A few days ago I received the new test chart by Image Engineering, the company that produces software and test charts used by many important camera makers and optical institutes. The products are extremely expensive and therefore not suited for particular use. Now they have changed their business model: you can buy a chart for about Euro 100 (excluding charges for transport) which has a handful of Siemens stars, a slanted edge picture and some others for colour rendition, sharpness and texture rendition. The chart is 1.20 meter wide and is easy to set up. You take the usual series of pictures and uploads the JPG files to a new site where the files are analyzed and published. You can see the results for yourself. And you can also compare the results with others.
Here is an illustration of the chart.



The great advantage of this method: it is cheap, you do not need to buy additional software and become an expert and most importantly you make yourself independent of the many sites where results are being published and discussed. You get a sound basis for evaluating your own lens/camera combinations and have no longer to rely on others whose methods and procedures are not always clear and certainly not comparable.

One word of warning: photography has to be fun and creative and spending too much time doing comparative tests is not good for your emotional and mental health.