Good Idea! A 12-12mm Zoom will certainly
leave you with far less decisions to make!

KPS also do a good 1.35x, but don't order it if it doesn't
say MAGNIFYING because they also do the same item without
the magnifier.

Very clever..... finding something to do in the rain!

You did an excellent job of capturing the performance

These do photograph a lot better than they look
Good idea putting them against a black background.

No it magnifies what you see.

RF-602's seem OK at 1/100th sync-speed... they show
a blackline at 1/180th.

Infrared is OK at 1/180th.

You don't even need AF with a wide-angle lens.
This is quite a good tutorial on how best to
achieve sharp results.

http://blog.phaseone.com/2011/03/31/achieve-sharp-images-with-wide-angle-lenses/

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You shouldn't need SR on a wide angle. I always found the
edges on the 12-24mm better without it. The 10-20mm f4-5.6
is the one I have at present. Optically very little between
that and the Pentax.

No Nikon WA lenses have VR (SR) including the $2,000
14-24mm

http://www.nikonusa.com/Nikon-Products/Camera-Lenses/All-Lenses/index.page

The whole test (and the majority of 3D tests that you see
on the internet) is absolute nonsense

The DOF at 1:1 pixel level is mm's so anything other than
a flat board is going to be comparing either two points
that are OOF or possibly 1 point in focus and the other
OOF..... also they pick objects that look nice on the
photo, but don't stretch the cameras or lenses.

This indicates the problems of focusing on just a single 2D
target:
http://www.slrgear.com/articles/focus/focus.htm

You have the same problems with the 3D target... no two
cameras will be focused on the same point and I doubt
if they do 10 test shots of each at every aperture

Non-UK banknotes and stamps are quite good for testing
purposes.

I use the Novoflex focusing rail that Imaging Resource
have on the top of their yoke. I normally take about
5 shots moving about 15mm between each and pick the
sharpest.

Ask your friend to do an IdentiKit picture based
on all our descriptions above