Nowhere in those specifications, though, is a claim for Vibration Reduction that I can find. But the packaging department apparently didn’t get the memo: the box sure claims it has VR.

Well, at least it has Target Finding Autofocus, where the camera picks out an autofocus point automatically. Wait a minute, every camera I’ve ever had has that feature — they all focus on what they want to, not where I put the focus selector.

I modestly call this Roger’s Law of New Product Introduction and have summarized it in the graph below. You will notice there are two possible paths a new product may follow. To date, these two paths accurately describe every introduced product.

The laws of Quantum Commentary demonstrate that is possible that a product follows both paths simultaneously – for example a new Canon camera may follow path A on a Canon board, while following path B on a Nikon board. I suggest we refer to this as The Fanboy Uncertainty Principle.

In theory, there is at least a third possible path, where a new product is perceived logically from the moment of its introduction. However, that path can be demonstrated mathematically to exist only in higher order dimensions and therefore remains invisible in the three-dimensional world of photography forums.

It is possible that other paths exist, but I leave descriptions of these to persons more versed in theoretical mathematics than I. We do, of course, welcome such theoretical contributions in the comments section.

While the implications of this work remain largely theoretical, it does have some practical purpose. Now you can simply copy this graph, mark it with an arrow and the statement You are here, and post it instead of having to write paragraphs of verbiage.

Lensrentals.com

January, 2013

I realize that for most of you, well, you are the photographer on your Christmas list. So I’ve added a section of some different photo gifts you could make.

There are no cameras on the list for a two reasons. Many of the cameras on the market right now are in a death-spiral price drop. If I was going to consider one of them I’d wait until the week before Christmas. (Actually I’d wait until after Christmas, but you might not have that option.) The few cameras that seem to be doing well haven’t budged much in price at all. Which makes them unattractive compared to the death-spiral cameras in price. So, again, I’d wait.

What we’re left with is some cool stuff that doesn’t break the bank and that you might not have thought about.

As always, if I put a link to something (other than Lensrentals stuff) it’s because I like the product and I’ve shopped at the store and recommend it. I don’t get a % or $0.25 if you click through, so  feel free to go to another website and click through on their link so their kids get educated and all.

Cool Gifts for Photographers

A Lensrentals Gift Certificate
Price: Any

(This would be one of those that does send my kids to college and such. Except they’ve already finished.) If you order one it lets you print out a pdf of the gift certificate so this is ideal for the person you realize you haven’t gotten anything for around 10 p.m. on Christmas Eve. Truly, we’ll get more orders for these on December 24th than between now and December 24th.

Canon 40mm f/2.8
Price: $150 (after rebate)

If you have a Canon shooter on your list, they don’t have this lens, then Christmas shopping is over for you. It’s cute. It’s tiny. It’s really good. And it’s amazingly cheap. Any Canon shooter who doesn’t have this needs this. No need to read further.

Sigma 19mm or 30mm f/2.8 lenses for Micro 4/3 or NEX
Price: $199

They’re excellent, excellent lenses. They’re cheaper than even worst zooms you can put on those cameras. Like the Canon 40mm above, if they don’t have it, they’ll love it.

Nikon 50mm f/1.8 

Price: $220

And finally Nikon’s version of the ‘really good and too cheap not to own’ lens. Or if you’d prefer something a bit wider, the 35mm f/1.8 is even a bit cheaper.

GoPro Hero  
Price: $200-$400

Truth be told, I’m really sick of GoPro videos consisting of nothing more than skateboard and bicycle wrecks on YouTube and Vimeo. And I’m really over the ‘faux reflection’ product shots that are sooooo 2009. But the new GoPros, with better sensors, lenses, and being wireless and all, are pretty amazing beasts. People are doing very cool things with them. Plus, for me personally, this is all the video camera I’m capable of using anyway. If I was shooting with a RED I wouldn’t get any better footage than I can with a Go-Pro strapped to my chest. “On” and “Off” are about the limits of my video camera capabilities.

Hahnel Giga T Pro II 
Price: $100

I’ve been recommending these for years and still, nobody has done it better. It’s a wireless remote with > 100 foot range that really works. Even through walls. I use it all the time to set up a camera in a corner at a party and then take pictures from anywhere in the room. Or set it up as a photo booth.

