Author Cotton. Sidney Cotton. | Lensrentals Blog

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.

History of Photography

Cotton. Sidney Cotton.

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“He caused a lot of trouble over here, you know.”  A librarian at the Royal Aeronautical Society, when asked for references on Sydney Cotton. It’s been a while since I did a history article. I love writing about the true “characters” of photography, and to be honest, I hadn’t stumbled across anyone that really interested […]

Resolution Tests

A Thinner Sensor Stack

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A few months ago, before my hiatus from blogging, we did a series of articles showing the effect that a thick sensor stack (the glass above the sensor) had when we use adapted lenses designed for a thin sensor stack. The first one was mostly about theory, the second about when it was likely to actually […]

Equipment

A Brief 400mm Comparison

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Canon shooters have a bit of 400mm excitement right now. The biggest news, of course, is the release of the 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 IS II lens, replacing the original version that’s had a very long, successful run. Not quite so much excitement was generated by the release of the 400mm f/4 DO IS II lens. It […]

New Items

One, Single Samsung NX-1 Test

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I just want to be clear, before we get started, this is not an NX-1 review. It’s not even a complete optical test. It’s simply me answering a single question: is this new Samsung worth further investigation from an optics/image quality standpoint? Samsung’s 28.2 megapixel, APS-C backlit sensor should capture more light with less noise, […]

Equipment

Cracking Open the 7D II

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OK, I have to admit I really like the Canon 7D Mark II. I didn’t want to because it wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted to see the new Canon chip foundry that would be cranking out high-resolution sensors. But despite wanting to hate the 22-megapixel APS-C camera, after a fairly short exposure to the autofocus […]

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