LensRentals Conducts Ultra High-Resolution MTF Experiments

Lensrentals recently used their custom-designed MTF machine (Olaf) to find the highest resolving lenses available. For those that like to geek out over optics, the blog post (linked above) will be interesting and – as usual for articles authored by Roger Cicala – entertaining. Here are a few snippets from the article:

A couple of years ago, a testing customer asked us to find which lenses could get maximum resolution from a 150-megapixel sensor. Many people assumed that the highest resolving lenses at standard resolutions would be the highest resolving lenses at higher resolutions. Assumptions are the dark matter of the internet; we can’t see them, but we know they account for most of the mass.
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There was no photo or video lens that could resolve 200 lp/mm wide-open. (Our standard for ‘resolve’ was an MTF 0f 0.3; an MTF of 0.2 was borderline. There’s some evidence to support those cut-offs, but someone could argue them. Wait, this is the internet. Someone WILL argue them; it’s what someone lives for.)
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The best results were for the Zeiss Otus 85mm f/1.4 lens at f/4. A few other lenses (Zeiss 135mm f/2 APO-Sonnar; Sigma 135mm f/1.8 DG HSM Art; Zeiss 55mm f1.4 Otus) were acceptable at f/4 in the middle portion of the image.
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Two years later, that customer asked us if we knew of any other lenses that they should consider. There’ve been a lot of lenses released since we did these tests, and some of those lenses fit the criteria for possible ‘ultra-high’ resolution; primes with focal lengths of 85mm or more. The manufacturers are obviously making these lenses with at least moderately higher resolution cameras in mind. So perhaps some of the newer lenses would resolve ‘ultra-high’ frequencies better than some of the older lenses we had tested.
 
So we checked some new lenses all the way up to 240 lp/mm, something sufficient to make a 200 megapixel FF camera worthwhile. To be clear, this is NOT coming to a camera near you anytime soon; it’s a research project. But if the researchers are making such a sensor, it makes sense they want to know which lenses would get the best results from the sensor.

See the entire article at the Lensrentals blog to see which lenses made the cut this time around, then read more about those lenses here.