Plus it’s a self-timer with optional embedding. So you can do stuff like take a series of 10 shots once every second, repeating that every hour. (I haven’t figured out why you’d want to do that, but you can.) Plus it does a bunch of other stuff I’d hardly ever do. But the cool thing, the amazingly cool thing, is that it’s so intuitive even I didn’t need to read the manual to set it up and was using it in 2 minutes. You can get it in Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Olympus versions, at least.
Gorillapod  
Price: $20 – $100

Another thing I’ve recommended forever. Use it as a tabletop tripod. Wrap it around a pipe or a branch. Basically use it to put a camera or flash wherever you want. Then use the remote above to trigger your shots. I find it makes an awesome off-camera flash support (and they make a flash shoe clip for it). Put a couple of off-camera flashes as slaves in different parts of a room and you get amazing lighting.

Photography Related Gifts

Camera Lens Kitchen Timer
Price: $16

Sure, it’s kinda cool, but here’s the real deal. The more fake camera lens stuff you have all over the house, the less likely your significant other is going to notice that there’s an extra real camera lens around the house. Brilliant, eh?

Movie Film Sticky Notes from PerpetualKid.com   
Price: $9

Because videographers are people, too.

Build It Yourself Twin Reflex Camera Kit
Price: $30

Just the thing for that forum lurker who’s always saying ‘we had great technique when we shot film’ or ‘it’s all about the photographer, not the equipment’ guy. This is an extremely low quality, plastic lens, snap together kit that makes a camera that actually works and uses film. And makes a Holga’s image quality look like the Hubble telescope in comparison. Also, the directions are like a Google translation of the original Russian. In other words, it’s just the thing to frustrate the hell out of somebody. But probably a lot of fun to play with once you get it together.

Mini Microscope Macro lens for iPhone  
Price: $30

Who needs one of those expensive SLRs and Macro lenses? Just clip this baby on your iPhone and you’re good to go! As an added bonus, since it only fits iPhone 4/4s you can use it as an excuse for why you haven’t upgraded to the latest and greatest.

Camera Stickers 
Price: $5

OK, some adults may like these. But if you’ve got a toddler handy this is a double win. Every toddler loves stickers. You love cameras. If you’re going to have stickers put on all the furniture wouldn’t you prefer some nice vintage cameras instead of another round of Disney characters? Now if they’d just make this as wrapping paper, too.

Wood iPhone Camera Case 
Price: $50

OK, I’m sick of corney iPhone camera cases, too. But I’m all for something different and classy, and, well, here’s something different. Maybe classy. Wood’s classy, isn’t it? Plus this one comes in iPhone 4 and 5 versions. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. I got one.

Gifts for Photographers to Give

Here we have the mother load: a group of gifts that you can make using your photographs, on the cheap, yet screaming “How thoughtful am I?” or even better “Aren’t you glad you let me buy that lens now?”.

A Photo Jigsaw Puzzle 
Price: $20

They’ll use your photo to make it and you can choose from 25 pieces for the kids to 550 pieces for the puzzle fanatic in the family.

A Photo Afghan  
Price: $90

I really think, if they hadn’t used perhaps the worst marketing photo in history, people might actually consider getting this. I did check into it, though, and the distorted head feature is apparently optional. Available in any colors you want, as long as they’re black and white, so this is the perfect thing for the Leica Monochrome shooter.

A Faux Soviet Propaganda Poster  
Price: $ Some ink and paper

Take somebody’s photo, use a couple of Photoshop filters to cartoon it, add some Cyrilic text, drop it down to 3 colors, and if you don’t have a large format printer ship it of to Bayphoto or your printer of choice. Now you have something every teenager would love to display on their wall. Hey, if the best bar in Las  Vegas uses these for decortation, you know how cool it is.

Or if you’re in a rush, download any of the dozens of awesome posters in the public domain and do a quick cut-and-paste.

A Photo Collage
Price: $ Some ink and paper

Roger Cicala, 2008

So overused they’ve become cool again. Especially if you use just a bit of imagination and make it something more than just a bunch of photos slapped into a large photoshop file. The one above, for example, is a bunch of photos distorted in photoshop and then overlayed into the bubbles. I’ve seen it done with the windows of a house, the sides of a geodesic dome, a stock photo of a pile of diamonds, and dozens of other things.

