Lenses and Optics
A funny thing happened when I opened Lensrentals and started getting 6 or 10 copies of each lens: I found out they weren’t all the same. Not quite. And each of those copies behaved a bit different on different cameras. I wrote a couple of articles about this: This Lens is Soft and Other Myths […]
History of Photography
For those who missed all the excitement, in Part 1 of this series I discussed that almost all modern SLR lenses derive from one of 6 types of lenses that were basically in use by the 1920s. Part 1 covered the first three lenses: the Symmetrical, Double Gauss, and Petzval lenses. Those three lenses give […]
Equipment
I had an epiphany of sorts this weekend. I took home the new Schneider 50mm f/2.8 Super Angulon. For those of you not in the loop, this is a 50mm tilt-shift SLR lens made by a company that is best known for it’s Cinema lenses (along with filters, glass, and some other stuff). The point […]
History of Photography
In which I begin to answer the question “Why Do You Put the Lens Diagrams on Your Website?” Where do new lens designs come from? I knew that today’s lenses are all designed using computer programs, but I was surprised to find new lenses aren’t designed from scratch. Designers start with an existing lens design […]
Lenses and Optics
Apocalypse (from the Greek apokálypsis; “lifting of the veil” or “revelation”): An event involving destruction or damage on an awesome or catastrophic scale. A disclosure of something hidden from the majority of mankind. How appropriate the word apocalypse is for this little article. At least once a week I see a post somewhere from a fairly inexperienced […]
