A Weekly Column By Mike Johnston

The cover of the March 2002Popular Photographyproclaimed, "The 3 greatest prime lenses we've ever tested!!!", yet nowhere inside the issue was the cover blurb referenced. Hint: this was one of the three. For the others, read on.

The Best (Autofocus) Lenses Money Can Buy

Photographers love to discuss lenses. Scientific lens tests are accorded great respect by photographers; ratings and rankings are much-discussed; and the web is peppered with anecdotal user reports‚ not only at sites such asphotographyreview.comandphotozone, but at general photography sites, photographers' personal home pages, magazine sites, and so on.

This is in one sense ironic, because we may at this point be in an age when lens quality doesn't really matter very much any more. Digital processing in Adobe Photoshop‚ by applying sharpening, unsharp masking, and contrast controls‚ can make digital prints mimic "looks" once obtainab...