And a Giveaway

‘Tis the season, right? OK, here’s the deal. My sister, who once was like this mega pressure-cooker business-type, had some kind of hippie-flashback tree-hugging episode a few years ago, dropped out, moved out to Appalacia somewhere, and runs a little country store selling stuff the other back-to-nature folks make.

Apparently, out in the country, you can’t really be a cat lady because cats are everywhere. So if you have that tendency you collect a bunch of sheep and goats and such. If you’re a Vegan-type back-to-nature type person, you don’t do the all-American thing and have a big goat-and-sheep barbeque. But you have to do something with the goats and sheep, so she hand-makes this unbelievable goat and sheep’s milk soap and puts all these herbs and stuff in it.

Now I’m not into that kind of thing, particularly, but this is some really awesome soap. My wife went on for days describing the various smells and talking about how much better this is than store soap. (Personally, I’m good with your usual soap-from-coal-tar-and-industrial-byproducts. I think this must be a girl thing.)

Under the influence of some random insane moment or other, I asked her if they could make some soap in the shape of cameras. That way my wife gets her nice soap, and I get yet another collectible camera kind of thing. I was also thinking I’d give it for little Christmas gifts. You know, for the people you don’t really want to waste time shopping for, but that you want them to know you were really thoughtful and got them something special just for them. Since everyone I know loves cameras and needs soap, this seemed a perfectly great idea.

Next thing you know, I’ve got 50 bars of little camera shaped goat-and-sheep milk soap with herbs in it. That’s about 40 bars more than I have friends, so I’ve got a few to give away. So the first 15 people to leave a comment on this post saying “Give me some soap” and email me their shipping address (roger at lensrentals.com) get a bar of camera soap.

If you’ve got some cheap camera strap you could make soap-on-a-strap or something. And even I have to admit, it smells really nice. Not nice like new-camera-smell nice. More like almonds and cinammon or some other herbs I don’t recognize. (OK, I’m not sure there are any herbs I would recognize by smell. Unless you consider coffee an herb.)

I mention this because it sort of looks like chocolate and smells really good, so you should probably clearly identify this as soap if you leave it lying around. I haven’t tried it myself, but one of the techs, who saw a bar lying on my desk, mentioned that it doesn’t taste all that great.

Shameless Plug Now  - if you’re really stuck for a Christmas gift and want something totally different, The Backroads Market has bizarre stuff like handmade brooms (is it OK to give your wife a broom for Christmas if it’s a handmade broom?), a bunch of those sheep-and-goat soaps in like 10 different scents, and some other different stuff you won’t find down at the local Wal Mark (as we call it down here). I’m told the profits mostly go for goat and sheep feed. (Well and people feed, which is probably good for the goats and sheeps too. I haven’t any scientific studies, but being the cynic I am, I suspect a Vegan starving in the middle of winter might just go all Donner-party on some goats and such, requiring years of therapy. We don’t want that to happen, do we?)

The last bar of camera soap in the giveaway went to Pete Johnson. I’ll email each of you back to let you know I have your address and the soap is on the way. 

Now, to make it more fun. I’ve got 5 more bars of sheep and goat milk camera soap (SGMCS). But since the first 15 bars went in 15 minutes, we’ll make this more challenging. Between now and tomorrow at 8 a.m. CST, you can leave a comment on why you, and only you, should get these 5 bars of SGMCS. Perhaps you haven’t bathed in years. Perhaps you have a sheep fetish. To keep it from getting too graphic, we’ll twitterize it (140 characters or less). OR, you can go over the character limit IF and only if, you write your response in the form of a haiku. Bonus points for a haiku that is 140 characters or less.

The entries will be judged tomorrow and the winner will get the 5 bars of soap. Here’s your chance to cover your entire Christmas shopping list in one contest.

Roger Cicala

Lensrentals.com

December 2012

Unfortunately, it seems that everybody else did get excited. Some people freaked out and ran screaming to the hills. Fanboys (including some with Nikon Authorized Service Center email addresses) went in full-attack mode, claiming we just don’t know how to clean sensors. I’m not sure that explains why we manage to keep the other 600 cameras clean, and only struggle with the 60 D600s we have, though.

