Moderately better image and other benefits

Scott Larson wrote:

Messier Object wrote:

There seems to be motion blur in the first image - look at at the Nike logo on player #30.

That's just plain softness. Humans aren't able to create motion blur with a 1/6400 shutter speed.

And where did you place the focus on that first shot. #30 the ball carrier seems soft compared to #19

If you believe this then compare the sharpness with #19. I'm actually comparing the sharpness of several thousands of photos I've taken with the old 300mm f2.8 over the years with the several hundred I just took with the new 300mm f2.8.

Action subjects make poor targets for sharpness testing, and comparison images are almost impossible to obtain.

So you believe no photographer has ever taken a sharp action photo.

If you want to examine lens sharpness you should eliminate focus error, subject and camera motion blur and shutter shock from your test images and shoot exactly the same subject under the same lighting and exposure.

I'm doing qualitative analysis by comparing hundreds of photos. This is more useful for real world results outside of your living room.

Motion blur at 1/6400?  You can't be serious.  Maybe a speeding bullet but no human.

Some people like to evaluate lenses with test patterns and such.

Some people like to use the lenses in real life situations.

While I have never felt the need to learn about lab testing procedures and protocols (or how to pixel peep) I can tell which lens I think is best for my uses, including sports action shooting.  My experience tells me that newspaper and magazine photo editors have never felt that need either.

The content of the image will always outweigh the moderate, often almost imperceptable, differences in lens quality.