I'm shooting a short film with a friend this weekend, and we'll be shooting regular 16 on an Arri SRII (it's the last hurrah before her school sells off all their 16mm gear).
There's no time or money to shoot/develop/transfer real lens tests, but I want to be sure that we can pull focus off the lens marks accurately.
I'm renting the much lauded Cooke 9-50 zoom from a local rental house, and right now I'm thinking I will go in with our camera body, shoot a few feet off a test chart at various distances, and do a slop develop with some D-76.
Then I'll set it out on a light table and check focus with a jeweler's loupe.
Now, what I'm wondering is--will this actually tell me that the lens and body are all up to spec, or will I just be fooling myself? I was happy enough with this method for picking negatives when I was shooting 35mm stills, but I've never used it for anything that required a high degree of accuracy.
Maybe there are other test methods out there that don't require going through the lab? We'll be going to at least a 1080p transfer, and since we're already cropping out of R16 and shooting on a zoom, I don't want to take any chances, even though the lens and body are both recently serviced and well cared for.