Roger Cicala
I'm Roger and I am the founder of Lensrentals.com. Hailed as one of the optic nerds here, I enjoy shooting collimated light through 30X microscope objectives in my spare time. When I do take real pictures I like using something different: a Medium format, or Pentax K1, or a Sony RX1R.
Posts by Roger Cicala · page 11 of 39
Pay Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain
*Metro Goldwyn Mayer* ## A Reasonably Non-Geeky Guide to Lens Tests and Reviews Hardly a day goes by that on some forum somewhere a nasty argument is going on about lens testing and reviewing. (Going forward, I’m going to use the abbreviation R/Ts for Reviewers and Testers.) As with all things on…
My Third Grader Analogy for Lens Reviews and Testing
I make a joke about this sometimes, but I think it’s more and more appropriate. Every day, I see more and more people take some single bit of data published on a lens and extrapolate the entire meaning of the photographic universe from that bit of data. My joke has always gone, “a single lens…
Sony FE Planar T 50mm f/1.4 ZA MTF and Variance Testing
OK, you probably know I don’t like ultra-long lens names. I don’t like lenses that are expensive (who does?). So when you throw out a 50mm lens with a long name, like the Sony FE Planar T\* 50mm f/1.4 ZA, and price it at $1,500 I’m a bit predisposed not to like it. Seriously, that’s a lot of money…
A Letter To Our Customers
### To Our Customers: Ten years ago, if you wanted to try out some photography equipment, if you lived in a large market, your local camera store would have a few beat up copies of popular lenses for rent (with a 100% deposit). For the rest of us, we didn’t even have that option. I had this great…
The Sony FE Lenses MTF and Variance Summary
We’ve put all of this information out in other articles, but it was as we finished each one so it’s become scattered about. I wanted to simply put up all of our MTF and variance curves for Sony FE lenses in one place so you wouldn’t have to hunt and search for different articles to get the…
Sony FE 16-35 f/4 & Sony FE 24-70mm f/4 Zoom MTF and Variance
Many of you who have followed along as we beta-test our Sony FE lens testing have been asking where the FE 16-35mm f/4 ZA OSS and the FE 24-70mm f/4 ZA OSS test results are. Well, the answer is they are here. But your other question, why has it taken so long, has a more complex answer. Testing FE…
Roger’s Only Slightly Angry Father’s Day Gift Suggestions
I will admit I’m a nightmare to buy gifts for. If I want it, I generally have already bought it. So my kids tend to dread Father’s Day because they have to find a gift that I want that I haven’t realized I want yet. Well, that’s how it should work in theory. In practice, they tend to usually just…
Sony FE 50mm f/1.8 MTF and Consistency
Sony has cranked out a bunch of new lenses lately, and one of their latest got my attention: the FE 50mm f/1.8. It did so for a couple of reasons. First, I wasn’t expecting it, since they already have the really good FE 55mm f/1.8 ZA lens in their lineup. Second, I’ll admit I expected them to…
A Look at Electromagnetic Focusing
If you’re like me you like to know what’s going on inside your camera or lens to some degree. They are tools, and if I want to get the best use out of my tool I need to know it’s strengths and weaknesses. You may not have noticed, especially if you shoot just Canon or Nikon, but there’s been a…
Sony FE 85mm f/1.4 GMaster Emergency Tear Down
*Credit: DC Super Friends Feature Vehicle Assortment 2012 Series 01* OK, I usually don’t respond to requests to disassemble things. I have a day job and the blog stuff is my hobby. But every so often the Bat Signal get’s raised over Gotham Internet and Aaron and I feel the need to fight the crime…
Sony FE 85mm f/1.4 G Master Lens MTF and Variance
We are pretty excited about the new Sony G Master Lenses for FE mount cameras. Our excitement may be a little different than yours because we see the Sony FE lenses as an evolving new product. There were some things we really liked and some things we really didn’t like about the first FE mount…
Sony Goes World Class: The 24-70mm f/2.8 GM MTF and Variance Tests
I was one of those who noted Sony had some troubles, as manufacturers often do, with some of their first generation lenses for full-frame FE mount cameras. When they announced the G Master lens series I was really excited to test them. I was expecting Sony to have made progress both with optical…