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Gez
Tinkerer
Username: Gez
Post Number: 137
Registered: 09-2007
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, August 24, 2009 - 01:59 am: | 
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Does anyone remember the excellent test reports produced by Modern Photography Magazine during the 70's & 80's. These articles had full strip-down reports on cameras and critical evaluation of lens performance with regard to the f-stop values at which various aberrations were under control.
I have done a quick internet search but can't find anything. Does a forum member know of a reprint service or a database able to supply this interesting information?
Popular Photography had good articles too.
PS both mags were US based. |
Tom_cheshire
Tinkerer
Username: Tom_cheshire
Post Number: 131
Registered: 04-2009
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, August 24, 2009 - 09:33 am: |
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I used to love those lens tests from Modern. The only lens tests that ever made sense.
I can't find them either. The only option is to buy all the old magazines. |
Don
Tinkerer
Username: Don
Post Number: 48
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, August 24, 2009 - 12:27 pm: |
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I still have a few from both Modern & Pop Photo. Norman Goldberg did the reviewing for Pop & is 1 of the gurus of camera repair. Once in awhile a review would come in handy for a camera I was working on. |
Mikel
Tinkerer
Username: Mikel
Post Number: 154
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, August 24, 2009 - 07:45 pm: |
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All of my photog friends and I read those test reports very carefully. They were well done. Lots of money was spent following those reports and I don't remember anyone complaining, least of all myself.
When I bought a Canon EF (not one of your cheaper models) in 1973 I really wanted a 28mm f2.0 lens but Canon waited a couple of years before releasing an awesome version.
Soligor released a 28mm f2.0 C/D for just over a hundred bucks at the time. It got great reviews and I bought one. I think I still have it somewhere.
I must have run a few hundred feet of Kodachrome past it and what a lens it was!
Later I got the Canon 28mm f2.0 when it came out. Better mechanically, only slightly better optically, but it was not there when I really needed it.
But this is a service forum and any of these old lenses which surface today need some service. |
M_currie
Tinkerer
Username: M_currie
Post Number: 192
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - 07:52 am: |
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I don't know of any such source, but I wonder if any of the photography mags have considered running off reprints of classic reviews.
Road and Track did this, at least in the past, with their road test articles, so that if you were the owner of some classic vehicle, or just an afficionado of a brand, you could collect the road tests. It seems like a potentially lucrative sideline for the failing magazine industry. I might buy some old Nikon reviews if they were out there. |
