Wide angle lenses and filters are a bit of a nightmare. One of the main challenges many photographers have to consider is that using anything but the bare lens involves expense, bulk, and inconvenience. Lenses with less focal lengths and…
HDR (High Dynamic Range) typically refers to blending together multiple exposures to either recreate what the eye can see in a particular scene or to produce a more dramatic end result. There are both practical ways to use this technique…
Many of the lenses that I review tend to be quite expensive (photography is an expensive hobby for amateurs, and some lenses are priced either for working professionals like myself or those with a lot of disposable income). Others of…
Sigma’s first macro lens in the ART series has flown somewhat under the radar, overshadowed by the more flamboyant lens announcements (Sigma 14-24mm f ART, 105mm f) along with the announcement of the Sony FE retrofit of the ART series. …
The new lensmaker Irix came onto the scene a couple of years ago with the announcement of a beautifully designed 15mm prime lens available in two different build/trim levels. This has become Irix’s unique approach to marketing their lenses, offering…
Sigma may just be the bravest camera/lens maker in the market today. When they initially launched their new Global Vision (which spawned the ART series as one of the three branches of lens design), they began to tackle the established…
For many photographers Voigtländer is an unknown entity, but it is actually the oldest name in cameras, dating back to 1756 when it was founded by Johan Christoph Voigtländer in Vienna, Austria. This is a storied optical company despite its…
The new lensmaker Irix came onto the scene a couple of years ago with the announcement of a beautifully designed 15mm prime lens. I was intrigued, but was involved in other projects at the time and so the lens went…
The rumors began swirling that Canon was soon going to release a new version of one of its “bread-and-butter” focal lengths. The rumors said the f version, or was it the f/4 version? It turns out that it was both,…
Sigma’s announcement of the Sigma 105mm f DG HSM ART was intriguing to a lot of photographers because of the extreme nature of the focal length and aperture. Sigma has carved out a niche for itself by offering with a…
Sigma’s first macro lens in the ART series has flown somewhat under the radar, overshadowed by the more flamboyant lens announcements (Sigma 14-24mm f ART, 105mm f) along with the announcement of the Sony FE retrofit of the ART series. …
Canon is in the process of releasing new versions of both the f and f/4 versions of their extremely popular 70-200mm zooms. Both of these lenses are extremely useful, and for those that don’t need the greater light gathering potential…
From the moment I added Sony full frame bodies to my own personal kit, I immediately became interested in the Voigtländer 65mm f/2 APO-Lanthar Macro lens for two reasons. Both of these reasons are Zeiss-inspired. The first is that I’ve always…
Sony has been vying to steal some market share from Canon and Nikon for some time, but, while their innovation and impressive spec lists have been widely applauded, the Sony E mount has lacked a competitive lens selection. In some…
This year Sigma announced that the majority of its ART series lenses are going to be released in a native Sony FE mount with a few fundamental tweaks to improve performance on a Sony platform. When they were announced, I…
See the autofocus section for some fresh observations from October 2018 after firmware update 2.0. In the past two years the “third party” lensmakers have really been taking it to the “first party” lensmakers (Canon and Nikon). Both Tamron and…
Towards the end of 2017 I spent time with my first Kamlan lens – the Kamlan 50mm f compact prime lens. There were things that I praised, including a very nice build quality (all metal and glass) and nice rendering…
The very first Sony FE lens that I reviewed was not a Sony; it was a Zeiss. When Zeiss approached me about reviewing the Zeiss Batis APO Sonnar 135mm f lens, I actually had no way of doing so as…