At the end of the article I said I thought over time the dust would work it’s way out and the problem would lessen, and that we’d take another look in a couple of months to see. Which we just finished doing.

In the first post, we looked at 20 consecutive copies of the D600 getting inspected for rental. Routinely we need to clean 1 in 4 cameras, but all 20 copies of the D600  we looked at needed cleaning. This week we pulled another 20 copies and repeated inspection including  f/16 blank wall photographs. We have about 60 of these cameras so these aren’t necessarily the same 20, but all 60 were delivered within a week of each other and all are from SNs SN 300xxxx or 301xxxx.

At the time of the first article, the cameras tested had all been rented once or twice, now they’ve been rented 4 or 5 times. If we were right, and the dust was something that was going to clear up with time and use, we hoped the difference would be showing up by now.

The Verdict

Things are definitely better. Where 20 of 20 cameras required cleaning 6 weeks ago, only 11 of 20 did this time (our average for all SLRs would be about 5 of 20).

The location of dust also is looking more normal. When we took all 20 photos and stacked them up in the last article, virtually all of the dust was in the upper left 1/3 of the image, and they were large round specs. While there was still some upper left tendency this time, it wasn’t nearly as pronounced and dust was more evenly distributed around the sensor. And instead of big round chunks, the dust was much smaller in general. In other words, the D600s look more like other camera’s dust after a couple of months of use.

Like we did in the first article, I took all 20 images, stacked them in Photoshop using “darken if” to give you a summary of all the dust on all 20 cameras.  Again, 20 cameras, not one single sensor. (Now when some Fanboy reposts this picture and says it’s a single D600 sensor, we will have documented that they can’t read.)

As you can see, the dust particles are smaller (except for a couple of threads that were from one camera) and more evenly distributed, as they are on other cameras. There’s still more in the upper left portion, but not nearly so concentrated as we saw two months ago.

So it looks like the problem is going to be something you see early in ownership that clears up over time. For our renters, we’ll keep the warning up for another couple of months since they still have a bit more dust than most. It’s always a good idea to double check before you go out and shoot those irreplaceable shots.

Roger Cicala

Lensrentals.com

November 29, 2012

Of course all of this made me interested in checking the amount of copy-to-copy variation in this lens. We finally got caught up enough to run a reasonable sample size through Imatest evaluation, so I thought I’d share the amount of variation we’re seeing. Since most of the complaints I’ve seen online were at the 70mm end of the zoom we tested there first.

A word before we begin: if you aren’t familiar with the degree of resolution variation in zoom lenses don’t read any further. It will make you go insane and make a fool of yourself online. If you want some background, I would impartially and modestly suggest reading this first.

Resolution Variation

If you aren’t familiar with our Imatest results, the graph measures MTF 50 at the center (horizontal axis) and the average over the entire lens (vertical axis) reported in line pairs / image height. Each dot represents the best image of a given copy of the lens from a bracketed set.

The first graph shows the results of 70 copies of the 24-70 f/2.8 Mk II at 70mm (blue dots) and a set of 125 copies of the Canon 24-70 original version (red dots) we tested a couple of months ago. (Note: the axes do not go to zero to give a more expanded view of the points.)

A look at the graph shows a couple of things. Overall, the range of variation of the Mk II lens is about the same as the Mk I version. (And these are recent Mk Is after we learned how to keep the 70mm variation to a minimum. It used to be much greater.)

You can also see that three of the tested Mk II lenses seem to be out-of-sorts.  Even with 70 copies, though, it’s hard to be absolutely certain where the ‘acceptable’ cutoff should be by just looking at the graph.

For that reason we use SQF numbers to help determine where the acceptable cut-off should be. (If you don’t want to read the entire link, SQF basically tells us how big of a difference in resolution would be apparent in an 8 X 10 print.) Basically we read the SQF on the highest few lenses, and then put a cutoff where the lenses become 5 SQF units below the worst lenses. An SQF difference of 5 should be barely noticeable in an 8 X 10, high quality print.

SQF suggests that the lowest 3 copies of the 24-70 Mk II are noticeably less sharp than the best. In addition, the two lenses above those lowest three are right on the SQF 5 difference.

The bottom line is that 3 lenses out of the 70 copies were not up to expectations. That is a bit higher than the 2% unacceptable rate we usually see ‘out of the box’.

