Category: New Items
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The Nikon 300mm f/4E PF ED VR Test: Or Why I Don’t Test Just One Copy
As most of you know, we generally test multiple copies of a lens when we evaluate it, simply because we are so aware of copy-to-copy variation. But I got caught between a rock and a hard place this week. We received exactly one copy of the new Nikon 300mm f/4E PF ED VR lens and the purchasing…
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One, Single Samsung NX-1 Test
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…
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About That 25-300mm f/2.8 You Wanted
I get an email or text about once a month asking me if I think Canon, Nikon, or some other photo manufacturer will ever make something like a 24-300mm f/2.8 zoom lens. I’m usually gentle with those people, because I realize that a lot of people truly believe that if they want something badly…
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Quick Zeiss 85mm Otus MTF Charts
Well, we finally got a few copies of Zeiss’ newest Big Ass Lens, the 85mm f/1.4 Otus in Friday afternoon. I didn’t have time to do a whole lot with them other than take a few shots, and run them through the optical bench for MTF testing, so this will be a short post. (Assuming I get a little more…
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HandeVision IBELUX 40mm f/0.85
## Preconceptions I try to start these articles by putting my preconceptions out there first. Every reviewer or blogger has them, they affect our opinions, and you have a right to know them. So I’m writing this introduction the day before our first copies arrive. The HandeVision IBELUX 40mm f/0.85…
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A New Old Lens
Like a lot of photo history buffs, I’ve been quite excited about Lomography’s new iteration of the Petzval lens in 85mm focal length. For those of you who don’t know about the Petzval lens, I wrote about it a few years ago. It really has a rather a fascinating story. Since writing that article,…
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Tamron 150-600 Telezoom Shootout
There’s been a lot of interest in the newly released Tamron 150-600mm f/5-6.3 SP Di VC USD lens. (For those wondering what the initials mean, VC means vibration compensation, the others all read ‘marketing drivel’.) But meaningless initials or not, with a price under $1,100, a superior range, and…
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A Bit of A7R Sanity
A while back I wrote a post I humbly called Roger’s Law of New Product Introduction, complete with the graph shown below. The release of the Sony A7R has demonstrated the accuracy of that post as few other releases have. A few weeks after the A7R release we seem to be following the path quite…
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Sony A7R: A Rising Tide Lifts All the Boats?
I have to admit I didn’t get too worked up when the Sony A7 and A7R were released. The last time I wrote about Sony it was how there were so few lenses for the NEX system years after introduction. So now we’re going to a system requiring a whole new lens mount. Sure the camera’s specs were…
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Metabones Blackmagic
Metabones, maker of the impressive Speedbooster adapters is back at it again. When the Speedbooster first came out, I wrote about it being like magic, increasing the aperture and field-of-view of Nikon and Canon full-frame lenses mounted to NEX and micro 4/3 cameras, while maintaining or even…
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Otus is Scharf
I’m probably setting myself up for a replay of the Exo Tria Arxidia scene, but my friend Bernhard introduced me to the German term _scharf_ the other day. It can mean both sharp and hot (as in spicy, or as in, you know, hot). After testing our first copies of the Zeiss 55mm f/1.4 Otus lens I felt…
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Nikon 58mm f/1.4 is (hopefully) Not About the Numbers
## The Silence We have a routine when a new lens comes out at Lensrentals: the first new copies get sent to me for optical testing. I have about 4 or 5 hours with them because they’ll have to be packed up and shipped out to the customers that have been waiting for them and expect them tomorrow. So…