Hi all... Just to clarify one thing... the original poster, BC, was talking about a HALO of light... NOT light fall-off. The original text: "When you get the film back, you will see a circle of proper exposure in the middle of the frame, a "halo" of lighter exposure--about a half-stop--around that, and then a one stop or greater drop-off into the corners." Or, well, it might be light fall off in the middle and at the corners, but missing a middle band, if you think about it... Light fall-off definitely exists, but I challenge anyone to find a zoom lens that exhibits no light fall-off, Nikon or Canon. Heck, most primes have light fall-off wide open too... and scientifically speaking I'm sure you could measure fall-off for ANY lens out there... BC was talking about a HALO... which is an oddity and worried me greatly. With regards to the lens itself... I was immensely worried on two counts: One because I own it, and two because me tests revealed none of this. Also, never heard of it before. For example, it's never surfaced on the list for the year or so I've been here, and not in the newsgroups for the last half a year or so (I'm a regular poster/reader in that time), and for example Ruether doesn't note anything about it. Strange thing is, someone concurred, so I panicked. And when I saw someone questioning the reliability of independent lens testers... I had to go dig up my chromes and negs. I've tested FOUR samples of this lens, two of them with collars and two earlier push-pull versions. And try as I might, I can't find a halo of light... perhaps if BC would enlighten us as to how obvious this halo is? 1/2 stop, 5 stops, or would we need a densitometer to pick it up, which I don't have and don't use to view my slides with anyway. Yes, 80-200 lens at 80mm and 200mm, shot at f2.8... light fall off I CLEARLY see. An angelic halo no. I don't, mind, test against the sky. I use newspaper plastered to a more or less uniformly lit wall (incident meter tells me variance of no more than 2/10 stop from left to right), and I can't see anything... Unless you're telling me my newspapers have a halo of darkness which I don't notice... and I've done these tests on new newspapers everytime... I've tested on Velvia, Elite Chrome 100, Pan F Plus... BC, while I find your list of qualifications impressive, I still happen to trust my own eyes, and unless you tell me the halo is very light to be not noticeable to the naked eye even when it's looking for it... then I'll tell everyone out there who cares to listen that I don't see what you're describing... and either Ruether's intentionally left it out of his report, or he doesn't see it either. And if he's who he says he is, and done all the tests he's claimed to have done, I'll take his word over yours in this area, any day. But I still trust my own eyes... If I don't get a satisfactory answer, I figure I'll take a picture of the sky... sigh what a waste of Velvia, what? I don't believe I'll find anything personally, because while I might concede that I might have been careless and missed it, I've got to be blind not to see it if I'm looking for it if it's at all obvious enough to matter... Like I said, about the densitometer... Jed -- _______________________ My Photography Website is up at http://home.pacific.net.sg/~wee _______________________ In passing, also, I would like to say that the first time Adam had a chance he laid the blame on woman. -- Nancy Astor, "My Two Countries"