One other thing demonstrates the difficulty we have with one of the less-than-expected copies; they’re still better than the best of the 24-70 Mk I versions. They just aren’t as much better as they should be.

Comparing to the 70-200 f/2.8 IS II at 70

When I tested that first small batch of 24-70 Mk II lenses I said they were a bit sharper at 70mm than even the legendary Canon 70-200 f/2.8 IS II lens was. The 24-70 resolved 950 Line pairs / Image height at the center, and 810 overall, compared to the 70-200′s 885 / 765.

Of course, I wanted to repeat that comparison now that we have a reasonably large sample size (the original group was just 5 lenses). The average (mean) resolution of the70 samples of the 24-70 II is a bit lower at 940 / 800.

Since then, I can’t tell you the number of people who’ve commented, “but Bill tested a 24-70 against a 70-200 and the 70-200 was sharper.”  Yeah, I’m not surprised. Showing you the actual data makes it pretty obvious why I’m not surprised.

In the graph below the same 24-70 data points are compared to a run of 85 copies of the 70-200 f/2.8 IS II (red crosses) shot at 70mm.

If you pick one of our 24-70s and one of our 70-200s at random, there’s almost a 40% chance the 70-200 will have the same, or better, resolution.

I think most people realize there is sample variation. But this provides a nice illustration showing just how random a test report comparing just one copy of each lens can be. Don’t get me wrong; those reports are totally worthwhile.

But we have to be really careful splitting hairs with camera lenses. With 70 copies tested, I’m comfortable the average (mean) resolution of the 24-70 Mk II is slightly higher than the 70-200 f/2.8 IS II at 70mm. But that difference is much less than the sample variation

Addendum

I think it might help to demonstrate how big number differences above are fairly small image differences in the real world. Below are 100% crops of one of the highest rated ten copies of 24-70 IIs and one of the lowest 10 (not counting the bottom 3 that I called not OK). These are 100% crops of an ISO 12233 chart, something a pixel peeper could shoot at home. If you look really carefully I think you can barely tell the best lens. But it’s close.

For the record, there is a 110 point center and 80 point average difference in the two lenses, so they’re near the extremes of difference. You can see it if you pixel peep like this at 100% in side to side comparisons. But I think you’d agree in real photographs it will probably be impossible to see the difference, as SQF suggests.

BTW – if you feel the need to ask which was the highest and which was the lowest, then I’ve made my point.

Roger Cicala

Lensrentals.com

November 2012

Even unboxed, it’s rather large.

The Sigma 200-500 f/2.8 between the Canon 500mm f/4 IS II (left) and the Canon 800mm f/5.6.

Despite its size, I found it wasn’t hard to shoot without a tripod – I recommend a Manopod.

I was rather impressed with the 72mm INTERNAL filter.

Using the human mobile tripod system, we did manage to get outside and take a few shots. It was early morning, the light was horribly angled, but hey, we had like 30 minutes before it went on it’s first assignment (if you want to see how it does with video, watch the World Series).

Kenny at 200mm f/2.8

At 500mm f/2.8

And at 1,000mm f/5.6 (with included 2X teleconverter)

Yeah, it does soften up a bit with the converter, but it’s impressively sharp without it. At longer distance (Kenny was only about 25 yards away) it seems to do better, too, even at 1000 f/5.6

If you’re into such things and want to look at 100% jpgs, we’ve put a few up HERE

First Impressions

I was a bit surprised about the size-to-weight ratio of the lens. It’s a fairly large lens, as you would expect for an f/2.8 ultra-wide lens. With the hood, it weights a substantial 29 ounces (820 grams) but really doesn’t feel as heavy as I would have expected just looking at it.

Zeiss 15mm f/2.8 next to Canon 17-40 f/4

The built-in semi-petal hood is metal (feels like aluminum).

I’m not a fan of filters on ultra-wide lenses, but for those who are, well, there will be some issues. Especially considering it’s 95mm across this bad boy. I do like those nice, big metallic sides protecting the front element, though. The glass doesn’t look nearly as vulnerable as the Nikon 14-24 or Canon 17 T-SE glass does. On the downside the metal feels a bit thin and I can see the hood edges looking a bit battered on our rental lenses after a while.

