I think it has potential for sure. as for my own personal preferences, i find the sides a little distracting. i think if you cropped down to just the corridor, it would give great perspective and a place to drawn the viewer in. a place for their eyes to travel. if that makes sense.
It looks like a substitute which does not keep up to the original, sorry
I can see 2 weak points in the Presidio picture if compared to the Stanford tunnel.
- All of the surfaces are even and plain, without fine details which were present at Stanford. You wouldn't probably notice the heavy default noice reduction as you could easily spot here
- It is much lighter in the tunnel at Presidio so it is kind of "easier stress test" for the reviewed cameras.
The Stanford tunnel was really-really a good test site. It offered a site with extreme lighting conditions (sunshine, clear sky, shadows, very dark areas and artificial lighting all in one picture!), textured walls in the sunshine, in the areas with extremely low light and with any other lihgting levels in between. What is on the same level as was before, is the sharp edges which allow to test the possible purple fringing problem of the lenses.
I wouldn't say that the new test site is not suitable at all. If there aren't any better ones available then you have to take what you've got
Hi Jeff,
In my opinion, to test purple fringing and highlight clipping the photo should be fine (even though the sky in the image looks overcast; I think I am somehow used to the tunnel being photographed on sunny days; does this affect the highlight clipping testing?)
The purple fringing is pretty obvious in the Presidio photo so I'd say it's best to use this location for the next little bit to see how it fares over several reviews. Don't waste too much time looking for a new site.
I dunno, the purple fringing tunnel of doom was probably the most useful of all your test locations, and the one most difficult to replace. If I ever see references to your test photos on other web sites, they are generally to that one. Apart from purple fringing, it is also a great place to examine low ISO dynamic range and shadow noise. This new one is too bright and cheery in my opinion, and it does not have the useful textures of the original.
Will they let you continue at just the one location? All the other test shots can be taken anywhere.
As another poster pointed out, the lack of texture to the surfaces makes it an "easier" photo. Also, the lack of contrast when compared with the Stanford photo makes it less of a test. The Stanford photo included everything from brightly lit sections to very dark, yet still detailed in texture, sections (Look at the very dark ceiling in the Stanford photo). That's going to be very telling about a camera's ability to capture detail in both light and dark portions of images.
I think that you are trying too hard to make it similar in perspective and appearance to the previous Stanford photo. I would just evaluate what the previous photo demonstrated and look for a replacement that tests a camera in the same ways.
Replacement purple fringing tunnel of doom photo
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