Geek Articles
The Great Flange-to-Sensor Distance Article: Part 1 — Cine Cameras
## Part 1: EF and FE Mount Cine Cameras Consider, if you will, the fate of Poor Ben. Unbeknownst to Poor Ben, Aaron and I had started experimenting with measuring the flange-to-sensor distance of various video cameras, since we found that it varied more than, well, more than we had thought it…
Practical Use of Field Curvature: 24-70mm Zooms
We’ve done a pretty good introduction to the field curvatures of 24mm, 35mm, 50mm, and 85mm prime lenses. We made a little bit of comparison with bargain primes and zoom lenses at 35mm. This post is going to assume you are familiar with those previous posts. (Yes, I know the reality is most people…
Practical Use of Field Curvature: Wide and Telephoto Primes
We introduced evaluating field curvature with 35mm f/1.4 lenses, then looked at how those differ from slower 35mm primes and zooms at the same focal lengths. Then we got into some practical stuff, showing how field curvature gives you useful information for 50mm lenses. Today we’re going to look at…
Finally, the Nikon Z 24-70mm f/2.8 S Lens Teardown
Just so you know, my original title was “_Lens Disassembly is a Complicated Profession. Don’t You Agree?_” The editor said nobody would know what the post was about. But I promise, you’ll see by the end of this; lens disassembly is a complicated profession. We were interested in this disassembly,…
Stopping Down Some Bargain Primes and Zooms
In my last post, we looked at how the field curvature of some really excellent 35mm f/1.4 primes affected what happens when we stop down the lens. The takeaway message is that as you stop down, things change a bit differently with the different lenses, but by f/5.6 they were similar. Still slightly…
How to Not Check for Ghosts in Equipment
Someone remarked the other day that sometimes our equipment gets used in the recording of the various “Find the Ghost” or Check-Out-This-Haunted house TV shows. Someone else became concerned that if our gear was exposed like this, maybe some of it came back haunted or contaminated by malevolent…
Things You Don’t Know About Stopping Down Your Lens
Warning: This is a somewhat Geeky article. It has some real points that are useful for anyone who uses lenses, though, so I’ve tried to keep it mostly in English. In imaging, there are a lot of topics where people over-generalize; there’s a general tendency for something to happen, but people…
More Ultra High-Resolution MTF Experiments
GEEK ALERT!! Let’s be absolutely clear; this is not a practical or useful article. It won’t help your photography or cinematography become better. It won’t help you choose equipment any time in the next couple of years. It won’t provide any fodder for your next Forum War. It’s just a geek article…
Some New Wide Angle Lens MTF Tests: Sony 24mm f1.4 GM; Sony 35mm f/1.8; Tamron 35mm f1.4 SP
Most of you MTF junkies are aware that I’ve published all of our prime lens MTF curves in a series of articles by brand, and that I said I would just add new lenses to those articles. I recently tested a series of new prime lenses, though, and thought they were also worth putting up together…
Comparing the Profoto B1X to the Profoto B10 & Profoto B10 Plus
When Profoto released the Profoto B10 back in September of last year, my initial thought was “Oh okay, that means the Profoto B2‘s are discontinued.” Profoto assured myself and others that they were going to continue support for the Profoto B2 still and that we were wrong. When Profoto announced…
Photographing the Solar Eclipse in Argentina
It was the night before totality in Rodeo, Argentina, and all the power was out. I had just returned from shooting all day in Valle de la Luna national park. Most of my batteries were dead or low, and my memory cards needed to be emptied on my also dead laptop. Fortunately, the eclipse took place…
How to Use an X-Rite ColorChecker to Get Perfect Color
Often times, we’re digging through our always evolving inventory to find exciting products to talk about and share our experiences with said product. While it’s easy to focus our attention on the latest lens offering from the Sigma Art Series, or something like the RED Ranger, sometimes it’s…