Roger Cicala
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24-70mm f/2.8 Lens Teardown Comparison
Warning: This is strictly a Geek article. If you don’t like looking at lenses’ insides, there’s absolutely nothing of interest for you here. We’ve been doing a lot of teardowns lately and I’ve made comments like “well thought out” or “carefully engineered.” Several people have asked me to show them…
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Zeiss 15mm Hood Removal
This isn’t a general interest post. It’s simply answering a request for some people who want to remove the hood from their Zeiss 15mm lenses so they can cut the petals off and use filter holders. Obvious disclaimer applies – doing this voids every kind of warranty, is probably a bad idea, and we…
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You CAN Correct It In Post, but . . .
## . . . . there is no free lunch. I hear this about 20 times a day and it’s true: “Yes, it has a lot of distortion, but that’s easy to correct in post.” It’s a totally true statement. Unfortunately, way too often, the complete statement goes like this: “I got it because it has such high…
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A Peek Inside the Canon 24-70 f/4 IS
**_If we knew what we were doing it wouldn’t be called research, would it?_ Albert Einstein** Of course we had to do it. One of them was soft, you see, and we were really curious about how that Macro mode switch worked and . . . . OK, we just wanted to. Actually, we’ve found the new 24-70 f/4 IS is…
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Canon 24-70 f/4 IS Resolution Tests
A lot of people have been waiting on the release of the Canon 24-70 f/4 IS, deciding which of the new lenses they wanted, or whether they wanted to upgrade at all. So, when the first batch arrived early this morning we were set up and waiting to do some resolution testing. ## The Players The Canon…
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Dear Santa
Dear Santa, I don’t really need anything for Christmas this year. But I would appreciate if you would bring some gifts to my favorite photography manufacturers. Canon: An 0.18 µm CMOS fabrication plant is what they really need, Santa. If that won’t fit in the sleigh, then maybe you could bring them…
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What the Well Dressed Photo Geek is Wearing
## A New Addition to the Royal Lensrentals’ Garb I generally consider jeans and any shirt with a collar to be dressed up. There are, however, certain occasions when ‘clothing makes the man’, as they say. For example, when interviewing job applicants, I usually wear the 800mm Hood of Camera…
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The Bargains of 2012
Now SLR prices are dropping like rocks and there are last minute specials and door-busters everywhere. I’m not going to try to keep up with that stuff for you. But there are some other amazing deals right now that you might not be aware of. I know that more than a few of you are desperately looking…
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Another 35mm Lens for Canon
It seems we had barely finished testing the new Sigma 35mm f/1.4 lens when the first shipment of Canon 35mm f/2 IS lenses arrived. I’d describe my feelings as more interested than excited. This finishes (I think) the Canon wide-angle IS consumer-grade lens trilogy. We’d found the previous members,…
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A Corporate Connotation
_This is sort of a metaphor. Like all metaphors it doesn’t fit quite perfectly. Like all metaphors, it does fit to some degree._ > **_“Fortune passes everywhere.”_ Frank Herbert** Once upon a time there was an industry largely dominated by two companies. Their domination, over some 30 years, was so…
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Quick Resolution Tests on Two New 70-200s
We got stock on two new 70-200mm lenses this week: the Nikon 70-200 f/4 VR and the Tamron 70-200 f/2.8 VC. I would have loved to do some side-by-side comparisons. They’re priced similarly and I expect a lot of Nikon shooters will be choosing between these two since both are quite a bit less…
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Roger’s 2012 Christmas Suggestions
It’s time for my annual ‘stuff for the photographer on your Christmas list’ blog post. 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.…