Schneider/Phase 40-80mm LS Zoom Test

[Doug Peterson]

We've completed a basic test of the Schneider 40-80LS Zoom for the Phase One DF/DF+.

Below are some quick 100% crops for fast/easy viewing. We also have full-res 100% JPGS on our website and raws available upon request.




Note that the above JPGS include adjustments including automatic lens correction and automatic perspective correction using the IQ2's built-in 2-way electronic level ("just push the magic button in C1"). If you'd prefer to make the judgement without these feel free to request the raw files and process as you please.

[Paul2660]

Doug,  what is the difference between edge and corner as both to me seem at the edge of the frame.  Also in first crop, Edge appears much softer than corner (green leaves).
Middle crops look about the same, then last set of crops, the corner crop leaves appear soft, may have been wind.

Thanks for posting
Paul

[Doug Peterson]

Doug,  what is the difference between edge and corner as both to me seem at the edge of the frame.  Also in first crop, Edge appears much softer than corner (green leaves).
Middle crops look about the same, then last set of crops, the corner crop leaves appear soft, may have been wind.

Edge = at the edge of the frame on one axis, but not the other (e.g. center bottom)
Corner = at the far corner of the lens

I don't see any of them as soft - at all, but there is some minor subject movement. Let me know what you think after you've downloaded the full res files and can judge by more than the tight crop.

Note: I pulled the screen-grab illustration of the IQ250@80mm. It's too small a crop, and there is not as much high-frequency detail to look for in the leaves. The full res file for that combo is still on the website.

[dlavay]

Anything shot wider than f11?

[Doug Peterson]

We have another 40 raws we did during testing including hand held, portrait, aperture sweeps at 45mm and 80mm, and shake tests (slow vs. fast shutter speeds by boosting ISO). We may work another one or two of these subsets of tests into a formal presentation, but with the holiday weekend coming up and other priorities pressing I don't know if/when that would be. However, we're glad to provide our clients with those raws for them to come to their own conclusions. Shoot me an email.

[wing1]

Doug what is your opinion of this lens compared with fix lens on iq 250?

[Doug Peterson]

Doug what is your opinion of this lens compared with fix lens on iq 250?

Few things for sure - it's a very different lens from a practical point of view than the 55LS, or 80LS:
- heavier
- larger
- more expensive
- max aperture is smaller

Other than that it's still quite early for me to make any sweeping statements in comparison. I'm thousands of shots into the 55LS, 80LS across a large variety of subject matters and scenes and only a hundred shots into the 40-80LS on one day in one environment.

Gut feeling is if the price and weight aren't problematic for your intended use (or are acceptable compromises) then you'll be quite happy with the image quality the 40-80 produces.

Feel free to ping me at my email and I'll share the rest of the raws from our testing for you to evaluate on other metrics than the edge/corner sharpness we were evaluating in the jpgs posted, or to arrange your own testing.

[Paul2660]

Doug.

Either my eyes got better or you redid the 2nd series image on the right with the trees as it looks much better than first post (now original images have been edited I refer to the post with 3 examples)


Paul

[Doug Peterson]

No changes. I pulled one of the three down because there wasn't enough detail to look at within it. The other two remain unchanged.

Perhaps the first time you had your browser set to something other than "normal size" or "actual size"? I usually browse the internet a step or two up in zoom; easier to read.

[Paul2660]

Doug Thanks,

At over 4lbs and 9K, this is dreamland for me anyway.

Paul

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

Corners look good to me, so I guess everything is good. Hard to judge image quality from a sharpened JPEG, but it looks good.

Best regards
Erik

We've completed a basic test of the Schneider 40-80LS Zoom for the Phase One DF/DF+.

Below are some quick 100% crops for fast/easy viewing. We also have full-res 100% JPGS on our website and raws available upon request.




Note that the above JPGS include adjustments including automatic lens correction and automatic perspective correction using the IQ2's built-in 2-way electronic level ("just push the magic button in C1"). If you'd prefer to make the judgement without these feel free to request the raw files and process as you please.