Focus has the nice, smooth feel that all the Zeiss primes do, but the focus throw is a bit narrower, at perhaps 80 degrees from near to far. That’s appropriate given the focal length, though, even with fairly close work. (Which this can do, with a 10 inch minimum focusing distance.)

Imatest Results

As I mentioned above, always take Imatest results on ultra-wide lenses with a grain of salt. Even with our largest chart we’re shooting this one at 8 feet distance. It’s not a good predictor of what the lens will be like at infinity. We were able to only test 2 copies before the packers came in force and requisitioned them, but they tested almost exactly the same on Canon 5D II test cameras.

Center MTF50 at f/2.8 was 920 line pairs / image height, dropping to 460 line pairs / image height in the very far corners. Sharpness was well maintained right up to the edges, and average resolution was 830 line pairs / image height.

The Canon 14mm f/2.8 II lens provides the obvious comparison. It has similar center resolution at 920 line pairs / image height but isn’t quite as good in the outer 1/3, resolving 370 line pairs / image height in the extreme corners and 750 line pairs / image height average resolution. For Nikon shooters, the 14-24 f/2.8 is probably equal to, or just a bit lower than the Canon prime (a remarkable performance for a zoom).

Distortion isn’t bad for such a wide angle at 2.1% barrel. This is comparable to the Canon 14mm (2%) and lower than the Nikon 14-24 at 14mm (3.9%). Vignetting is quite noticeable at f/2.8. It’s not as bad as the Zeiss 18mm lens was, by any means, but appears a bit worse than the Canon or Nikon lenses at 14mm. Not a deal breaker, by any means. Like distortion it’s easy to fix in post. (On the other hand, fixing corners in post gives back some of that corner resolution we’re always wanting.)

Soooo . . .

This is a really, really good ultra-wide lens. It will be quite popular. If I already had a Canon 14mm or Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8, I don’t think I’d be standing in line for it like an iPhone 5 or anything. If I was in the market for a new high-quality ultra-wide I’d certainly be considering it. It’s clearly the best lens in the corners. Even people who don’t like to manually focus won’t have any problem with manual focus at this focal length.

But if I was a Nikon shooter, I’d have to give consideration to having not-quite-as-good, but still excellent image quality, being able to zoom 14-24, and having an extra $1,000 to spend on something else. For Canon shooters, the ZE makes a better argument at only $800 more than the Canon 14mm which doesn’t zoom well at all. But I like having an extra $800 as much as the next guy .  .  .  .

So either way I’d probably hold of a month or two and wait until enough early adopters had posted their images and comparisons before I took the plunge. Sure I would. OK, no I wouldn’t.  I shoot ultra-wide a lot and I’ll have to see for myself because I never believe what I read online anyway.

Roger Cicala

Lensrentals.com

October, 2012

Here’s the story in Andrew’s words:

I recently rented a D4, Wimberly head, and 600VR from you, and the day
before yesterday, I had a little bit of an accident. I was photographing a
coyote here in Yellowstone and I followed it into the woods about 300yds
away from the road. As I am taking pictures of the coyote, I heard twigs
breaking behind me, and as I turned around I saw it was a grizzly bear. I
picked up the tripod with the D4 and 600 on it and slowly started to back
away. The bear got closer and closer as I tried to back up. When the bear
got to within 20 yds. of me, I bumped into a brush pile that I could not
lift the tripod over, so I had no choice but to leave the gear and continue
away from the bear.

And here’s what happened next:

Courtesy Andrew Kane, moosephoto.smugmug.com

Courtesy Andrew Kane, moosephoto.smugmug.com

Not being willing to let things go with just a full pushover, the bear decided jumping up and down on the equipment would be a good idea too.

Courtesy Andrew Kane, moosephoto.smugmug.com

In a testament to the durability of the new D4, in Andrew’s words “The D4 functions properly, but the lensmount is bent and the images are backfocused severely”. In a testament to the wisdom of having the damage waiver, replacement equipment is already on it’s way to Andrew. If he gets shots like these with his backup equipment in a situation where I would simply be concentrating on not soiling myself, I can’t wait to see the shots he gets with the D4 and 600 VR in more stable conditions.

