one of those rare guys that seem to get along with all the brands and can give a fair assessment without much bias across the board.

Then it comes to some of the things that indeed you need to discover for yourself so let me give you the one trick that has saved me more times than I can remember. Histograms are very good but they are not completely accurate to expose to the right (often I see no clipping in camera on the histogram and I get clipping in Lightroom even with very conservative settings) - so activate the clipping zebras for image review, depending on cameras you can choose a threshold (lower than 255,255,255) which gives you the right safety margin. Each camera is a bit different but I usually set it at 250 and it gets me what I need. Then experiment and get to know how your camera exposes - soon it will be second nature to you but at the start the zebras are very useful.

Regarding lenses, yes they all have an aperture sweet spot, usually 2 stops from wide open but with modern lenses you don't see that much meaningful changes. What you need to think about more is balance between depth of field you want to achieve, staying under the limit of diffraction of the sensor (which is sensor specific) and how high you are pushing the ISO to achieve the speed you need.
Take the 500pf for example, yes it is slightly better at f:8 than f:5.6 but at f:8 you are hitting the limit of diffraction on a 24MP FF sensor but still fine on a 45MP FF sensor. Close the aperture to f:11 and you are in the heart of diffraction for the 24MP body (which means it seriously under resolves the lens) while starting to lose resolution on a 45MP sensor.

For wildlife one rarely needs to shoot more stopped down than f:8 but for macros it can be an issue on occasion. For landscapes though things can get a bit more iffy for scenes with very deep depth of field - that's when you buy Steve's tutorial on focus stacking which is only way to get very deep DOF while staying below f:8

Now, if you use old adapted lenses, you might need to spend more time understanding their behavior. I use a Minolta 50mm f:1.4 from early 1980's for portraits a lot. That thing has almost 3 completely different characters. From 1.4 to 2.0 it is soft, hazy and dreamy - I love it for those very diffused portraits. From 2.8 to f:5.6 it's very clean and sharp, great for street photography. Above f:8 it looks terrible - backgrounds get very harsh but even the subjects lose their 3D feel so I never use it past f:5.6

Enjoy the discovery, I am sure others will have dozens more tips :)
 
which is the aperture (f/9, f/11, etc..) where a peculiar lens perform better ?
This one is pretty easy but time consuming. Set up a good test target and capture images under good lighting with the camera and lens tripod mounted and perpendicular to the target. Capture images across the range of apertures of the lens and then compare outputs at 1:1 pixel view (100% zoom in a tool like Photoshop or Lightroom) and make notes on which aperture allows you to resolve the most target detail. Here's a decent set of printable targets for those that don't want to buy targets with good discussion on testing techniques: http://www.bobatkins.com/photography/technical/lens_sharpness.html

which is the best or the higher overexposure compatible with a certain camera (sensor) to be used in case of ETTR technic?
This is really subject and lighting dependent and much less dependent on a particular camera or sensor. IOW, you'd use different amounts of exposure compensation for differently toned subjects against differently toned backgrounds under bright light vs shady or diffused light conditions. There's not one exposure compensation value that works for a given camera in all situations even if following an ETTR approach. On an individual basis the question is how much if any exposure compensation can you dial in that avoids hard clipping the highlights which you can estimate by looking at the in-camera histogram and blinkies but since that relies on the in-camera jpeg embedded in a raw file it's best to process some images under different conditions to see how much extra exposure latitude you might have when shooting raw vs jpeg.

Time and experience are your best bets here though you could set up a lot of test scenes with dark subjects on bright backgrounds, bright subjects on dark backgrounds and light them directly, with diffused light, shooting into shadows and the like and then process the raw files under different exposure comp conditions with different metering approaches (e.g. center weighted, spot, matrix) to start to develop a feel for when and how to use exposure comp to achieve the outcome you're after. There's not a simple one time test to figure this all out as it's a big subject and exposing well in changing conditions is part of the learned craft of photography.

does you camera ( sensor) works at ISO invariance and in which ISO range?
You can get a pretty good idea of the ISO invariant range (if any) in a camera design by looking at the Dynamic Range curves for your camera over on PhotonstoPhotos. https://www.photonstophotos.net/Charts/PDR.htm The portions of the curve that are linear are generally ISO invariant or close to it. The sections where there are sharp bends in the curve or distinct jumps up or down in the DR curves are definitely not ISO invariant. But you can also test this by shooting images at proper exposure (e..g. zero exposure comp metered on a gray card) and then shoot images under or over exposed by a certain number of stops or fractional stops and then pull up the exposure by the same number of stops in post processing. If your images can be developed to the same brightness and without introducing excess noise or other artifacts when they were under exposed by a number of stops and then had their exposure raised by the same number of stops in post then the camera is ISO invariant for all practical purposes across that range of settings.

