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…
The release of Tamron’s new 28-75mm f RXD lens provided me a natural opportunity to bring in the premium lens in the class for Sony FE – the Sony 24-70mm f G Master lens. The Sony G Master approach is…
Sony chose the WPPI Conference in February, 2018 to drop the bombshell that we now know as the Sony a73 (ILCE-7M3). I call it a bombshell in that while many camera makers hold back a lot of key features on…
It was with great excitement that I saw Tamron’s announcement in February at the WPPI Conference of an all-new lens designed from the ground up for Sony FE. The new Tamron 28-75mm f Di III RXD (A036) provides something that…
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 Kamlan 28mm f is a brand new lens from the Chinese lens maker SainSonic. I’ve been privileged to have my hands on a prerelease copy of the Kamlan 1.4 for a while and can now share some photos and…
A focal range not recently tackled by third party lenses is covered by Tamron’s newest lens – the Tamron 70-210mm f/4 Di VC USD. A maximum aperture of f/4 at this focal length allows photographers to get high quality results…
The Sony a73 is the camera that everyone is talking about! Sony has swung for the fences with this camera, packing a lot of features into a (barely) sub-$2000 body. Where Canon has chosen to intentionally cripple cameras like the…
A few years ago, my job was simpler. As a Canon reviewer, there were basically only four companies that made most all of the lenses: Canon, Sigma, Tamron, and Zeiss. Three Japanese companies and a German company who produces their…