Addendum: Our friends Jody, Linda, and Anne sent us this “Bear’s Perspective Flow Chart” to present the bear’s point of view.

Bear's perspective flowchart, courtesy Anne Cavagnaro

A History of Photography

Roger has two loves: history and photography. Over the past 18 months, he has combined his two loves into an incredible series documenting the development of early lenses and cameras. These articles are thorough, but not boring, and often feature Roger’s humor as well as his love of puns. Enjoy!

History of Lenses

Cooking with Glass

Well, since I’ve titled my other two “History of Lenses” articles with puns, I figured I’d continue the trend. Although I’ll admit this is the worst. But I loves me some puns.

Who Invented the Telephoto Lens?

Despite the numerous requests, (OK, it was 3. But 3 is a number, therefore I can call it numerous if I want to) I still wasn’t going to write about the development of telephoto lenses. Except that all three people who said “so and so first developed the telephoto lens” were wrong. None of them named the person who first made telephoto photographs.

The Development of Wide Angle Lenses

Wide angle lenses are even more different from standard lenses than telephoto lenses are, so I just couldn’t rest until I’d covered the development of wide-angle lenses too. The last major lens development will wait a while longer. (I know you’re thinking Lensbabies are the last major lens development, but actually I’m referring to zoom lenses.)

History of Cameras

The Chemists, The Potter, and The Aristocrat: Imaging Before the Photograph

Since I started my articles on the early development of photographic lenses, I’ve been wanting to write an article on the development of the first cameras. The early days are so much more fun to write about, back when photographic advances were about people rather than corporations.

The Showman, The Sheriff, and the First Cameras

In my last article, we discussed the first image makers, up until the late 1820s when Niepce had actually been able to make images using a camera obscura and silver plates coated with Bitumen of Judea. On his way to England, Niepce had been introduced to a most interesting man, Louis Daguerre, probably by Charles Chevalier, the lensmaker they both used.

1839 and the Frenzy That Followed

By the middle of January, news of Daguerre’s invention had spread around the world. The actual techniques used remained secret, however, as the French government had not yet officially agreed to buy the invention from Daguerre, but the fact that photographs had been made and exhibited caused a frenzy everywhere.

Lens Variation

Notes on Lens and Camera Variation

A funny thing happened when I opened Lensrentals and started getting 6 or 10 copies of each lens: I found out they weren’t all the same. Not quite. And each of those copies behaved a bit different on different cameras.

The Limits of Variation

A few people were more than a little amused that I, the ultimate pixel-peeper, wrote an article demonstrating that all lenses and all cameras vary a bit; that you can’t find the ultimately sharpest lens.  Each individual copy of a given lens is a little different from the other copies. A single copy will behave a little differently on different cameras. Even on the same camera, autofocus the same shot a dozen times and the results will be slightly different.  So people started asking me ”If there’s variation, then what’s the sense in taking all those measurements?”

Other Fantastic Articles

The LensRentals Cleaning Method

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 seen what happens to such discussions on forums

Good Times With Bad Filters

Anyway, one of the techs has to clean all those filters, make sure the threads are OK, and test them out. Honestly nobody likes to do it, so it gets put off until we need some filters or there’s just nothing else to do. So the other day Kenny is cleaning filters and testing the threads by mounting them one in front of the other until he made a nice mountain of 50 UV filters.

Reflections on Reflections. Coatings: The Most Important Part of Your Lens

Reflection is an interesting word with many meanings. To a philosopher it means careful or considerable thought on a subject. To an anatomist it means a structure that bends back along the path it came from. To a narcissist it’s their image in a mirror. To a photographer it usually means subjects mirrored in water, ice, or glass.

The Apocalypse of Lens Dust

Every lens has dust inside and you can almost never see it in a picture (99% of the time you can’t). But obviously there must be some point where dust is either big enough or there’s just enough of it to become visible, otherwise we could fill our lenses with mud and then go take pictures.

Baby Roger says Happy New Year!

2011 has been an eventful year, both for us here at LensRentals, and for the photography industry as a whole. In case you’ve been asleep for the whole year, we thought it would be helpful to create a series of blog posts documenting what the heck happened this year. We’ll start with a post about what happened here at LensRentals in 2011.

