Roger Cicala
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OLAF’s Lens Art
This is a Geek Article, with very little practical information. But there are pretty pictures that non-Geeks might like. (Not the construction pictures, the ones further down.) First, I should explain why I haven’t posted much lately. Lensrentals was able to expand into some adjacent space, which…
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I Sing of OLAF . . .
I have a couple of things to talk about today. First, is to announce the winner of our name the new machine contest. Second is to answer about 1,000 people’s questions regarding optical testing and adjustment. ## The New Machine’s New Name First, if you don’t known what we are naming then you can…
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Roger’s New Toy Needs a Name
First and foremost, if you aren’t at least a little Geeky, this post is not for you. Unless you’re one of those people who thinks ‘just take some pictures, dammit’ when I write some article about resolution testing. In that case, you might like this article because we’re taking pictures to test…
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The Heights and Depths of Nadar: TL;DR Version
* Nadar Rotating Portrait. Circa 1865, Bibliothèque Nationale de France * _“He is a man of wit without a shadow of rationality . . . His life has been, still is, and always will be incoherent.”_ Charles Philipon, describing Felix Tournachon. Photographers are the most fascinating people. I’m sure…
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The Sky is Falling and the Light is Leaking: the A7r Anti-Massacree
Anti-Massacree – A humorous anti-war movement from the 1960s, suggested in the Arlo Guthrie song Alice’s Restaurant. The song, like many of my posts, was criticized for being overly long. Believe it or not, I’m mostly a lurker in online forums. I read the hysteria of the day mostly for my own…
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A 24-105 Comparison
Sigma has been releasing one great lens after another for a while now. Some, like the 35mm f/1.4 and 18-35mm f/1.8 zoom, have created feeding frenzies soon after (or even before) their release. Others, like the 24-105 f/4 OS, haven’t created a whole lot of fuss. So I thought we would do a little…
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Examples Using an Optical Testing Station
OK, I’ve done a couple of posts about critical focus for testing, and setting up an optical testing station. This post will provide some demonstrations about actually using it. I’m going to use lenses that we optically adjusted back into proper alignment as examples. I’m doing this because it’s a…
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Setting Up an Optical Testing Station
There are a lot of right ways to do optical testing. The gold standard is to put the lens on a $150,000 optical bench or run it through a well-equipped Imatest lab. But unless you have an optical bench or Imatest lab handy, that’s not practical. We have to optically test around 400 lenses a day,…
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Why You Can’t Optically Test Your Lens with Autofocus
By far the most common email and PM I get basically says, “I think my lens is optically out of sorts. What do you think?” The second most common is, “So what’s the best way to optically test my lens without a ton of equipment.” Years ago I wrote an overly long post about testing lenses, but it was…
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Disruption and Innovation
This is a long article, meant to be read at your leisure. You better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone For the times they are a-changin’. _Bob Dylan_ Technology changes tend to be of two types: incremental improvements or disruptive innovations. Incremental improvements allow one…
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The A7R teardown: A look inside Sony’s awesome full-frame mirrorless camera
### The usual warnings apply: - Do not try this at home. This post was made by semi-trained, semi-professional repair technicians who sort of know what they’re doing. - The following blog post contains graphic images of the inside of a very nice camera. If such things make you squeamish, don’t read…
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Tamron 150-600 Telezoom Shootout
There’s been a lot of interest in the newly released Tamron 150-600mm f/5-6.3 SP Di VC USD lens. (For those wondering what the initials mean, VC means vibration compensation, the others all read ‘marketing drivel’.) But meaningless initials or not, with a price under $1,100, a superior range, and…