Flash vs Fast lenses and sharpness

[Tommydigi]

Ultimately photography is all about light and regardless of how good your lenses are no light will usually = bad photos.

Ok this is more a question. I shoot with a lot of fast primes now but before that I usually used a zoom with flash and now I am using primes with fill. I notice that many people test lenses with out flash ( or good light ) and get sort of muddy results and assume its a bad copy but I find it somewhat difficult to get really sharp photos without some form of light either natural or flash.

For example, 50L, which is notorious for being a soft lens, in good light does very well, even wide open. Would good light be considered the norm to test a lens? Just curious because I see so many bad lens threads and I wonder if people are testing accurately or if they know what to look for. I will say some lenses do better then others in less then perfect light. Is this a characteristic of the lens or camera?

FWIW I really don't test lenses but I do check results in various lighting conditions and I am just wondering what others have to say about this.

[tonylong]

You are right that all lenses need to be "tested" in a variety of conditions. And yes, you will see people complain about "this and that" about every lens and every camera. It's the way people are!