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 30 of 39
The Care and Feeding of Your Tripod
Being a good photographer, you have a tripod. Maybe two tripods. Maybe even a big, heavy duty one for your big lenses, a standard one for everyday use, and one of those small, cool ones that folds up like a road map and you can carry it in your back pocket. Wait, I just realized 50% of the people…
Greetings from the Island of Misfit Toys
When I was a child (not _childish_, which would be now, _child_ which is decades before now) Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was the movie I looked forward to every Christmas season. The best scene in the movie was actually not in the original version; the Island of Misfit Toys was added during the…
Quick Nikon 28mm f/1.8 Imatest Report
We had 4 copies of the new Nikon 28mm f/1.8 G AF-S (available to rent today) arrive today and I managed to snag a Nikon D800 just long enough to run Imatest numbers on the 4 copies of the lens. Most impressive!!! As always, the Don’t Lose Perspective disclaimer applies: this is simply MTF50 numbers…
The Damage Waiver Bearly Covered This One
A lot of photographers are glad they took out the damage waiver on equipment when accidents happen. While we hate losing equipment, I have to admit we sometimes enjoy reading about exactly how this lens or that camera returned in the shape it did. This weekend, though, we not only got one of the…
Testing for a Decentered Lens: an Old Technique Gets a Makeover
## What is Decentering and What Does it Do? Strictly speaking, decentering would involve one or more of the lens elements being off of the central axis of the lens. This would prevent the curved surfaces of the lens from bending the light properly. In severe cases it could result in halos or…
Standard-range micro 4/3 Imatest Results
This is the second in a series of three posts about Imatest results on m4/3 mount lenses. The first post covered most of the lenses of 25mm and wider focal length. Most of the zoom lenses in that test were done at, or near, their widest focal length since we were concentrating on the wider angle…
Roger Gets a New Job
Long ago in a lifetime far away, I discovered photography. I loved it. I mean, I really, really loved it. Not just learning how to make photographs. I loved learning how the camera and lenses made those photographs. I loved learning about the major and minor differences various lenses had. I spent…
Some Mirrorless 5X Macro Fun. (Too much fun, actually).
I generally don’t write separate reviews on items. I put a ‘take’ up on most items we rent, letting people know what I think about it. That lets me be neutral because it doesn’t make me any difference what people rent as long as they’re happy with it: the return on a $10,000 lens and a $200 lens is…
Wide-Angle Micro 4/3 Imatest Results
Note: The results for standard range m4/3 lenses and zooms at 25mm are in the next article. A lot of Sony users liked seeing some Imatest results for NEX lenses, and some micro 4/3 users asked us to do the same thing. That’s a more complicated undertaking for several reasons. First, there is a much…
The Fix is In
We got our first “new” Canon 5D Mk III cameras today, the ones with the light leak fixed. You know me, I thought perhaps it would be a good idea to take one apart and see what was different. I had photos from the ‘prefixed’ 5D IIIs from a previous post, so comparison would be easy. Let me say it…
Quick Tamron 24-70 MTF Data
We got a couple of Tamron 24-70 f/2.8 VC in Canon mount today and I was able to compare them, very briefly, with the Canon 24-70 f/2.8 L. The Tamron is not quite the range of the Canon on the long end, clearly a few mm shorter than Canon (which is clearly a couple of mm short of 70mm). For anyone…
Exploding Photographers, Disappearing Clothes, and the Development of Film
It’s been a while since I wrote a history article and two or three people seemed to like them. Since I’m one of those two or three people, and it’s my blog, I figured it was about time to do another one. I’ve pretty much covered the development of early cameras and lenses so it’s time to consider…