Roger Cicala
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Just the Lenses: The 70-200mm f/4 Comparison
There is a very good reason that we haven’t gotten around to testing one of the most commonly used zoom lenses until just now. We forgot. I was testing the Sony FE 70-200mm f/4 G OSS lens because we had just torn one down, I was impressed by the construction, and I wanted to see if the copy-to-copy…
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LensRentals Tears Down the Zeiss Batis 25mm f/2 Lens
LensRentals hasn’t been able to get enough copies of the Zeiss Batis lenses to even fill our existing orders, much less enough for Aaron and I to test and play with them. But one of our customers was kind enough to drop a Zeiss Batis 25mm f/2 lens the other day. Nothing looked smashed, but after…
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Mythbusting: Parfocal Photo Zooms
About twice a week I get a call from a photo-videographer wanting to know which photo zoom lenses in a certain focal length are parfocal (stays in focus while changing focal lengths). It’s understandable why they would ask; a superb photo zoom is 1/10th the cost of a good video zoom. They get…
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The Long-Awaited, Scary and Amazing Fuji Lens Teardown
For, oh, about 2 years now, every time we do a lens teardown I get emails from Fuji shooters asking me to tear down one of their lenses. There are several reasons we haven’t. For one thing, we have far fewer copies of those lenses so there is less reason to work on them. Since we can’t get parts…
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A Peek Inside the Leica Vario-Elmarit-SL 24-90mm f/2.8-4 ASPH
We always get excited when a lens comes out with some new technology or major changes. This time, the new technology came from an unexpected source when Leica released the Vario-Elmarit-SL 24-90mm f/2.8-4 ASPH lens. I know most of you don’t think of Leica as technological groundbreakers and most of…
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Optical Quality Assurance
*Pinhole images from new, but optically decentered lens. Olaf Optical Testing, 2016* After we published a number of posts about copy-to-copy variation, people were quick to say that this company or that needs to ‘just’ improve quality control. I totally agree but realize most people don’t have a…
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What Actually Happens When You Stop Down a Lens
I got an email the other day that got me thinking. A guy simply asked “How far do I have to stop down a lens to get maximum performance. I’ve heard two stops from wide open. I’ve heard down to f/8. Which is correct?” I asked him which lens he was referring to, and was he talking about the center…
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Sigma 35mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art Lens Teardown
Last week we did a tear down of the Canon 35mm f/1.4 Mk II, an expensive, large, weather-resistant lens. Then we did a tear down of the Sony FE 35mm f/1.4 ZA lens, and expensive, weather-resistant lens with very different technology. Today we’re going to tear down the Sigma 35mm f/1.4 DG HSM A1…
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Sony FE 35mm f/1.4 ZA Lens Teardown
Last post, we took apart the Canon 35mm f/1.4 Mk II lens. Continuing the 35mm theme, today we’re going to do the same to the Sony FE 35mm f/1.4 ZA lens. And chill out, we’ll do the Sigma 35mm DG HSM f/1.4 Art lens next and one of the Zeiss after that. *Lensrentals.com, 2015* Before we start, let’s…
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Canon 35mm f/1.4 Mk II Teardown
As soon as we optically tested the Canon 35mm f/1.4 Mk II lens we couldn’t wait to tear into one for a couple of reasons. One was that Canon has been making a lot of interesting advances in lens mechanics lately, so we’re always excited to look inside their new lenses. Another was that Canon…
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Tamron f/1.8 VC Prime Lenses Sharpness MTF Curves
OK, for the first time I can remember, I’ve been browbeaten into doing a test I didn’t plan to do. When Tamron released their neat little Tamron 35mm f/1.8 SP Di VC and Tamron 45mm f/1.8 SP Di VC lenses, I thought, well that’s interesting, and the price point is reasonable and didn’t think about…
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Sigma 20mm f/1.4 DG HSM A1 MTF Curves
OK, here we go again, with what has become a regular routine. Sigma announced another new lens doing what nobody has been able to do before. My expert friends, technical people I ask questions of, all say, “I don’t know this time. I just don’t see how they can pull this one off. Not at that price…
