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 21 of 39
The Most Honored Photograph
* Photograph in public domain, this copy from Naval Aviation Museum * Doesn’t look like much, does it? But, depending upon your definition, this photograph, a team effort by 9 men, is the most honored picture in U. S. History. If you want to find out about it, read on. It’s an interesting tale…
The First Annual Photogeek Geek Photo Contest
I’ve been writing a lot of geeky testing stuff for the last couple of weeks, most of which can be summed up as ‘take some pictures; if they look good everything is fine.’ So last weekend, I went out and took some pictures. It was pretty fun. So much fun that I thought maybe I could have a photo…
Bad Times with Bad Filters
A long time ago I wrote a blog post called Good Times with Bad Filters about how cheap UV protective filters are different from good ones. It was mostly in fun. Today I’ve got a post about how cheap UV filters may hurt your lens. It’s not in fun. Here at Lensrentals we see lenses come back with…
There Is No Perfect Lens Test, Either
In my last article, I wrote about the fact that every copy of a given lens has some bit of sample variation. This affects lens reviews, whether lab-based or photography-based, because the copy they tested will be just a bit different from the copy you buy. I suggested, that if you want to get a…
There Is No Free Lunch, Episode 763: Lens Adapters
Lens adapters can be useful things sometimes, letting you mount one brand of lens on another brand of camera. One thing that has always bothered me, though, is the idea of doubling the number of lens-mount interfaces. When you look at the thick metal pieces on the front of the camera and the back…
There is No Perfect Lens
## The Three Questions I get asked a couple of questions every time I publish a graph showing Imatest results for multiple copies of lenses like the one below. Most people understand that some copy-to-copy variation is inevitable in the manufacturing process. Most are surprised, though, at how…
Fun with Color Vision
I’ve been doing a lot of technical things lately, writing up our repair data and investigating methods of reducing optical variation in lenses. So I thought I’d take a bit of a break and write a post about something fun. Human vision is always fun to me, since it’s an area where I can apply both my…
Lensrentals Repair Data: 2012-2013
Correction: Lenses called “Rokinon” in the “Weeks to Failure” rate incorrectly included Bower & Samyang branded products. Because of this error, data for lenses called “Rokinon” lenses has been removed. We apologize for this inaccuracy, and any confusion that may have resulted therefrom. ## What Is…
Silent Changes
Every so often I get an email asking me to jump in on some forum argument or other. I rarely do that because of the language barrier. Two of the common languages spoken on forums are CAKWAF (Complete, Absolute Knowledge Without Any Facts) and AFIDAWAB (Any Facts I Don’t Agree With Are Bullstuff).…
And Edgerton Said, “Let There Be Light.”
The more I learn about the history of photography, the more I come to realize that just about every important advancement since 1850 has its roots in photography. The 8 hour workday, paid vacations, and employee stock options? A photography manufacturer started them. Telegraph? A photographer…
From the Great Pyramid to Toy Trains: Early Flash Photography
### Urochordataphobia Whenever out-of-print books start arriving at Lensrentals, they know I’m about to write a history article. It happened again last week, and one of the young employees asked me, “why do you write these things?” I told them because I have urochordataphobia — I fear the example…
Protecting Yourself from Gear Theft
In case you don’t know it, cameras and lenses are prime theft targets. You may never think it’s going to happen to you, but almost every day I hear from someone who is missing thousands of dollars worth of gear with no hope of getting it back. As a rental company, we have lots of experience with…