2011 Changes at LensRentals

One thing that makes this a really awesome business to be a part of is our relationship with our customers. Unlike a lot of businesses, we really love getting to know our customers, and making them part of the LensRentals family. As part of that, we are always as open as we can be about changes we make around here. As part of that, we want to update everyone on what we’ve accomplished here this year, and what we have changed (hopefully for the better!).

Moving

First off, we moved. Unlike in past years when we have expanded our office space, this year we finally broke down and moved into an entirely new location that is better suited to our business rather than continuing to expand in our former building. Amazingly, we were able to move our entire operation, including thousands and thousands of inventory items starting on a Friday night, and were completely moved in and ready for business on Monday morning.

While the need for extra space was a primary reason we moved, an even more important reason we moved is because our current space is much more suited to our operations. By being able to group all of the departments involved in our outgoing operation into one giant room, we’ve been able to create a more efficient operation. In our new setup, it often takes less than 15 minutes from the time you place the order for us to approve, bill, pull, clean, inspect, pack and ship your order. It is also structured to have the fewest opportunities for mistakes to happen (outside of replacing our employees with robots) so that the already small chance that we might make a mistake with your order has been lowered even further.

Quality Assurance

We have always strived to have the highest quality in the industry. For instance, we’ve always inspected and tested our equipment both when it comes back from a prior order, and again before it goes out on a new order. We’ve also always sold our lenses on a set schedule, rather than continuing to repair and rent old equipment with a significant chance of failure, unlike other firms.

We challenged ourselves to find ways to improve our quality even further in 2011. The first thing we did is purchase and set-up a computerized testing system. This allows us to identify and repair lenses that have begun to develop issues, but haven’t degraded to the point to where these issues are obvious to the naked eye in our normal optical testing. Since in many cases, lenses will continue to degrade once they develop these issues, this has allowed us to repair lenses before they cause an issue for a renter, rather than having to wait until the problem becomes bad enough to notice through normal use or testing.

Lastly, we’ve also substantially increased our equipment purchasing, so that our fleet of lenses is younger, on average, than it ever has been before. This has also helped us ensure that we put higher quality equipment in your hand that is less likely to fail or give you any problems during the course of your rental.

Pricing

We try and do things the right way around here, even if doing the right thing isn’t always the most profitable thing. Rather than looking at what competing firms price their rentals at, we develop our own prices using an internally developed pricing model. It isn’t our goal to try and squeeze every cent out of our customers, but rather, we want to offer prices that are both fair to us and fair to you. This fall, we realized that some assumptions we included in our pricing model weren’t entirely accurate. When we adjusted the model, we found out we were underpricing some items, but many items were actually overpriced. Rather than continue to charge the higher prices that were very successful for us, we lowered our prices, because it was the fair thing to do.

Our 2012 Resolutions

We want to be the best company you’ve ever dealt with. Because of that, we are always striving for improvement. We’ve identified several goals for 2012, and rather than keep them to ourselves until we are ready to implement them, we want to go ahead and share them with you, so that you know we are still working hard to get even better.

A Better Website

The current iteration of our website is less than two years old. However, it was created for a simpler time with a simpler product mix. We know it is sometimes difficult to find certain items using our current navigation. We also know that sometimes we give you so much information on a product that it can overload your senses. We are in the process of completely redeveloping our site and hope to have a faster, easier to use, and more feature-rich site for you soon.

Longer Hours

We know that our 4 PM CT shipping cutoff can be frustrating, especially for our west coast customers. We are currently working towards being able to offer longer hours for you at some point in the near future.

Services

It seems like every day a customer asks us to test their lens, repair their lens, or clean their camera sensor. We are flattered that everyone thinks so highly of our quality that you’d want us to work on your equipment, and we really want to help. There are some logistical issues that we have to work out (you sending us your lens instead of us sending you our lens is kind of the opposite of what we are used to), but as soon as we can get those things figured out, we are going to start offering these things in some capacity.

Friggin’ Awesome Service

We think we already have the best customer service around, and we are committed to continuing it. We promise you’ll always get a live person when you call, instead of an automated system. You’ll always get fast, concise answers to your questions. We’ll continue to have someone monitor our emails even at night and on the weekend to ensure we are there to help if you encounter any difficulties. In 2012, we’ll continue to find new ways to deliver even better service than in 2011!