Brightin Star is one of many startup lens companies that is trying to make a name for themselves. I’ve reviewed a couple of their lenses previously, starting with a budget wide angle 12mm F2 for APS-C (my review here) and…
My first encounter with the company NiSi was actually to review their first lens. NiSi has historically been a company that has made filters for other people’s lenses, and a search of their products shows a lot of filters with…
Laowa (Venus Optics) has never been afraid to take on challenging lens designs. It is hard to find a “conventional” lens in their lineup, as every lens has some kind of unique twist to it. Macro at very wide angles…
Laowa (Venus Optics) has never been afraid to take on challenging lens designs. It is hard to find a “conventional” lens in their lineup, as every lens has some kind of unique twist to it. Macro at very wide angles…
NiSi has historically been a company that has made filters for other people’s lenses, and a search of their products shows a lot of filters with very high reviews. But at some point they clearly decided that their optical glass…
NiSi has historically been a company that has made filters for other people’s lenses, and a search of their products shows a lot of filters with very high reviews. But at some point they clearly decided that their optical glass…
Macro seems to be the new thing among the smaller, boutique brands coming out of China. The TTArtisan 40mm F2.8 1:1 Macro (which we’ll call the TTArtisan 40M for brevity) is the second such 1:1 macro lens that has come…
The past several years have seen the rise of a number of new Chinese lens makers, many of which follow a fairly typical blueprint of lens design. Metal construction, full manual focus and aperture control, and no electronics. Many of…
My first experience with a fisheye was actually with another TTArtisans lens, in this case the TTArtisans 11mm F2.8 Fisheye I reviewed in 2020. Fisheye lenses are unique and far from traditional, as typically we are looking for minimal distortion…
Laowa (Venus Optics) has never been a conventional lens maker. Early Chinese lens designers typically made their reputation by offering up cheaper clones of existing lenses. They chose the most conventional lens designs as those are the easiest to reproduce. …
Fisheye lenses are out on the extremes of photography. Whereas often I’m evaluating lenses and critiquing if they have distortion, fisheye lenses are really all about embracing the distortion and using it in creative ways. It’s not for beginners, and…