IOW, shoot a properly exposed photo and then a series under exposed by say 1, 2, 3,4 and 5 stops. Process those photos adding back the number of stops by raising the exposure slider an equal amount and then compare the resulting images under close inspection checking brightness, contrast, detail and noise in the shadow areas to see if they are the same or if there are visible differences. If they are for all practical purposes the same then the camera is ISO invariant across the tested range. To get the most consistent results it's best to run this test with the camera set up in Manual Exposure mode and change ISO during the intentional exposure changes or shoot Manual/Auto ISO and dial in exposure compensation but when checking for ISO invariance it's best to only change ISO and keep aperture and shutter speed the same as you're really testing whether ISO changes in-camera are the same as ISO changes in post.

any other feature / characteristics of a certain camera / lens which is important to know to improve our shots
Lot's of other photographic attributes that can be tested like appropriate shutter speeds for stopping or intentionally blurring motion or appropriate apertures at given subject and background distances for single or multiple subjects to achieve background blur and separation or to achieve acceptable DoF to keep eyes in multiple subjects sharp. Another good thing to test for a particular camera is the highest ISO that yields acceptable results (acceptably low noise) given your post processing workflow. All of these take time and paying attention to what works and what doesn't work as well but can be sped up by doing some dedicated testing.

I've always liked Moose Peterson's teddy bear testing where you take a couple of stuffed animals (he advocated a white and black or dark teddy bear) and place them in different configurations against different backgrounds under different lighting conditions (e.g. direct front light, side light, backlight, full shade, partial shade, etc.) and start experimenting with exposure, best focus, different apertures for DoF reasons, different focal length lenses shot from different distances, etc. Stuffed animals with glass eyes are great as they do a good job of simulating the real eyes on actual animals that we generally want to keep tack sharp and their fur detail is another good indicator of sharpness in the captured images. You can learn a lot by doing a bunch of these testing sessions in your yard on days you can't get out to find actual wildlife and can speed up the learning curve.

Similarly some time at a place with lots of fast moving subjects (Gulls are great practice subjects) can be great to figure out things like panning techniques and best shutter speeds for panning with different subjects to stop motion but to get a pleasant background blur.

That can all be done under natural lighting or all of it can be repeated when using one or more flash units which is a learning and experimentation process unto itself where some testing can really speed up the learning curve.

If you're mostly interested in equipment and not technique testing then some time over at Photography Life https://photographylife.com can show you what kinds of tests are typically performed to evaluate equipment and then some Googling can show you ways to perform some of those tests without a dedicated and expensive optical bench.
 
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One thing you can do that is definitely 'nerd factor' is to shoot a blank piece of paper or a white monitor screen in manual mode starting with the meter centered with the 3 color histogram visible and note what the blinkies and histograms look like as you increase exposure in 1/3 stop increments. Then download the free trial of Rawdigger to find the exposure where each color channel is actually blown. What i want to know is how far above the highest non-blinkie exposure I can push (my camera is 2/3 stops). And since some cameras don't show blinkies unless 2 channels are blown you want to know how high up the right wall you can climb before being blown. On mine I stay just off the right wall or a tiny climb up in all colors.
 
I shot for many years with chrome film and each shot cost me $0.60 for film and processing. Now with free digital "film" the concept of going out and shooting and seeing what works, literally, still escapes people. Even better is that with digital files the EXIF shows the settings that were used.

When Nikon was changing its camera exposure sensors and algorithms every 18 months I would take a new camera and using a wide angle lens determine how far off the in camera calculations were and when I need to go into manual mode. Back focusing with backlit subjects and high contrast backgrounds was also common and how much of a problem depended on the camera and the lens used. I had to do extensive testing in going from the D1x to the D2h and the D2x to the D3.

There is no substitute for investing the time to learn the limitations of ones equipment (cameras, lenses, flash). A friend and computer engineer extraordinaire commented on the importance of knowing where the glass walls were located. He was referring to issues that were no documented and required the programmer to learn that they were there and to program around them. No different with camera equipment.
 
Dear Stive and all,

Can you please suggest some typical tests and relevant procedure that anyone can adopt to know better its camera and relevant sensor or lens features?
For example how can we understand:
  • which is the aperture (f/9, f/11, etc..) where a peculiar lens perform better ?
  • which is the best or the higher overexposure compatible with a certain camera (sensor) to be used in case of ETTR technic?
  • does you camera ( sensor) works at ISO invariance and in which ISO range?
  • any other feature / characteristics of a certain camera / lens which is important to know to improve our shots
I think it would be very useful for photographers who are not very experienced but with the “nerd” desire to learn more technical aspects, to have workshops or a forum section dedicated to these type of topics. What do you think ? Any fist tests suggestion?
Thank you
Andrea
Most lenses perform best midrange - f5.6-f11
The bigger the sensor usually the better dynamic range (lightest to darkest)
The cameras base ISO is its true ISO. the higher ISO setting are gain (an amplified version of the base ISO) some cameras are better at this than others.
A fast low numbered f-stop helps the camera to autofocus. most cameras at f5.6 and above restrict their autofocus.
Most cameras that use electronic shutter still have bending issues where movement bends vertical things like lamp-posts.
 
I fully agree with Calson, the knowledge of limitation / features of your Equipment will improve your picture.

Roy, what you write is correct, but they are general rules, I believe it is better to know the limitation of a specific Equipment. For example if you use ETTR technic which is the maximum overexposure supported by your camera before burning the high lights (i.e how much extra exposure latitude you might have when shooting raw vs jpeg)?
This is a very important information that is not reported in the camera manual
 
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