I get asked about 15 times a week, “How can I get the dust out of my lens?” The right answer is you don’t. All lenses have dust in them and it doesn’t affect the images at all 99% of the time. Even if you clean it all out, it will be back after you [...]

This isn’t a general interest post. It’s simply answering a request for some people who want to remove the hood from their Zeiss 15mm lenses so they can cut the petals off and use filter holders. Obvious disclaimer applies – doing this voids every kind of warranty, is probably a bad idea, and we don’t [...]

One thing we preach here a lot is that just because a dropped lens looks fine on the outside doesn’t mean it is fine. The other thing we preach a lot is that a tiny difference in the centering, tilt or placement of a single element can have a dramatic effect on image quality. Aaron made [...]

Today’s Guest Blogger Aaron Nace is going to show you tips on creating and compositing fantastical images with a lens he considers to be one of the best. Aaron is a Chicago-based photographer and retoucher who combines elements of reality and fantasy to create his images. Aaron has taught Photoshop and photography to over 100,000 [...]

Being a good photographer, you have a tripod. Maybe two tripods. Maybe even a big, heavy duty one for your big lenses, a standard one for everyday use, and one of those small, cool ones that folds up like a road map and you can carry it in your back pocket. Wait, I just realized [...]

What is Decentering and What Does it Do? Strictly speaking, decentering would involve one or more of the lens elements being off of the central axis of the lens. This would prevent the curved surfaces of the lens from bending the light properly. In severe cases it could result in halos or ghosting. In most [...]

Inevitably, over time the plastic LCD cover on the back of your camera gets scratched, scuffed and generally ends up looking older than the camera really is. Most of the time it doesn’t matter much, you can see the images and menus just fine. But given enough scratches light glare may interfere with seeing the [...]

There are some articles I try hard to avoid writing. Politics, religion, the so-called benefits of UV filters and other things that get Fanboys riled up I avoid like the plague. So for two years, while people have asked over-and-over for me to write an article on how we clean lenses, I’ve politely refused. I’ve [...]

If you read my articles very often, you may have realized I’m not one to let a lack of knowledge prevent me from writing on a topic. First-hand knowledge I mean. I write a lot of articles that I may spend 6 weeks researching before I feel knowledgeable enough to start writing. But this is [...]

We have a new YouTube video up, showing how Scott does a thorough sensor cleaning: