Equipment
Testing Lenses: Finding The Best Average Focus Point
You have been patient, my friends. You have made it through the first article, where we looked at how MTFs improve stopped down and saw it was a bit different for every lens. You enjoyed the second article, where we looked at the Best Individual Focus MTF (BIF MTF) which showed how good the MTF…
Testing Lenses: Best Individual Focus MTF Curves
OK, in the last post we did something useful, but rather boring: we looked at how MTF changes when lenses are stopped down. Today we’re going to use a more powerful optical bench tool, the MTF vs. Field vs. Focus. Unless you work in a metrology lab (and probably not even then, very few are…
Latest Camera and Lens Announcements from PhotoPlus Expo 2017 & More
Every year, PhotoPlus Expo comes to New York City to highlight some of the latest tech in the industry, while giving brands an opportunity to launch their newest flagship cameras and lenses for the years to come. While not all brands adhere to announcing over the same weekend (which is why this is…
About Getting Your Camera Wet… Teardown of a Salty Sony A7sII
People think that because I expect the worst and try to prepare for it, that I’m negative. That’s not it at all. I’m not a negative person; I’m cheerfully cynical. If I expect the worst and it doesn’t happen, I’m happy because things went better than I expected. If I expect the worst and it does…
Canon’s Holy Grail – Using the Canon 200mm f/1.8 L USM
Certainly, you’re probably aware of Canon’s 85mm f/1.2L, and the Canon 50mm f/1.2L, but Canon has a long history of incredibly fast lenses, many of which that have since seemingly disappeared off of the face of the Earth. Many of them are now called the Holy Grails of Canon Glass and for legitimate…
My Last Circular Polarizer Post
I posted an article about circular polarizing filters recently, letting you see some data I obtained for Lensrentals when they were reviewing which of the polarizing filters were among the best. I concluded that they all polarized light really well. I also said that none of the CPs I tested seemed…
Reviewing the Canon EF-S 35mm f/2.8 Macro IS STM
Whenever we get a new Macro lens, I’m usually one of the first to take it home and try it out. One of the things I love about Macro Photography is how accessible it is. Getting up close and capturing the hidden world of detail that exists in everyday life is fascinating to me and I don’t have to…
The Extreme Batis: MTF Tests of the Zeiss Batis 18mm and 135mm f/2.8 Lenses
I’ve been slow to test the Batis lenses for several reasons. We can never get enough copies when they’re first released and by the time we do have enough copies I’ve got six other things to do. That said, I did give an overview of the Batis 25mm and 85mm a while back and even did a teardown of the…
Guide to Wilderness Photography and Timelapse Filming
Whenever I get back from a big adventure, friends ask how it went. Inevitably I must answer, “it involved lots of misery and sleep-deprivation, but I think some of the pictures turned out.” …If this sounds familiar, you might be a wilderness landscape and nightscape photographer. This article is…
The Minolta 40-80mm f/2.8 Gearbox Zoom; The Clockwork Lens
**There were giants in the earth in those days . . . They were mighty men, men of renown. _Genesis 6:4_** I’ve always been fascinated by the history of lenses. I write about it a lot. To me, the most fascinating items are those made many years ago, with what we would consider wholly inadequate…
Looking at Clear and UV Filter Spectrograms
I’ll start by saying, this is not an article – or at least not a complete one. When I wrote My Not Quite Complete Protective Filter Article, I promised to try to add transmission spectrograms so that you could see not just the wavelength I tested for transmission, but also how the rest of the light…
My Not Nearly Complete, But Rather Entertaining, Circular Polarizer Filter Article
So, a while back I wrote a not quite complete article on UV filters. To do that, I had to buy new testing equipment and learn to test filters. This was not what I wanted to do when I grew up. But somebody has to do it, and I did get to buy new toys. More importantly, Tyler (Who handles the…