Facebook Twitter Google+ YouTube Flickr 500px
See My Reviews

Boutique Third Party Brands


There are a number of small lens makers who have been developing lenses particularly for modern mirrorless cameras.  Most of these (but not all) are budget, manual focus alternatives.

April 2, 2018 Zonlai 22mm f/1.8 Image Gallery

It seems like new lens makers are popping up all over the place now, and these galleries are dedicated to what is, to me, a brand new company.  I hadn’t heard of Zonlai before their distributor contacted me about potentially doing a review, but in many ways I’ve been quite impressed with this inexpensive, compac [Read more...]

November 13, 2017 SainSonic Kamlan 50mm f/1.1 Review

For a long time the landscape of lenses has been concentrated on a few major lens makers. The first party players, making lenses for their own cameras, and a few established third parties like Zeiss, Sigma, and Tamron. In the last decade a Korean company, Samyang/Rokinon, has broken in and has become a significant player [&helli [Read more...]

October 25, 2017 Sainsonic KamLan 50mm f/1.1 Image Galleries

Today’s lens is a very unique one:  a small manual everything prime lens for mirrorless systems (Sony, Canon, Fuji, and M43), but with a “killer app” up its tiny sleeves – a huge maximum aperture of f/1.1.  The KamLan brand (Sainsonic) is a new one (out of China), but the lens itself is beautifu [Read more...]